The love in Archibald’s Next Big Thing is pretty big

I really didn’t have any interest in Archibald’s Next Big Thing. There are way too many kids shows out there to keep track of all of them and it didn’t look like anything special. However, my wife tried it out with our son. When they reached the point where a mole is crooning about stealing stuff to plug a drain pipe, she knew it was a show for  ur family.

It’s kind of hard to describe Archibald’s Next Big Thing. Archibald is an anthropomorphic chicken who gets into wild and silly antics. And that is the show in a nut shell but it doesn’t explain why we’ve enjoyed it so much.

The show has a lot of frenetic action and craziness, which is fun but far, far from unique in cartoons. And the show demonstrates a certain awareness of how silly it all is without being cynical about it, which is fun. But that’s still not it.

What Archibald’s Next Big Thing has in spades is sweetness without being saccharine. Archibald’s three siblings are aware of how much wackiness that Archibald can get into that they can easily predict what mess he’s in now. However, while they sometimes demonstrate resignation and even annoyance, they also never demonstrate anything less than total love for him.

I like how everyone, including Archibald himself, acknowledges that, even in a world of rock and roll whales and maybe unicorns, he’s pretty odd. He’s the Pinkie Pie of his world. However, like Pinkie Pie, he is accepted and even cherished.