Jstache

There are bad animation ideas, and then there are ideas so utterly imbecilic that make you wish you had never become interested in cartoons in the first place. This one is of the latter variety. Jstache is a series idea featuring Eighties rocker John Oates of Hall & Oates and, get ready, his crime-fighting mustache, voiced by stand-up comic Dave Attell. According to Billboard, the idea was concocted by Evan Duby, the creative director of Primary Wave Music Publishing, which owns the Hall & Oates music catalog. A Jstache pilot was recently produced by NY-based Curious Pictures. Here’s the setup for the pilot:

It will portray Oates opening a new wing of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame that focuses on mustachioed musicians. Suddenly, a dying David Crosby appears and with his last breath warns Oates of a mysterious secret group of mustache wearers bent on killing other mustache wearers. As actor Tom Selleck attempts to escape from the latest murder scene, Oates summons his own mustache with a fist pump that simultaneously changes his clothes from conservative attire to pink pants and white boots.

Perhaps what’s most depressing is the last line of the Billboard article: “As one network executive who has seen the trailer says, ‘These guys are approaching the publishing business from a new angle. They’re taking rich copyrights and doing something innovative with them.'” Anybody who is familiar with animation knows that this type of innovation is nothing new within the art form. Producers, execs and all manner of creatively-clueless people have been ‘innovating’ since the earliest days of this art form. Thankully these people rarely last long in the business. Then again, sometimes they’re voted the smartest person in television too.