Critic Reviews

Bless the Harts feels true right out of the gate.

It’s a fast-moving, very funny show about a working-class family trying to make ends meet, featuring the voices of Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Jillian Bell, and Ike Barinholtz. The pilot episode is extraordinarily promising.

Consistently funny but also sweet-natured, “Harts” quickly proves itself a blessed addition to Fox’s Sunday animation lineup.

“Harts” lets you have a helping of the lifestyle you loved in “King of the Hill.”

You can feel Bless the Harts figuring itself out in its first episode. There are bits that go on for too long; Wayne’s internal monologues, for one, move at too relaxed a pace and result in little comedic payoff. But the episode also features promising signs of the madcap humor that the series will hopefully settle into.

With a similarly big heart [as King of the Hill} and a voice cast including Maya Rudolph, Kristen Wiig, Kumail Nanjiani and Ike Barinholtz, the result is familiar and refreshing at once.

With only one episode to go on, it’s difficult to say exactly what “Bless the Harts” will look like going forward, but it’s at least working with a solid foundation.

“Bless the Harts” doesn’t reinvent the animation genre, but it’s a nice addition to Fox’s ’toon-heavy Sunday-night lineup.

This one just kind of sits there for 30 minutes, pleasant but not particularly funny as it sets up the Hart family. Lots of comedies get better after four or five episodes. It's your call. The downside to Bless the Harts not exactly lighting things up in the pilot is that the one thing it does do is make you want to watch King of the Hill.

There's not much here you haven't seen on another Fox cartoon, King of the Hill, except it's done with Southern accents. The pilot does feature a couple of interesting guest appearances—one by an anarchist cat working to destroy zoning laws, and another by Colin Powell doing the macarena. Call me if they get their own shows.