The Cuphead Show! was mediocre at best and failed to do anything particularly well.

The style of humor and tone of the show was “SpongeBob Lite”. Would have been fine if it was funnier, but the jokes felt creatively safe and repetitive after awhile.

What’s great about the older cartoons they’re trying to evoke is that the whole family can enjoy them together. If a child likes this, it would be a slog to get through.

Elder Kettle as a character felt almost mean spirited to geriatrics without any counterbalancing sense of wisdom, authority, serenity, goodness, or gravitas. It feels anachronistic to the time period it’s trying to evoke in a way that didn’t feel clever or new.

I was hoping for something more similar to the newer Looney Toons shorts on HBO MAX, but more serialized.

I enjoyed how it gave context and lore behind things from the game, especially the bosses, but it didn’t go far enough in that direction, and the direction it DID go also wasn’t far enough.

The Devil didn’t delegate enough. He personally ran around and failed goofily ALL THE TIME in such a way that actively undermined any threat or menace. Or any sense of period-appropriate culturally Christian narrative weight to stories against vice, temptation, gambling, etc.

Mister King Dice could have been the one failing more often, but they seemed to focused on making the Devil as unserious as possible. He has to built up as serious for his humiliation to provide any relief.

It’s almost as though they have no respect for the themes and values behind the aesthetics they love.

That fact could be more hidden in a game that was light on story.