Reviews WesternAnimation / Green Eggs And Ham 2019

I like the television series adaptation of Green Eggs and Ham, I like it Sam I Am

Like most DrSeuss inspired works Green Eggs and Ham is very much an adaptation expansion and it veers on being based on Green Eggs and Ham In Name Only.

What commonalities has it with the source material?

1) It has a character named Sam-I-Am whose trademark favourite food is Green Eggs and Ham and

2) It has a character who vehemently insists that I Do Not Like Green Eggs and Ham, I do not like them Sam-I-Am.

But the show has two saving graces. 1) They turn Sam-I-Am into a character whose nature is fundamentally optimistic, like people already assumed he was and 2) they turned his counterpart into a complete grouch like everyone else assumed he was.

As a result the interaction of foils enabled quite a bit of humour and also enabled it to style itself as a buddy picture.

The humour is hilarious. The Mouse becomes an expy of Jean Valjean who sings an entire parody of {{theatre/les miserables}} and whose escape from prison is an homage to The Shoshank redemption.

The Goat endures Adaptational Villainy and becomes a no nonsense nemesis as Dragon-in-Chief to the Big Bad, a canon foreigner whose narcissism and villainy render him quite entertaining.

The Fox actually raises disturbing ethical questions about the world in which the show is set so I’m not a fan of that part.

That said, I love the lampshading, “I will not eat them in a car”, “that was very oddly specific” and the meta-humour that permeates the show.

As to the story itself it seems to tie Guy’s character development to his becoming increasingly open to eating Green Eggs and Ham. And I think he has a good arc. He was an aspiring inventor but every one of his inventions exploded leading to his becoming cynical and disillusioned. And that changes due to the Adventure with the chickeraffe and Sam’s friendship.

I like Guy’s love interest, Michellee and her arc of being comically overprotective of her daughter Elanabeth only to change later on. And I like E.B. as a character.

I wasn’t a fan of the Sam being evil all along plot twist considering that in the book he was clearly the character we were supposed to be rooting for such that the show was either engaging in an unforgivable Adaptational Villainy or they were going to give him a Heel–Face Turn which would render the twist useless.

That said, I like how his Heel–Face Turn comes from his Becoming the Mask and that Sam as a fraud was cleverly foreshadowed. And Guy’s entirely legitimate angry reaction consists almost entirely from quotes from the book. As well as the reconciliation between the two. I liked Sam’s origin story though it’s a bit too sad for a Dr. Seuss adaptation that is almost a parody. It was still well done.

And I loved everything the BADGUYS did throughout the series.

So if you wanted a loyal adaptation of Green Eggs and Ham then this isn’t it. But it’s still a pretty good show. That said, I’m not sure it’s for the children to whom the book is advertised.

All in all my thoughts on the show could be summed up as “I like Green Eggs and Ham, I like it, Sam-I-Am.