Many nights I have very detailed dreams about the zombie apocalypse. I get chased by rotting corpses with a small band of survivors and I always seem to find the best guns and spend all night blasting heads off of the un-dead and rescuing super hot ladies. It’s awesome and waking up is always a drag. Some nights however, I wake up in a cubicle in some giant corporation. The computer’s harsh glow illuminates pictures of my family, and casts light on the latest Dilbert cartoon or a comic of Garfield saying how much he hates Mondays. I begin to panic as a boss type figure walks up to me an hands me a stack of papers with numbers on them that need to be entered into some Excel like program. I shake myself awake with a murderous scream and I am drenched in cold sweat. This is my nightmare, and it is also the vision of Hell in Adult Swim’s demonic themed comedy series, Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell.
(sorting out the charred bones of the damned is hard work)
I will abbreviate Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell to YPF because typing it all out sucks. YPF takes place among an endless cubicle office managed by the Devil himself, in which the lesser demons are tasked with recruiting people to sell their souls and then torturing those souls once they die. YPF focuses on Gary, a demon who is trying to climb Hell’s corporate ladder. Gary is played by Henry Zebrowski, and is pretty much the most incompetent imp in all of hell, and that is saying a lot because just about every demon there is a total screw up with the exception of Claude who is played by Craig Rowin. Claude begins as Gary’s intern, but soon embraces his new fate and makes damning souls his all consuming purpose.
(He’s not a great person, but he is far from evil. This gets him into trouble)
The relationship between Gary and Claude becomes super competitive and their characters are as hilarious as they are diabolical, but some of the best parts of the show come from Satan himself. Matt Servitto portrays Satan perfectly as a multilayered character who is nonchalantly morbid and approaches evil as just a job he has to do. Satan is vengeful and shameless, he is basically the worst boss to work for, but for some reason, you start to understand him more and even side with him. He might even be my favorite character of the show.
(You can tell he’s the boss cause he has the biggest horns)
YPF is a comedy that can be brutal and gory, but it is also very intelligent and funny. They even take stabs at religion and theology. In one episode, there is a caveman demon called Modok, who can only communicate by shouting his name at the top of his lungs. he adorns his cubicle with cave paintings and beats up the copy machine with a bone. Satan gives him a lot of slack because “It’s not his fault that he died a million years before the birth of Christ.” Muslims are in hell because they were born in the wrong country, and there is a guy from an African tribe who died before missionaries came to his village. All of these jabs are done tongue in cheek, however for me it is a funny way to point out the ridiculous logic of religion.
YPF is a very fresh comedy and you can catch it on Hulu or Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, and I am happy to see that they have been slated for a third season which should be pretty awesome if they stick to the format. This show has great costumes and concepts and you can tell there is a lot of heart and passion involved in making Your Pretty Face is Going to Hell. Binge watch it tonight!
