Birdgirl (2021–2022) User Reviews

On it's own, it's fine

[Hotdogjerry · 6/10 · 7 April 2021]

If you can seperate it from its original show, it's a half decent laugh. Most of the pilot's enjoyment comes from Birdgirl's delivery, and when the slapstick hits right- which unfortunately isn't too often. The B-plot feels like a bit of a waste, and it is a shame they're backing away from the use of Hannah Barbara characters, but it could be worse. It could be MORE girl bossy. It's following the new adult swim trend of having an emotional moment maybe once an episode, and it could use a stronger supporting cast for Paget Brewster, who's pulling a lot of the leg work voice wise.

That dog with a bucket hat was the only other laugh I got, but it's just the pilot. We could see more cartoon icons to come, assuming their absence isn't an issue with legal licensing this time around.

On it's own, it really is just OK.

It...exists

[BoxwoodExpress · 5/10 · 26 April 2021]

When the show first came out, I gave it a shot and wasn't that fond of it. I was looking at it through the wrong lens because I hadn't seen Harvey Birdman (can ya blame me? It ended when I was 2). Thank God for HBO Max. I binged all of season 1 in one sitting and had a blast. So I went back to Birdgirl, having seen Harvey Birdman.

Reevaluating the show, I'm still not particularly the biggest fan of it, and actually have a few more criticisms of it, but I don't think it's *that* bad, definitely not as bad as everyone else says. It's just....there.

The animation is okay, and certainly replicates the limited animation feel of the original. It's just that the humor does not hit, and I felt it was too long. Harvey Birdman is quick and bingeable because of the 11-minute episodes, meaning that there's no time for dawdling, we have to get the story and jokes in go go go, and it accomplished that excellently. Birdgirl doesn't do that because it's 22 minutes.

And although this is a relatively minor complaint, it's still a pet peeve - the show has no theme song and just had a title card. I'm sick of these lazy title cards and lack of theme songs I've been seeing in some recent cartoons. Bring back banger theme songs.

The least I can say is that Judy Ken Sebben is charming, and the pilot episode did have an emotional moment when she realizes that her deceased father wasn't a good father at all. This shows that the series does have potential, but has yet to fully realize it.

It's Not Great

[nasdagoodshepherd · 5/10 · 17 April 2021]

Days ago, I just watched the new Adult Swim animated series, Birdgirl, a spin-off of one of the most brilliant Adult Swim cartoons, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law and I see little charm in it. Let me tell you, we all know that Judy Ken Sebben's father (and mostly one of funniest characters on Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law) Phil Ken Sebben is gone for good and Judy refuses to believe it while other characters like the dog character and some Phil Ken Sebben imposter nominated Birdgirl as Phil's successor. Now I want to make this clear, the humor is more of a huge mixbag, sometimes it's kinda unfunny and sometimes it's actually a little clever. Some characters like Meredith the Mind Taker and the Dog with Bucket Hat (I'm sorry, but seriously what kind of a name is that?) are at least interesting but Meredith is the most interesting one, and the writing...it's not that great, sometimes the writing makes the show kinda boring just like I have the same issue with Mike Tyson Mysteries. Even though I didn't like Mike Tyson Mysteries but at least I find the show a little more better. So there, the writing in Birdgirl is kinda bland and boring, but at least the animation and the art style are decent enough for me to tolerate. Oh and did I metion that this show has lack of any Hanna-Barbera characters? Yes, yes I did mainly because of licensing issures and I'm honestly fine with it because of I don't mind but I do feel sorry for the Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law fans who do missed the Hanna-Barbera characters. Birdgirl isn't that great nor good, it's a mixbag cartoon with some high potential. Other cartoons spin-offs like Daria and The Casagrandes are much better and so is Heavy Birdman: Attorney At Law. Birdgirl is a very weak show in my book and if you like the show, that's great but to keep in mind, I don't find the show bad...it's meh. I'll stick to Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law and other Adult Swim shows such as Rick and Morty, Final Space, Primal and Lazor Wulf and I'll might as well continue watching Birdgirl if I want to. I give Birdgirl a 5.3/10.

