Some thoughts about The Ruff & Reddy Show #1

Who are the biggest stars on TV?

There was once upon a time a show about two inseparable friends, the problem is that those friends can't stand each other and is especially bad since both will have to work together again.

What was the point of this?

Yes, this is a serious question. DC continues with the Hanna Barbera reinventions and let's be honest, the only truly successful one was The Flintstones since the rest suffered from flaws that stopped them from reaching "great" status (Still praying for The Jetsons). So I don't understand the point of reviving and even more obscure franchise like Ruff and Reddy, I actually needed to investigate a bit more about them since I didn't remember a lot since it never achieved the same kind of popularity of other Hanna Barbera cartoons.

That being said, there's merit in trying to modernize a lesser-known property to maybe give it a new creative twist. THE PROBLEM is that this is handled by Howard Chaykin and sadly he's not really one of my favorite writers. The man "especializes" in satire so I understand where he's coming from by trying to turn this into a cartoony parody of certain political events but this also ends-up becoming so different from the original premise of the characters that they're almost unrecognizable to the point that you could see any anthropomorphic cat and dog in their places and it wouldn't change anything. Again, there's no point in recreating these particular characters in this particular way.

That's not the only complaint though since Chaykin doesn't really follow a competent story due that this is basically just a bunch of ideas thrown together in a vain attempt of sounding smart. Is far from being the strong satire from Mark Russell's The Flintstones since that actually followed a strong story with actual characters, not even Prez which followed a similar format as Chaykin's work here was as bad due that at least the ideas presented there were more interesting. There are a few glances of character work here but is not that special.

Mac Rey's artwork is the highlight thanks to the beautiful style that he provides and gets the best from every disjointed scene.

Other than that, can't recommend this one. Won't follow it.