Fox blends animation with live action in ‘Son of Zorn’
It’s an age-old story: absentee father appears out of the blue to make good with the wife and kids and winds up upending everybody’s lives. Such a figure is seldom able to make a seamless re-entry into the lives of those he’s been away from for years on end, but in some families it’s an especially jarring event.
Like in “Son of Zorn,” for instance. The partly animated comedy joins Fox’s cartoon-packed Sunday night lineup this fall and features the voice talents of Jason Sudeikis. The “Saturday Night Live” alum stars as Zorn, an animated barbarian hailing from the far-off island of Zephyria, who returns to Orange County to reconnect with his liveaction ex-wife and son. The series premieres Sunday, Sept. 25, on Fox.
Poor Zorn. The long-haired, hulking, muscle-bound toon may be hot stuff in his homeland, but in suburban California, he’s pretty much at sea. The animated island nation of Zephyria is located somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and is utterly chaotic. Its landscape is dotted with ice caves and lava pits, it’s teeming with monsters, and killing and violence are part of everyday life.
What a shock, then, to make the move to sunny Orange County, where he learns that his ex-wife, Edie (Cheryl Hines, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”), is engaged to a mildmannered psychology professor named Craig (Tim Meadows, “Saturday Night Live”), and his teenage son Alangulon (Johnny Pemberton, “21 Jump Street,” 2012) is a sensitive, slightly dweeby vegetarian.
Undaunted, Zorn is determined to establish himself in the ‘burbs, where he can begin to be a father to Alangulon (who goes by Alan) in earnest, which is terribly entertaining. Evidently, what constitutes an impressive résumé in Zephyria doesn’t go far in Orange County, but Zorn manages to land an assistant job at an industrial soap company, where he pairs an office-appropriate shirt and tie with his knee-high boots and furry briefs. He’s delightfully oblivious to the fact that his boss is female, the concept of a woman being his superior being entirely foreign to him. For her part, Linda (Artemis Pebdani, “Scandal”) takes her subordinate’s eccentricities in stride, displaying the patience of a saint.
As for the fact that Zorn is clearly a cartoon, nobody in the live-action world is too phased by it, and that’s exactly the way showrunners wanted it. Zephyria’s a far-off land, but it’s not a secret — the general population is aware that some of the world’s inhabitants are simply animated.
“We never wanted to call him a cartoon,” co-creator and executive producer Reed Agnew explained at this summer’s Television Critics Association press tour. “We talk about it as if you were to see someone from Liberia who would seem strange and look weird.”
Says Sudeikis of his character: “He wears a battle strap and furry underpants. Other than that, he’s just a normal guy.”
Ten years is a long time to be away, but Zorn’s desire to be a father to Alan is sincere and fun to watch. He takes him to dinner, where Zorn is baffled and dismayed by his son’s refusal to eat meat; he helps Alan with girl problems; he buys his son an enormous “death hawk” — which Edie quite understandably balks at — much as a father might buy his son his first car.
The series boasts some respectable star power in front of the camera, but there are some big names behind the scenes as well. Executive producers Christopher Miller and Phil Lord have their names attached to a number of funny and successful projects, and “Son of Zorn” isn’t their first foray into the cartoon world. The pair wrote and directed the animated films “Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs” (2009) and “The Lego Movie” (2014), both of which scored Golden Globe nods for Best Animated Feature Film. They also directed “21 Jump Street” (2012) and its 2014 sequel, and have several writing, directing and producing credits, including “Clone High” (which they also co-created and lent their voice talents to), “How I Met Your Mother,” “The Last Man on Earth” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.”
Expect some big names on the list of guest stars this season, too. Sudeikis’s “SNL” castmate Fred Armisen guests as Vulchazor, Zorn’s evil, vulture-headed nemesis, who’s been wreaking havoc in Zephyria since Zorn left. “Parks and Recreation” star Nick Offerman plays a cave-dwelling doctor, and “Key & Peele’s” Keegan-Michael Key plays Zorn’s warrior pal Gobos the Great. Sudeikis’s fiancée Olivia Wilde (“House”) voices Zorn’s ex-girlfriend, Radiana, whom our desperate hero brings as a date to Craig and Edie’s engagement party.
All in all, “Son of Zorn” sounds like a good time. After all, there’s nothing like a good fish-out-of-water story, and this is one to a tee. “[Zorn] comes from a world where, every day, there’s a battle and monsters to be slain,” said Agnew at the TCA panel. “Now he can’t figure out how to work a vending machine. These are the battles he’s fighting now.”