On paper,Little Demonassembled a team of all-stars both in front of and behind the camera. With the main draw coming via the addition of The GOAT in Danny DeVito voicing Satan himself, he was accompanied by his daughter Lucy DeVito (Deadbeat), and Hollywood’s resting b***h face in the excellent Aubrey Plaza.
Danny DeVito himself has made a successful career out ofalso being a voice actor. With such an iconic New Jersey disgruntled and gruff delivery coupled with DeVito’s natural acting talent, the performer fit right in on guest spots inThe Simpsonsas Homer’s estranged brother Herb.
So successful, in fact, that the voice acting side quest would have him voice his own caricature in Disney’sHerculesin 1997, only continuing to this day with the actor having boasted voice gigs with some of the top animation companies at each of their respective high points.
Little Demon Has an All-Star Cast
This brings us toLittle Demon. In every sense a family affair, the series sees Satan reconnecting with his estranged daughter as she spends her time between the mom and dad likea recently divorced couple, while they vie for her love/attempt to use her to take over the planet. Laura, the inked human badass and Sarah Connor-type character who lives off the grid and believes in tough love when not fighting monsters, is voiced by Aubrey Plaza. Between herself and DeVito, the two are now well-recognized TV stars between their time onParks and RecreationandIt’sAlways Sunny In Philadelphiarespectively.
Related:Danny DeVito’s Best Performances, Ranked
Propping them up as producer is Dan Harmon. Such a driving force, and bursting onto the scene out of nowhere with the immediate gargantuan success ofBack to the FuturespoofRick and Morty(and before thatCommunity), should only spell success forLittle Demonwhen put in the same smutty equation… right? Well, sort of.
But Is a Cast All It Has?
InLittle Demon’s promotion before its release, its trailer boasted all of the above names alongside a host of other major stars who wouldalso voice in cameos. Dave Bautista, Michael Shannon, Rhea Perlman, Mel Brooks, and DeVito’sTwinsco-star Arnold Schwarzenegger all make appearances, to name just a few of a very long list of stars. Even then, these feel like they’ve been called in for favors over actually feeling passionate about the material.
While the main cast of DeVito and Plaza also act as producers on the series, alongside the likes of Dan Harmon, it all still comes off unfortunately quite flat overall. WhenLittle Demonfirst aired in 2022, it wasn’t tremendously funny and its artwork looked like an offcut ofHow It Should Have Ended. Is it fair to suggest that perhaps inexperience in the writer’s room has a part to play? Seasoned professional Harmon only acts as an executive producer here and does not contribute firsthand to any of the episodes' scripts.
Related:Aubrey Plaza’s Best Movies After Parks and Recreation Ended, Ranked
As such,Rick and Morty’s jaded nihilism and toeing-the-line jokes don’t appear, and between the writers and directors on the series (Kieran Valla, Darcy Fowler, and Seth Kirschner) other than a handful of shorts alongside a TV movie from Valla, there isn’t a huge amount of experience in the writing department. Speaking toCartoon Brew, co-creator Darcy Fowler discussed this.
We constantly reminded ourselves that at the core of this show, we needed to keep it grounded and we couldn’t let the horror or the drama scenes turn into punchlines. We explore lots of themes that lend themselves well to horror: a broken family, a custody battle, a mother/daughter relationship where the kid is 13 and going through puberty. There are all these relatable forms of horror, so as the season went on we got to dive deeper into these significant, but darker stories centering on those themes.
This is all true, but none of the above marks seem to be hit coherently. Like too many plates are being spun, with each one just about to fall and none of the emphasis on the drama, comedy, or horror coming out as the show’s single strongest aspect.
Couple this with the tremendous weight of expectation in a new show starring DeVito — who after working for four decades keeps finding new fans with continued bravery in his creative choices — and boasting so many other stars dropping in, and then throwing Harmon into the mix as well and a dangerously high hype is created for this show to be good. AndLittle Demoncertainly is not the nextThe Simpsons, or the nextRick and Morty, but just sort of therefor now.
Will Little Demon Get a Second Season?
And there is something telling to the fact thatLittle Demoncurrently finds itself in purgatory. Neither canceled nor renewed gives off a suggestion of FX not really quite sure of what to do with their bastard child. Having received fair to positive reviews across the board, there is a call at least for the series toreturn with a second season, but maybe not deemed quite loud enough of a response to convince the people up top just yet to sway one way or the other. InThe Guardian’s(favorable) review, they close with the following.
Little Demon isn’t perfect yet. It has the common mature-cartoon problem of occasionally filling gaps in the dialogue with cultural references that are too niche, especially for viewers seeing it from across the Atlantic, and the relationship between Chrissy and Satan doesn’t click as convincingly as the one between her and Laura – [b]ut the potential is there. When it fully grows up, Little Demon will unleash hell.
It’ll be interesting to see ifLittle Demonis granted that second series and is allowed to turn into that young adult it needs to be to thrive. Maybe they’re right. MaybeLittle Demonis still finding out who it is, and a second season is exactly what it needs to be sure of that.
