The Tubeworm Speaks!- The Misfortune of Being Ned
The Tubeworm Speaks!
The Misfortune of Being Ned
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Behold the Tubeworm! Where we look at the inhabitants of Youtube and see how they hold up. Today, we look at the web series: The Misfortune of Being Ned.
The Setup: The Misfortune of Being Ned is a web show where the titular character Ned, voiced by Steve Zaragoza, finds himself in unfortunate situations which often result in death and dismemberment for him. Other characters include Greg voiced by Kevin Brueck and Wendy voiced by Megan Camarena and Sketchy Dude voiced by Bobjenz.
The show only lasted two seasons and twenty episodes before its timeslot was given away to the Marshmallow Show. Perhaps it was due to a choice by the producers but Tubeworm thinks it was also something else.
The reason The Misfortune of Being Ned failed is simple: Its the same punchline over and over: It sucks to be Ned, and that’s it, nothing else.
The show follows pretty much the exact same formula for every single episode. Ned gets into a simply normal situation, ice fishing, missing the bus, easter egg hunt, something goes wrong and Ned is grievously injured and/or killed.
It may be through different means but Ned still gets grievously injured and/or killed at the end of every episode, it never changes. The one episode that didn’t really end like that is Episode 13 where Ned becomes Aquaman and he is proceeded to be mocked. This breaks the formula set by previous episodes but right after that the same old formula resumes. If the punchline is the same than there is no point in telling a different joke every time.
The Annoying Orange could very well have fallen into the same trap, with every episode following the same formula i.e. Orange being annoying and death by knife, but it was saved by the range of varying victims as well as expanding the supporting characters and the range of stories. The Misfortune of Being Ned did not do this though and never got the chance to truly grow into itself.
Also the black comedy is off. Laughing at pain and misfortune is sadly common in comedy but the truth was there was very little comedy to be had with Ned. If it wasn’t boring it was just…well…misfortunate, and frankly gruesome. Seeing people knocked unconscious by a dodgeball may be funny, but seeing a child stabbed to death is not that funny, even if it is a cartoon.
Final Verdict: The Misfortune of Being Ned may have had its charms to some but in the end, it may go down in history as being one DaneBoe’s failed experiments in the wake of Annoying Orange’s success.
Two out of Five Stars
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