BY JOHN BILLINGER
Have you ever wondered what it would be like if a “Family Guy” cutaway gag became its own show? Look no further than the Max original series “The Prince.” Created by Gary Janetti (who used to write for “Family Guy”), the show premiered on July 29, 2021 for a full season of 12 episodes. Each of those episodes is around 12 minutes long. The description on the streaming service describes it as offering “a biting look at the inner workings of the British monarchy,” but after viewing it, I can safely say that it did nothing but bite away at my life expectancy.
The show centers around the British Royal Family. Please note that when this was made, Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip were still alive, so they’re depicted as well. The main character is young Prince George and all the shenanigans he and his wacky family members and staff get up to. And that’s really it. The whole thing is just here to poke fun at the Royal Family. All the characters fall into two categories. Some are over exaggerations of the people they’re supposed to be, such as Prince Phillip being depicted as a walking corpse (more on that in a bit). Others are an inversion of how they’re commonly seen in the media. For example, Elizabeth II is a loud foul-mouth lady. They also resemble grotesque “Mad” magazine caricatures rather than the real people. The show was not without some form of controversy. Originally set to be released in the Spring of 2021, it got delayed because of the real-world death of Prince Phillip on April 9. Eventually, they just decided to dump the whole thing on July 29, 2021. And the world was worse off for it.
This show is desperately unfunny. It’s trying, but the writers don’t have any wit to bring to the material. Most of the jokes don’t really feel like jokes. At least, I think that they’re jokes. Everything is so passive and slow, it’s hard to tell what’s what. Most of the time, they’re just talking in a calm conversational sort of way. Most of the voice actors don’t give any form of tone in their lines that would suggest that their dialogue is humorous. They just read the lines. It really becomes a game of “spot the joke.” The only character in the show that is somewhat humorous (and where the actor playing the character has something to work with) is Elizabeth II. But her scenes quickly become old as all she really does is say dirty words or phrases. The slight minor chuckle I got, was a scene where Elizabeth shoots a guy, but that’s it.
The most telling sign of the writer’s skill of joke writing for me is a scene where Prince George is reading an article on his phone. He says, “Huh, neat. Demi Lovato is non-binary. Good for them.” I don’t get it. That’s not a joke. It’s a statement. Is it funny because a small child is saying it? Who knows. But what really stuns me about that requires a bit of context. As stated earlier, the show’s initial premiere was delayed in April of 2021 for a few months. Demi Lovato didn’t come out as non-binary until May of 2021. Meaning that they wrote and animated that bit AFTER Lovato’s announcement. They saw the news, and were like, “My god, that would make for the perfect joke in our show!”
The animation is pretty generic. It looks like something you’d see in “Family Guy” or “Big Mouth” but done worse, resulting in a bland look that lacks a clear identity in the art style. From what I’ve seen, there aren’t any crazy animation scenes that would be too difficult to do in real life, meaning that aside from animating the main cast, the animators have little to work with. I honestly don’t know why this had to be animated. It just seems like a waste of time for the animation staff, who no doubt had to spend hours slogging away on it. As for the plots featured in the episodes, it feels like nothing of substance ever happens. For example, in the first episode, Prince George tries to get Kelly Ripa to follow him on social media, only to unfollow her by the end of the episode. Pretty riveting. Mixed into the episode are a couple of unfunny scenes that “Family Guy” would’ve used for an equally unfunny cutaway gag.
“The Prince” was canceled in February of 2022, and will thankfully never see another season. I can say that overall, this show is horrible and boring. Perhaps if you severely dislike the Royal Family, you possibly could get some laughs from it, but I would say that statistically, that wouldn’t be possible. I can say that it didn’t get any laughs from me. There are better satires out there than this. Check those out, and leave this in the royal dumpster.