Member Envy

Episode Commentary: [John] Thomas Jefferson

In just two episodes, the writers of “Mary Shelley’s Frankenhole” have proven that they will go to absurd lengths to shock their audience. First, it was Blanket Jackson bringing his father back to life and this past week, it was Founding father Thomas Jefferson asking to have the penis of Barack Obama grafted on to his body so he could better please his slaves.

That’s a lot to take in for the first paragraph of a TV review isn’t it?

Simply put, in just 11 minutes, you will be so mortified, yet frozen with an undeniable smirk that you’ll wonder what the heck was going through the minds of this writing team when they put this episode together.

Brash, bizarre, and boisterous in sheer bodacious-ness, there isn’t another show like this on Adult Swim.

Thought Aqua Teen or Squidbillies was over the top?

Checkmate Dino Stamatopoulos.

However, while this episode is funny and totally enjoyable, it isn’t as solid as the first one, as it feels like it drags at certain points. With all the grafting doing on and all the different people that come into contact with Jefferson in his quest to find a new member, the show ends up possibly having too many characters and too many things going on, not concentrating on achieving some sort of goal.

Add in a musical number with the likes of Ike Turner, Bill Cosby and several other African-American men from infamous and famous ranks of pop culture lore and you have an episode that will be remembered for quite some time.

Not scared at who they piss off and ready to do anything for their audience, this show has some staying power, it just has to play with its execution and bit more.

That in itself shouldn’t be a difficult endeavor, as the first episode was a tad more heavy on the dialogue side and induced a bit more laughs, making it seem the show needs to just tinker a bit more.

With a scientist the likes of Victor Frankenstein on-board here, it feels like a safe assumption that the creation this show eventually becomes will be an enthralling one.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14230 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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