Crash & Bernstein

So this show, which premiered last night on Disney XD, is the heartwarming story of a young boy in a house full of women (a single mother and three sisters) who gets a doll for his birthday. And the doll comes to life, albeit with a typical boyish "destroy everything" personality and the tendency to headbutt people instead of high-fiving them. Or, as the press release puts it:

Disney XD's "Crash & Bernstein," a "bro-comedy" that follows Wyatt Bernstein, the only son among four kids, whose new puppet, Crash, comes to life and becomes his loud-mouthed surrogate brother who knows no limits, premieres MONDAY, OCTOBER 8 (8:30 p.m., ET/PT).

In the premiere episode, "Crash Lands," Wyatt Bernstein is reluctantly taken to a Build-A-Bestie store for his birthday and, while there, creates a boy-filled version of a Bestie, a puppet he names Crash, who comes to life as the brother he always wanted. Crash finds Wyatt living in a household full of sisters, including popular 16-year-old Amanda, fashion-forward middle sister Cleo and assertive 6-year-old Jasmine, so he comes up with a plan to help Wyatt get his own room. But, Crash's plan soon backfires, jeopardizing the relationship with his new brother.

Starring are newcomer Cole Jensen as Wyatt, Emmy Award-nominated puppet master and filmmaker Tim Lagasse ("Johnny and the Sprites," "Between the Lions") as Crash, Oana Gregory ("Lab Rats") as Amanda, Landry Bender ("The Sitter") as Cleo and Aaron R. Landon ("New Girl") as Pesto. Recurring are Mary Birdsong ("Reno 911") as Mel and Mckenna Grace as Jasmine.

And, as expected, even from the first episode it appears to be over on the I'm In The Band side of the zaniness scale. Having never seen Cousin Skeeter myself I'm inclined to compare it more to a self-referential version of ALF (especially since Crash tries to eat the family's pet ferret in the first episode). That said, being way outside of its intended viewing audience, the first episode actually had a certain twisted go-with-it potential (again, similarly to I'm In The Band)--though I found myself wishing they had a stronger central actor; Cole Jensen isn't horrible, but I could think of two actors already in the DC stable that might very well have made stronger leads (Davis Cleveland and Bradley Steven Perry).

But I'm not gonna lie: for the moment, as silly as it is, I'm giving the show a pass for the moment on the sole fact that they actually stuck a Kanye West reference into the opening credits.

...and the second episode opened with a "don't try this at home" disclaimer. I honestly never saw that coming.

That aside, while it followed in the steps of all the other current DC shows which tend (are forced?) to include some sort of "message" it actually was more graceful about wrapping it in wackiness than the norm; this included a brief musical interlude vaguely reminiscient of a song about broken glass in Victorious. That said, having a puppet in the main cast means they don't have to go crazy with making the rest of the cast overly zany, and that actually seems to work reasonably well (particularly Mary Birdsong's Mel Bernstein, who's a pretty together TV mom at this point). It's not a really hilarious show, but it's getting a couple of chuckles out of me at this point and I'm okay with that.