This was horrible to watch

[ZEROspawn · 6 April 2021]

Never seen other shows link to this, but I seen people writ about them. But I can only judge what I have seen and boy it's bad compared to shows like Venture Brothers that Adult Swim also made. Really hope this does not stick around and they instead give us some good shows to watch or use the money on more seasons of some of the good shows instead. As of now this seems like a waste of money and I would say talent but that would clearly be a lie, as it does not seem to be any in the show or behind it either.

Surprisingly funny

[mhantirah · 7/10 · 15 April 2021]

The show is funny and fast. The characters are good enough for an adult animation show. I would watch the whole season.

Has it's own charms, and shouldn't be compared to Harvey Birdman

[elvisrevenge · 9/10 · 9 April 2021]

What's clear fairly early on in the pilot is that Birdgirl and Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (one of my all time favorite shows, period) are pretty different. The animation style, the dialogue between characters, and the general tone of the show are unique, and that takes some getting used to if you're expecting the nonstop witticism that Harvey Birdman brought.

What I really like about the show is the thing it has that Harvey Birdman didn't: heart. Our lead character, as well as her best friend/possible love interest Meredith the Mindtaker, have some pretty serious conversations, and the internal battle of Judy vs Birdgirl in the mind of the titular character is treated with respect, while still being sure to have plenty of gags.

I look forward to seeing the show separate itself further from Harvey Birdman, while also still having the silliness that gave me so many laughs.

Two eps in, def. not HBAAL, but more leaning towards Archer/Frisky Dingo dialogue.

[baldguyoftoday · 7/10 · 20 April 2021]

I have listened to podcasts, read reviews and watched (two) episodes at the time of this review and would agree that going into this premiere, I was expecting the same Hanna Barbara world of misfits and their crazy cases. Whether these creators take this series on an episodic run or continuous storyline feature is to be seen. I have set my DVR to "set it and then forget it" till several eps. Pile up. Would I recommend Birdgirl? Sure on the pretense that the viewers go in knowing this show is its own creation (up to this point). There maybe some original character crossover, but not at the expense of Hanna Barbara. Those days have set in the West my friend.

They abandoned Hanna-Barbera nostalgia for "OMG, So Random" jokes.

[michael-selby · 1/10 · 6 April 2021]

There is nothing here for the Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law fans. I guess that demographic aged out of the Adult Swim target audience. Maybe the Zoomers can make this show profitable but it sure isn't watchable for people who know comedy is about challenging and often offending the status quo instead of treading lightly around cancel culture.

Not bad.

[rossdanbruen · 8/10 · 12 April 2021]

I enjoyed the first episode. I hadn't watched much of the original series, and I can understand why fans of that would find this cynical and unappealing. I actually thought it was fairly funny, and it subverted some of my extremely low expectations. It may turn, but it's not garbage.

Pagent Brewer

[mjlower-28991 · 7/10 · 5 April 2021]

Can't go wrong with Pagent. She is smart AND funny. It's a win for everyone.

They cancelled the venture bros for this?

[mindlessmoviemaster · 1/10 · 7 April 2021]

It's not great and it's not good. Really wanted to like it but it's just not that good. Hopefully it gets better but I doubt it.

How did it get approved for 2nd season with ratings and views sooo low?...

Current weighted average of 5.6 is criminally low

[BenedictCummingham · 8/10 · 21 June 2022]

The delivery of these jokes is *often* too fast for most people which is why I wouldn't call this show 'laugh out loud' funny. There is very little time to actually laugh because it's always on to the next line of clever dialogue. And this show is clever. The characters are zany and extreme and the writers do a great job of depicting these qualities while moving a often pointless plot along. Think pointless like Sealab 2021 but more clever and more topical. Ridiculous that it is rated so low. For what it is it's an 8/10.

