Incredible Crew – Incredibly, It’s Funny, Thursday, Jan. 24

INCREDIBLE CREW

Friendly Rating: All ages

Safety Rating: Some explosive violence, not enough girls in company

Quality Rating: Not perfectly even, but more genuinely funny bits than not

New sketch comedy series premieres tonight (Jan. 24) on Cartoon Network at 8 p.m.

I do have to make the pro forma protest on behalf of my daughter that if you’re going to name a channel Cartoon Network, it should be all cartoons. At least, that’s her take on it and I respect that.

And the protest comes up because Incredible Crew is an all live-action sketch comedy show featuring six kids (only two of whom are girls) doing some pretty darned funny sketches and pranks. It’s not perfect – sketch comedy is one of those things that’s so incredibly hard to do well and the odd sketch goes on too long. But most of them do not.

Safety-wise, you do have the uneven boy to girl ratio (four boys, two girls, I mean come on). One of the sketches is borderline with the girly-girl thing – a decorate your fake beard “commercial” featuring girls applying glitter to fake facial hair, although it’s more satirical than supportive of gender roles. There was also the farting grandfather making those charming noises in a real-life supermarket, although that was just silly. Finally, there was a sketch featuring Muffin Jets which involved blowing up a bunker with jets disguised as muffins and a tank disguised as a biscuit. Yeah, it’s technically violence, but it’s more silly than hurtful.

One of the best sketches was actually a prank. They’d decked out a hard-sided small pet crate with something playing a lion’s roar and fixed it so it rocked violently, startling the heck out of folks. In fact, none of the humor was mean-spirited. It’s just a silly little sketch show that’s is truly family-friendly. Gotta love it.