The Amazing Digital Circus is a computer animated series by Glich which premiered on Youtube in 2023 and has since been added to Netflix. The series begins with a slow zoom into the Digital Circus, a colorful mixture of playground equipment and simple decor in bright colors such as used by kids computer games in the nineties. The opening theme song begins and Caine (a pair of eyes situated between a disembodied jaw attached to a too small human body dressed as a ringmaster) introduces us to Gangle, Zooble, Kinger, Ragatha, Jax, and Kaufmo (who is conspicuously absent) in an opening theme song. Halfway through the song a girl in a jester outfit pops into existence and throws off the song and dance number. She is as confused as we are and proceeds to ask several of the obvious questions: Where is she? Why is she in a cartoon body? How can she get the headset off? Why can't she remember her own name? These questions more or less express the whole conceit of the show. All of the aforementioned characters except Caine are other humans (according to their memories) who appeared here after putting on a headset and are now trapped in this place. Caine is a mostly beneficent, scatter brained, impulsive demiurge with unlimited control of the environment. He throws together adventures for the inhabitants and generally seems obsessed with being entertaining. There are also NPCs like Caine's assistant Bubble but for the most part these seven are our cast. Caine gives the new girl a quick tour of the circus, it's grounds, and the digital void beyond and they select a name for her. The newly christened Pomni is not making a rapid turn around on 'the your life is over and you are trapped in a second grader's concept of heaven' thing and decides to cope by assuming she's just dreaming. She also sees a door marked exit twice and asks Caine about it but he just denies it and blames digital hallucinations. To start Pomni out on the whole adventures concept Caine opts for a simple in house adventure: Gather the Gloinks! At this point brightly colored shapes with faces start stealing everything not nailed down including Zooble. Gangle and Kinger go to save Zooble while Ragatha and Jax give Pomni a slower and more detailed tour and introduce her to the absent Kaufmo who Kinger mentioned has been rambling about an exit.
Ragatha explains that the adventures are important because they act to break up the monotony and you do not want to have a full on psychological meltdown in this place. We see why in Kaufmo's room. Exit is scrawled on the walls over and over but the real issue is that Kaufmo has become a giant mass of flickering black and eyes. Jax flees and Ragatha gets attacked and hit with a corruption effect that leaves her a mess of digital artifacts. She asks Pomni for help but the moment Pomni touches her corrupted hand the effect spreads from Ragatha to Pomni. Faced with that Pomni flees chased by the monster that was Kaufmo and manages to shake it. The thing chases a gloink and Pomni doubles back. Ragatha informs her that she needs to find Caine and thus begins a three way game of hide and seek. Pomni explores the circus looking for Caine while trying to hide from monster Kaufmo. Eventually she finds the conspicuously free standing exit door once again and decides it's better than where she's at. She enters the Stanley Parable a series of bland office spaces, waiting rooms, storage rooms, and hallways each sporting a single pair of doors: the door she came through and another identical exit door. Pomni barges through door after door until one leads into the void. Meanwhile, Caine is having brunch with Bubble in a fancy restaurant when his Wacky Watch™ informs him that one of his charges has entered the void. He teleports himself to Pomni, brings them both back to the circus, fixes Pomni's hand and Ragatha's body, and puts Kaufmo in the cellar with the other monsters. When asked about the exit Caine claims it was for a future adventure he had planned. Kinger, Gangle, and Jax have completed their gloinks adventure and saved Zooble despite themselves. The whole thing ends with everybody enjoying a tasty but entirely unnecessary meal as music swells and the camera slowly zooms in on Pomni's traumatized face as she comes to grips with her new life.
Fitting a high concept intro into a twenty five minute episode is a fairly ambitious undertaking. Doing it without making the work feel rushed is impressive. Managing it with moments of breathing room is outright astonishing. The first episode of the Amazing Digital Circus does all three and a significant amount of characterization to boot. I would seriously hold this up as a gold standard of pacing. Regarding it's other qualities I expect opinions will vary. I personally love it. Narratives that just drop characters in absurd circumstances and let them respond are a favorite of mine. I explained the entire pilot because there is no real way to get across what the series is without laying out the whole thing. Stay sane, kill time, find what joy you can.
The hyper colorful McDonald's play place meets Super Mario 64 aesthetic lands perfectly between minimalism and detail. They have the sense to make the music continually up beat and let the plot and voice acting carry the drama. The series humor is a refreshing mix of cartoon physics slap stick and character interaction. As I mentioned earlier the setting is a child's conception of paradise with endless toys and games offered up by a manic deity bent on keeping the humans in his world engaged whether they want it or not. Caine seems genuinely well meaning but he has a very episodic adventure centered view of well being. Kinger is rarely lucid and seems to be reading from a different script. Ragatha is the team mom trying to take care of everyone. Zooble is indifferent to everything except Jax and Caine's adventures which they despise. Jax is a sarcastic asshole who starts out funny and becomes less relatable with every time he's on screen and my one hope for his character is that he gets the opposite of a redemption arc because it's really refreshing to see a member of a main cast be an unrepentant bully. People who are awful entirely by choice need more representation. Gangle's whole personality seems to be suffering as Jax's victim and she's slated to get some real characterization in episode four.
At the time of writing this series has two more episodes out and six more planned for a total of nine episodes in season one. The view counts for the first two episode are over one hundred million. I was worried about the episodes being able to maintain the high bar set by the pilot but they delivered. If you like low grade existential horror in your cartoon worlds and the idea of watching people cope with being trapped in a video game this series was created for you. The first episode can be found here.
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