Another animated show from our neighbors up north. The show follows the life of kid named Willy who is the son of famous rock legend Rock Zilla and his attempt to live a normal life. The show was created by rock legend and KISS singer Gene Simmons who in turned based the show loosely off of him and his family. Now a lot of people are torn between this show. You either like it or you don’t like it and it’s understandable why you would like it or not. What’s my opinion of it, well let’s take a look.
Let’s start by looking at the two main characters. Willy is the typical timid kid whose life is overshadowed by his Dad’s fame. While Willy respects his father and has nothing against his fame or lifestyle Willy wants to be accepted for who he is and not who his dad and family is. Rock is your typical rockstar guy. He’s flamboyant, wild, immature, and easily gets carried away in his own ideas but at the same time he tries to be a good father figure and listen to the views and problems of his son. The rest of the characters aren’t really that interesting, the mom is new age, the older sister is spoiled and a typical shallow teenage girl, and the rest have one note defining characteristics though I will say that Willy’s girlfriend Alyssa is alright, she’s not perfect but at least she has some personality. The moral of the show is very similar to the moral of the Addam’s Family, don’t judge a book by its cover. The Zilla’s live in a high class preppy town that favors peace, quiet, and order (not to sound racist but basically whiteville) the people who hate rock n roll and don’t like the Zilla’s because they don’t conform to their ideas and because they refuse to understand the Zilla’s and accept their way of life. The one episode I remember the most is the one where Rock becomes the new band teacher at Willy’s school and begins to teach the students the joy of rock n’ roll which greatly upsets the parents that they band together and demand that the school fire Rock. This episode also shows that just like Willy has a hard time understanding Rock, Rock also had a hard time understanding his dad but the main difference is Rock’s dad gave up on Rock while Rock refuses to give up on Willy and makes an attempt to understand him. Overall the show does have a lot of good qualities. The idea is good, I like how the main focus is on the child rather than the parent so we’re seeing things from the child perspective which is new and well-done. There are a few overused clichés in the show such as the kid trying to fit in which was being done by almost everyone at the time but the twist to this tale is Willy wants to fit in because he wants to be accepted for who he is which is something I can get behind. So what do I think about this? Well I think it was a relatively good show, it had two good main characters who were likable and fun, good moral, and it had some good jokes (my favorite being the one where Rock asked a musician at a restaurant if he knew any KISS songs. I honestly laughed for one minute straight). Gene Simmons may be a merchandising maniac but he does a good job at it.