I have a new favorite animated series. It's part of Fox's "Animation Domination" and it's not Family Guy, The Simpsons, or American Dad. It's not even Bob's Burgers, though I utterly adore that show. (I want to be a smart, strong, sensual woman like Tina Belcher.) No, it's a show that spews out lines like "That's right. We're going out through the butt hole;" "Hitler, I had a feeling you were behind all this;" and "Say hello to my parents -- IN HELL!" It's a show whose main villains include the "King of Bad Guys" and Dr. Doo Doo, the world's most intelligent poo. It's a show whose protagonist's catchphrase is, "I'LL CHOP YOUR HEAD OFF!!!" It's Axe Cop!
Based on a web comic turned real comic (turned TV show, obviously), Axe Cop was created by two brothers, Malachai and Ethan Nicolle. Ethan, 29 when the series began, was already an acclaimed comic book author and illustrator for his book Chumble Spuzz. Wanting to release a web comic while working on his next graphic novel, the idea to do Axe Cop crystallized when the character was created by 5-year-old Malachai during an intense pretend session. From there, Malachai became responsible for the ideas, characters and stories, Ethan then turning those aspects into comics. What they created was one of the most unique, hilarious, and batshit insane franchises going today.
Summed up beautifully in the show's opening credits (by who I assume is Malachai himself), Axe Cop is about how "one day, at the scene of the fire, The Cop found the perfect axe. That was the day he became... AXE COP!" Working out of an office outside of the "regular cops" jurisdiction with his partner, Flute Cop, Axe Cop explains his job as "When I arrive at the Axe Cop station, the first thing I do is print out a list of bad guys to kill, and then I kill them." And Axe Cop is a pro. "I don't work the day shift or the night shift," he explains, "I work the always shift, because I'm a hero." But Axe Cop isn't your typical mild-mannered type who was thrust into this role.
No, Axe Cop was always meant for this life. At the age of 8, he killed his first bad guy. Sure, it was a cute, white rabbit, but he wasn't obeying all the rabbit rules! Instead of noshing on carrots and hopping on all fours, this bastard sauntered around on two legs and ate coconuts! When the spirit of the rabbit comes back and manifests in a little boy, it explains that it didn't mean any harm. All it wanted to do was walk around and enjoy a coconut or two. "Then you shouldn't have been born a rabbit," Axe Cop replies. When it comes to enforcing the law, especially his law, Axe Cop isn't exactly the arbitrating type.
With an impeccably square jaw and a mustache to die for, the muscular and testosterone oozing Axe Cop is, of course, voiced by America's favorite manly man, Nick Offerman. Perhaps no other human, on Earth or otherwise, could deliver the line "I dreamed that we'd be saved by a man with the power of all the seasons" with such conviction and authority that you crack up laughing while inexplicably feeling relieved and safe. But although Offerman is the star and strongest presence, the show's creators have managed to surround him with a cast that is impressively and universally outstanding.
Adding to the likes of regulars like Offerman's wife, Megan Mullally, Patton Oswalt and Rob Huebel, the cast of guest stars includes the likes of Breaking Bad alums Jonathan Banks and Giancarlo Esposito as Axe Cop's grandfather, Book Cop, and Army Chihuahua respectively, Tyler, the Creator as Liborg (a lion cyborg), Jarred Harris as the King of England, and Michael Madsen as Baby Man (a man in a baby suit with the powers and temperament of a baby). Perhaps most important, however, is Ken Marino (Party Down, Childrens Hospital) as Axe Cop's partner, Flute Cop. With the power to play a mean flute (as the name would suggest), Marino's tranquil lilt makes for an excellent foil to Offerman. If no one can deliver Axe Cop's lines like Offerman, no one can respond to them with such perfectly inflected bewilderment quite like Ken Marino.
But it isn't campy or cleverly winking at its audience from behind Axe Cop's permanently fixed sunglasses. What makes Axe Cop so fantastic is that it's wholly and sincerely invested in a child's, more specifically a young boy's conception of heroic adventure. As such, it's full of all the random, unrelated tangents, bloody violence, feats of unbelievable strength, occasional braggart displays of excessive learning (see: all the stuff with English geography/history), attempts at existential contemplation ("I wasn't happy or sad. I was medium. And medium is the happiest that I'll ever be"), and just utter mayhem that populate the mind, and subsequently the stories, of a young boy. Axe Cop cuts (or chops) out all the things that might make its tales boring or less fun, and distills everything down to only that which will elicit cries of "Woah, dude! That's awesome!" And its succeeds going away.
Axe Cop is a perfect depiction of childhood fantasy and imagination. Because of this, it's hilarious on a number of different levels. For one, the jokes and just complete randomness of it all is ridiculously funny (Zombie Island... IN SPACE!). For another, it allows for its intended audience (though there isn't a lot that would make parents apprehensive, no more than the shows that populated Nickelodeon when I was a kid, it's still rated MA and airs late on Fox) to engage in some good, old fashioned nostalgia and fondly revel in their memories while laughing at themselves for coming up with ideas that were, no doubt, equally or maybe even more out-there than anything that has sprung from Malachai's brain.
There also just isn't really another show like Axe Cop. Though it would fit perfectly into Adult Swim's lineup of stoner animations, it doesn't really feel connected to any of those shows. Really, the closest thing to it is another wonderful Cartoon Network show that airs a little bit earlier in the evening - Pendleton Ward's Adventure Time. With Adventure Time, we again see this affectionate look at childhood imagination in the form of Finn and Jake's adventures in the Land of Ooo. However, even then the stories are being filtered through the mind of an adult. (Despite his wonderful, childlike nature, Pendleton Ward is still in his 30s.) With Axe Cop, what you get is pure and unadulterated. As such, what the Nicolle Brothers have created is something that feels uniquely their own. Whether you're watching it high as a kite or stone cold sober, whether you're a kid or a really cool adult, whether you're real or make believe (I can't believe that Finn and Jake wouldn't love this show), Axe Cop is an uproariously funny, way out-there piece of incredibly well put together television and it deserves to have your attention.
Axe Cop airs in an animation block on Fox beginning at 12:30 AM EST every Saturday. And if you're not into that, my friend would like a word...
