In 2016, the pilot for Victor and Valentino was released on Cartoon Network's YouTube channel (around the same time as Infinity Train, ironically). As soon as I watched it, I fell in love. The pilot had good writing, some comedy here and there, likeable characters and a really interesting story. Plus, it ended on an AWESOME cliffhanger that made a full series pickup sound super promising. If the show were to become an actual series on Cartoon Network, it would be like a celebration of Mexican lore and culture, a Mesoamerican Gravity Falls of sorts with some Drake and Josh thrown into the mix. When it was announced many months later that both V&V and Infinity Train got the green light from the network, I was ecstatic. Two amazing pilots now becoming full series? This was going to be awesome! A bright future was certainly ahead for Cartoon Network.
Flash forward to August 2019. V&V has been going on for almost six months and Infinity Train has just wrapped up its first season. Sadly, I can say that only one of these shows lived up to its hype. And I'll bet you can guess which one I'm talking about.
So far, Victor and Valentino has been, pretty much, a mess. What many thought was going to be a wacky comedy with cool Mexican paranormal creatures and an underlying story is, in reality, yet another slice-of-life cartoon with awful characters and cool Mexican paranormal creatures that SOMETIMES show up. I've laid out the reasons below on why I think the show fails.
Slice-of-life aspect: There are already a ton of slice-of-life 'toons on Cartoon Network presently (Craig of the Creek, We Bare Bears, PPG reboot) and in the past (Regular Show, Clarence, Uncle Grandpa). Granted, all of those other shows aren't bad, but why do we need more like them? I was hoping that Victor and Valentino would be a fresh of breath air and would maybe lead up to something big, especially with Grandma Chata explaining at the end of the pilot that in her small village, there's more than meets the eye. Unfortunately, so far, every episode just returns to the status quo at the end. Characters don't learn their lessons and nothing really changes. It's a monster of the week show that only has monsters half of the time. Sometimes, episodes are literally just mundane dramas; for example, "Fistfull of Balloons" was another "whodunnit" episode with a predictable "surprise" culprit.
Characters: This is, by far, the thing that brings the show down the most. Our loveable main characters from the pilot are completely ruined here. Victor is a spoiled brat that is extremely selfish and goes out of his way to get what he wants, even if it's at the expense of hurting others, including Valentino. He kind of suffers consequences at the end of each episode, but during the next story, the show resets and Victor's back to where he was before. Even his voice was more toned down during the pilot. Here, it's higher pitched and super grating on the ears. I don't mind when show creators voice their own characters if they're actually good at acting, but Diego Molano unfortunately creates a very annoying voice that isn't fun to listen to at all. Valentino is better, but not by much. I actually prefer Rico Rodriguez's voice in the pilot, but Sean-Ryan Peterson doesn't do a bad job or anything. At the very least, his voice is normal and not a pain to listen to. While Valentino's voice is okay, his personality isn't. He is very wimpy and mentions things like using lotion and doing yoga, which just screams "try-hard" to me. It's like the writers want to make him as nerdy as possible by having him do stereotypical "nerd" things. Grandma Chata may be one of the only decent characters in the show, but we know so little about her. That cool transformation you saw of her at the end of the pilot? Yeah, you won't see that in the actual series. She could have made a fantastic character yet she is totally gone to waste here. The side characters are pretty bad, too, the worst being Reynaldo and Reynalda. Don Jalapeno is just boring, Charlene is weird, and Xochi is decent. Pineapple annoys me. Maria Teresa can be interesting occasionally. CaoCao made for a very stupid one-off gag. Guillermo can be amusing at times (good thing they got a decent voice actor for him). And Rosa is your average child, I guess. There are more characters, but this is a big enough list to officially say that vast majority of the characters are not good.
Creatures: The creatures that show up in V&V are just..okay. Some are neat, but others are sort of...lame. Like, none of them really seem to pose an actual threat, especially considering our main characters always come out victorious with no real evidence that they were ever in danger. I like the fact that the monsters actually come from Mexican folklore. I just wish they were more exciting.
Comedy: There have been only a few times during this show where I have laughed. I've gotten through certain episodes where I haven't chuckled at all, or even smiled for that matter. I see that the writers are trying to add hints of comedy in episodes, but they bomb hard almost every time.
