Critic Reviews

Like Kenny Powers on that divisive HBO comedy, Chozen is an abrasive, egotistical, violent maniac at times. The writers hit some very funny lines every once in awhile but the show needs more time to click as a weekly series.

An oddball, sometimes clever and sometimes eyebrow-raising new animated comedy series.

The pilot is less than the sum of its creative parts. [17 Jan 2014, p.61]

If you even suspect you won't hate it, it's worth a look.

Despite a handful of cutting moments, Chozen isn’t very funny in its first five episodes--though as the man says, it gets better. Part of that is the inundation. If everything is outrageous, it doesn’t take long to adjust until nothing is.

There are a few amusing lines in the multiple episodes previewed.... Yet while the series ostensibly appears compatible with its lead-in “Archer,” there’s an art to being aggressively obnoxious, and other than pushing the boundaries of young-male-oriented animation, the similarity pretty well ends there.

Chozen shows he’s still got the goods, and his prison years have given him rich material. Among other things, he declares rap needs to be more inclusive, which lays a serious message under the gags. Second, everything gets a lot cruder, an understandable decision that could downshift the show from unique to routine.

Chozen will get more compelling once it focuses on that feud over loutish buffoonery and references to prison sex--which aren't that funny even the first five times they're made. For now, though, it simply mines the gay rapper premise for cheap laughs.

Archer crosses just about any line you care to draw concerning sex, drugs and violent imagery. But where “Archer” sort of stylishly crosses it, Chozen clumsily trips and falls.

Brain-dead male teens without any social skills or purpose in their lives might find this a highly entertaining diversion from their violent video games.