On The Amazing Digital Circus Coming to Netflix

It looks like it’s shaping up to be the year of web animation going mainstream, folks. After a certain Edgy Demon Show delighted millions of chronically online teenagers by coming to Amazon Prime with backing from A24, we now have Glitch Productions’ viral hit The Amazing Digital Circus coming to Netflix next month, around a year after its first episode premiered on YouTube. Wow, has it already been that long? Crazy.

Now, those who know me know that I am a great appreciator of Internet animation. I love me a good Homestar Runner or asdfmovie. The original Eddsworld run is darn good entertainment when it applied itself. The Newgrounds era and everything that surrounded it led to a real crop of super creative people finding their voice, and the field of animation is all the better for it. In a nutshell, I like me a good web cartoon.

 

I do not, however, like The Amazing Digital Circus.

 

I tried. I really did. While it is not lacking in interesting ideas and visual creativity, its writing reeks of too much time spent on Tumblr and its attempts to be spooky almost never work. I couldn’t even finish the pilot. There is clearly a lot of talent behind the scenes, but unless it can leave behind the quirkfest dialogue, it’ll never be my cup of tea.

The extent to which the series is rooted in Internet culture is going to be a big obstacle for it. As best as I can tell, the point of TADC coming to Netflix is to bring it to people who have little interest in YouTube and only watch traditional media. I can’t help but feel like this is a miscalculation based on the assumption that the series’ YouTube origins are its sole hinderance to mainstream acceptance. The fact is, if you don't already know what The Amazing Digital Circus is, you're not going to enjoy it. It's made for people who like their sentences all-lowercase and without punctuation. Given this, I genuinely cannot help but feel that this isn't a bet that's going to pay off for either Glitch or Netflix.

That being said, I am happy about this, if only because it proves that the system works. It proves that there's still a way to start on the Internet and go mainstream. And it's not just TADC either. Zach Hadel and Michael Cusack, two veterans of the web animation scene, created Smiling Friends, quite possibly one of the funniest shows on TV right now, and have made a ton of money off of it. I don't think this success touches everyone equally (in a perfect world The Brothers Chaps would have an Emmy by now), but it's a reason for the web animators of today to be hopeful.

I know this isn't a very thoughtful post, or a very well-written and well-edited one, but this is a big occurrence in the field of Internet animation, so I thought I should give my two cents on it. And who knows, I may be wrong and bringing TADC to Netflix will cause it to be the biggest show on Earth. I really don't know. But all in all, it's an exciting time for this topic.