A quick break from work life

[ixane96 · 7/10 · 3 May 2021]

I watched the first episode just out of curiosity and felt nothing really but I kept watching them and suddenly fall in love with all the characters. First of all never do the mistake of thinking it belong to the action genre cause there is literally no fighting scene or anything close to it. Every episodes revolves around the life of Judy and his company Seben n Seben, that's it.

So if you just wanna lie down and want to watch randomly nothing then Bird girl is the best show for you on the internet.

Birdgirl Has Girls But Not Laughs

[vanvance · 3/10 · 1 June 2021]

Adult Swim cancelled The Venture Bros. And Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell, two of the funniest, cleverest shows ever to grace the small screen. So what do they give us to replace them? Birdgirl.

In the Woke tradition Birdgirl is not funny, clever, witty etc... but it has girls. Most of the characters are female (with male characters portrayed as effeminate, weak and pathetic). Birdgirl tries hard and fails hard. It succeeds in being nonsensical without being absurd. It tosses 'jokes' at the viewer in rapid succession but none of them are funny.

This is the cartoon version of the female Ghostbusters movie. Weak sauce all around. Adult Swim going Woke is Adult Swim sinking to the bottom of the lake with concrete shoes on. Their pretty faces are already in Hell.

Going woke in the 2020s

[beatstar · 25 April 2021]

Birdgirl isn't the first time Cartoon Network has spun-off a series to the chagrin of its fans. The mostly serious superhero TV show Teen Titans had a spinoff called Teen Titans Go, which cut the runtime of episodes in half to better accommodate zoomer attention span and shot most of the continuity of its characters out of a cannon. Unlike Teen Titans, however, Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law was already a sitcom.

The legal premise of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law is gone in Birdgirl, and so are virtually all of the characters. Phil Ken Sebben is "dead" and Judy Ken Sebben is installed by the end of the first episode as the new CEO. Though the quick-thinking animations from the original are here, they don't exactly play to the same note. The interactions between characters are not so memorable as the Peter Potamus "did you get that thing I sent you" one-liner. Still, they touch upon the awkward situations colleagues encounter in a corporate workplace. Instead of the suave pick-up artist Peanut, you get an awkward chatting-up-for-coffee guy whose name I already forgot.

Allegedly the show is cancellation-proof because its executive producer, Michael Ouweleen, is also the president of Adult Swim. I'm still watching three episodes in and hopeful that the series can improve. At best, it sometimes conjures up the intentionally stiff humor of its predecessor. At worst, it's Rick and Morty-lite, with none of the cleverness or willingness to push the envelope.

I think the series can still succeed, but once the season has run its course, the people behind the show should go to the drawing board and do some more prodding as to its premise. Was Sebben and Sebben's legal division its most successful product, or was the refocus into a company-wide show needed to keep things fresh? We'll have to see.

I enjoy it

[chrsstout · 7/10 · 26 October 2021]

I think it's really cool that they're opening the same type of humor I enjoyed (as a 15 year old boy) to girls. I loved Harvey Birdman as a kid. And watching this is very nostalgic. It's the same type of humor. I even found myself laughing out loud. Its not the same as Harvey Birdman, but it's not supposed to be.

If the girl viewership is there, then cool. That makes sense for them. If you're anti anything "girl-power ra-ra" then yeah, you're obviously not going to like it. But in the spectrum of cultures, this helps close the gap between genders. Again, if the girl viewership is there, then I'm glad that I might be able to share this side of my humor with them. And if I had teenage daughters, I'd be watching this with them.

Watch It for Yourself

[ikarusstokes · 9/10 · 6 April 2021]

I'm a cartoon historian, and my opinion is based in an academic evaluation of what the creators were trying to do, and if they succeeded. They did. The series isn't meant to be perfect, doing so would in and of itself, disregard the original series. I find the idea of Judy continuing on, refreshing. I look forward to more. 4.5stars.

Modern Humor Sucks

[xtidusxyunax · 2/10 · 10 May 2021]

Look at how they mascaraed the legacy of Harvey Birdman!?

Modern humor, especially cartoons, aside from a handful suck. Are they jokes or random callbacks so we remember something funny and relatable?

