Smart start for Groening’s ‘Disenchantment’

princess who binges midnight mead and ale the way an eager Netflix subscriber might binge these fresh episodes.

In this case, viewers would be wise to indulge in some binge thinking, because – like a party barge awaiting a capricious wind – takes awhile to get up to a steady comedy clip. Clearly, Groening and collaborator/show-runner Josh Weinstein (a veteran of Groening’s and start out rendering the character-development outlines more heavily than the punchlines. That tactic should prove wise in the long run, but be forewarned: It’s not until the fifth episode that you really see the show’s elements all start to jell, as the writers get as creatively adventurous as their star princess.

It is on the solid shoulders of Princess “Bean” Tiabeanie that much of

early appeal rests. As a young royal betrothed multiple times by her alliance-seeking father, Bean (winningly voiced by

Abbi Jacobson) has shades of many freedom-seeking princesses. As an animated royal rebel, Bean is trying to change her fate like some PG-13 Merida from Disney/Pixar’s

The character also summons thoughts of rough-rolling princesses from such films as as well as danger-hungry young warriors from comics like creative choices by Groening and Weinstein also mean

is not aiming to play like some mere send-up of

or a decades-long line of Disney princesses. Bean, a freckled, bucktoothed young woman, does have the striking white hair of Daenerys, and the COMEDY-LACED DRAMA: Elfo (vo (Eric Andre) and Princess Bean (Abbi in a medieval fantasy tavern, in Netfli Matt Groening and Josh Weinstein.