Well, there you have it. My full-out review on why I think this show is a stinker. I was hoping for so much when I first saw that pilot. In fact, I recently rewatched the pilot and all I kept thinking throughout it was how much BETTER it is than the actual series. I don't know what happened. I really don't. I'm honestly shocked at all the glowing ten-star reviews on here, as the people on the other places on the internet I've visited pretty much collectively have the same opinion as me. All I can say is that I truly believe that Victor and Valentino should have simply remained an eight minute short.
Flash forward to August 2019. V&V has been going on for almost six months and Infinity Train has just wrapped up its first season. Sadly, I can say that only one of these shows lived up to its hype. And I'll bet you can guess which one I'm talking about.
So far, Victor and Valentino has been, pretty much, a mess. What many thought was going to be a wacky comedy with cool Mexican paranormal creatures and an underlying story is, in reality, yet another slice-of-life cartoon with awful characters and cool Mexican paranormal creatures that SOMETIMES show up. I've laid out the reasons below on why I think the show fails.
Slice-of-life aspect: There are already a ton of slice-of-life 'toons on Cartoon Network presently (Craig of the Creek, We Bare Bears, PPG reboot) and in the past (Regular Show, Clarence, Uncle Grandpa). Granted, all of those other shows aren't bad, but why do we need more like them? I was hoping that Victor and Valentino would be a fresh of breath air and would maybe lead up to something big, especially with Grandma Chata explaining at the end of the pilot that in her small village, there's more than meets the eye. Unfortunately, so far, every episode just returns to the status quo at the end. Characters don't learn their lessons and nothing really changes. It's a monster of the week show that only has monsters half of the time. Sometimes, episodes are literally just mundane dramas; for example, "Fistfull of Balloons" was another "whodunnit" episode with a predictable "surprise" culprit.
Characters: This is, by far, the thing that brings the show down the most. Our loveable main characters from the pilot are completely ruined here. Victor is a spoiled brat that is extremely selfish and goes out of his way to get what he wants, even if it's at the expense of hurting others, including Valentino. He kind of suffers consequences at the end of each episode, but during the next story, the show resets and Victor's back to where he was before. Even his voice was more toned down during the pilot. Here, it's higher pitched and super grating on the ears. I don't mind when show creators voice their own characters if they're actually good at acting, but Diego Molano unfortunately creates a very annoying voice that isn't fun to listen to at all. Valentino is better, but not by much. I actually prefer Rico Rodriguez's voice in the pilot, but Sean-Ryan Peterson doesn't do a bad job or anything. At the very least, his voice is normal and not a pain to listen to. While Valentino's voice is okay, his personality isn't. He is very wimpy and mentions things like using lotion and doing yoga, which just screams "try-hard" to me. It's like the writers want to make him as nerdy as possible by having him do stereotypical "nerd" things. Grandma Chata may be one of the only decent characters in the show, but we know so little about her. That cool transformation you saw of her at the end of the pilot? Yeah, you won't see that in the actual series. She could have made a fantastic character yet she is totally gone to waste here. The side characters are pretty bad, too, the worst being Reynaldo and Reynalda. Don Jalapeno is just boring, Charlene is weird, and Xochi is decent. Pineapple annoys me. Maria Teresa can be interesting occasionally. CaoCao made for a very stupid one-off gag. Guillermo can be amusing at times (good thing they got a decent voice actor for him). And Rosa is your average child, I guess. There are more characters, but this is a big enough list to officially say that vast majority of the characters are not good.
Creatures: The creatures that show up in V&V are just..okay. Some are neat, but others are sort of...lame. Like, none of them really seem to pose an actual threat, especially considering our main characters always come out victorious with no real evidence that they were ever in danger. I like the fact that the monsters actually come from Mexican folklore. I just wish they were more exciting.
Comedy: There have been only a few times during this show where I have laughed. I've gotten through certain episodes where I haven't chuckled at all, or even smiled for that matter. I see that the writers are trying to add hints of comedy in episodes, but they bomb hard almost every time.
Well, there you have it. My full-out review on why I think this show is a stinker. I was hoping for so much when I first saw that pilot. In fact, I recently rewatched the pilot and all I kept thinking throughout it was how much BETTER it is than the actual series. I don't know what happened. I really don't. I'm honestly shocked at all the glowing ten-star reviews on here, as the people on the other places on the internet I've visited pretty much collectively have the same opinion as me. All I can say is that I truly believe that Victor and Valentino should have simply remained an eight minute short.