Its crazy to think that the show is written by the same people who wrote Harvey Birdman episodes. Only thing I can think of, is that they lost their edge, and are afraid to make any jokes so they somehow dont offend anything.

So no, I didnt get that thing you sent me.

Being different does not make it bad

[lojoisme · 9/10 · 12 July 2021]

I feel like most of the negative reviewers on here haven't even watched the show, or at least a majority of the available episodes. Lazy ratings are lazy, and comparing this show to 'Harvey Birdman' is definitely the lazy way to go.

In my opinion, 'Birdgirl' absolutely checks the boxes to make it a refreshing change on AS. The stories are entertaining, easy to understand, and light hearted. Pile on a really great voice cast and smart writing, and even the reruns hold up for me after multiple viewings. Personally, I'm glad that 'Birdgirl' keeps its own identity. There are too many other cookie cutter shows out there already, and trying to make this one just a 1:1 gender swap would have been a mistake.

As a Birdman fan this is painful to watch

[myfishyalias · 1/10 · 8 April 2021]

Birdman was a fantastic cartoon, this isn't. I really wanted to like this as a fan of its progenitor series but it just isn't funny. It doesn't have the HB characters which would have been fine if the writing was funny but it wasn't. To me it felt like what a thirty year old New York woman thought was amusing, alas, they were wrong and this didn't even illicit a chuckle. A well deserved 1/10.

Birdgirl is awesome.

[Nomad007 · 8/10 · 8 April 2021]

Paget Brewster is awesome. I always loved Harvey Birdman Attorney At Law. Birdgirl's hyped up craziness was awesome. Sadly she was in few episodes. Nice to see a spin-off carry the Birdperson torch. Hopefully we'll see a lot of the Birdman cast doing cameos. Adult swim has been seriously lacking for a while. Nice to see them going back to their roots.

I'll be brief

[ciaranmarley · 1/10 · 15 April 2021]

Absolutely f--ing awful.

Noisey, unfunny, loud, uninteresting, screeching, dull-witted, pointless, noisey and cringe inducing.

That is all.

This is not Harvey Birdman

[drkwly · 8/10 · 19 October 2021]

I'm a huge Harvey Birdman fan. Like recite every line type of fan. Needless to say, I had high expectations for Birdgirl. I wanted to see quick wit, politically incorrect jokes; I wanted that almost 1970's style animation and I was also hoping to see familiar characters. Birdgirl gave me none of this. Like many other fans, I was disappointed, but as I continued to watch, I realized that Birdgirl wasn't meant to be Harvey Birdman. This is a new era at Sebben & Sebben. One where Judy is in charge. This is Judy's story, not Harvey Birdman's. We should expect it to be different. Once I realized this and got over myself, I found this show enjoyable, funny and relevant. Harvey Birdman was a great show that I loved as a teenager and one that made sense for the early 2000's. Birdgirl is a bit more "woke" ( I hate that word) and has a mostly female cast ( I know, blasphemous!). I would argue that Birdgirl is the perfect example of a show that's relevant in 2021 and one you want to watch with your teenage kids.

Painfully unfunny & cringeworthy nostalgia mining.

[djeheuty · 1/10 · 16 April 2021]

Betting on the legacy of the hilarious, absurdist triumph that was Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law to carry this show was ill considered. This program is completely lackluster in every respect.

The scenarios are tedious and the characters unlikeable and less than one dimensional. The animation style too glossy, lacking the coarseness of the original series.

Adult Swim and Cartoon Network used to be edgy and boundary pushing. Now, their output is primarily non-offensive, Establishment friendly dreck. Birdgirl is yet another example of this sad decline.

Relatable Absurdity

[amylynnedixon · 9/10 · 14 April 2021]

Birdgirl's Judy is a relatable young woman. In the sense that she struggles with meeting job expectations, had a very unbalanced relationship with a parent, and is insecure at a point in life when we're expected to have it all pulled together. Is it silly? Sure. But I'm not asking Birdgirl to change the world. I like it for what it is.