If you ask me, it doesn’t seem fair to call April 15th the gloomiest day of the year. Sure, a little later today I have to send the federal government more money than I’ll spend on clothes, food, and action figures this year, but once that check is mailed, the pressure will be off and I’ll no longer twitch anytime someone says the word “deduction.” (Until next year, of course.)
Tax services monolith H&R Block knows better than most how grumpy folks get around this time of year. But they’re not just acknowledging it, they’re embracing it by sponsoring the premiere episode of a new animated web series, The Gloomers.
The first three-minute installment introducing this not-all-that-wacky wacky nuclear family (complete with McFarlane-esque talking pet) isn’t big on character development, and the only really funny joke revolves around their interpretation of an IRS tax agent. But while the pitch for the series is that the Gloomers have it worse than any other family, so far the worst thing to happen to them is that they had to pay their taxes. What a bunch of drama queens.
Of course, the truth is that the Gloomers do have it pretty rough, because their series is buried inside a social networking site designed to give recession-plagued Americans a space to complain about their problems. (People who don’t like Twitter because they think it’s just a bunch of people whining about trivial woes, meet your worst nightmare.) And while the first episode is being hosted on H&R Block’s web site as well, it seems like future episodes will only be available to members of the Gloomers network, thus completely eliminating any possibility of going viral.
The animation and character design, headed up by Flintstones animator Mark West, isn’t bad and with more opportunity to develop, this could become a web-sized equivalent to Family Guy. But the honest truth is that like most people, I find it hard enough to check Facebook and Twitter every day — there’s simply no way to add another social network to that. After today, I’ll probably never revisit thegloomers.com again, and thus never see another episode of The Gloomers. Unless I get the urge to complain about how many social networking sites I’m already on. Maybe then I’ll stop by again.
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