Central Park, Apple TV Plus’ first official cartoon, is a surprising gem, Jennifer Bisset writes for CNET.
Central Park is an animated musical comedy from Emmy Award-winner Loren Bouchard (Bob’s Burgers) that follows the exploits of a family, the Tillermans, living in the world’s most famous park.
Owen, the park manager, and Paige, his journalist wife, raise their kids Molly and Cole in New York City’s Central Park, while fending off hotel heiress Bitsy Brandenham and her long suffering assistant Helen, who would love nothing more than to turn the park into condos.
Central Park is created, written and executive produced by Emmy Award-winner Loren Bouchard (Bob’s Burgers), alongside Grammy Award-winner Josh Gad (Frozen and who also played Woz in the 2013 feature film Jobs) and Emmy Award-winner Nora Smith (Bob’s Burgers). Sanjay Shah and Halsted Sullivan also serve as executive producers. The series hails from 20th Century Fox Television.
The series voice cast includes Josh Gad, Leslie Odom, Jr., Kristen Bell, Kathryn Hahn, Tituss Burgess, Daveed Diggs, and Stanley Tucci.
After Fox passed on the show, which had been developed for the network by Bob’s Burgers creator Loren Bouchard, Apple won a bidding war over Netflix and Hulu to bring Central Park to life. On May 29, this magical musical animated sitcom will introduce its eccentrically wholesome New York family (they live in a mini castle) to Apple TV Plus subscribers searching for a guaranteed hit of warmth and hilarity…
Each of the 25-minute episodes follows the Tillerman family as they fend off Bitsy Brandenham, a hotel heiress who wants to turn Central Park into a collection of condos… While Bitsy’s threats have yet to see the park in any real peril after the first four episodes, Central Park is more concerned with celebrating the weird and weirder characters of a New York teeming with tourists who want to put vests on squirrels. You know what you’re going to get with Central Park: the sweet escapades of an eccentric family, who occasionally break into raps about statutes and flowers. All of it soars.
MacDailyNews Take: As we wrote back in March with the release of the trailer, “Central Park might have the ability to become a significant draw for Apple TV+!”
