Saw 'Sidekick' as someone in my late teens as a big fan of animation, whether Disney, Tom and Jerry, Looney Tunes, Hanna Barbera, Tex Avery. Even back then 'Sidekick' didn't do much for me. Actually have loved much of Nelvana's work, with 'Babar', 'Redwall', 'The Care Bears', 'The Magic School Bus', 'Tintin', 'Rupert' being childhood favourites. Much of their output has held up really well in my view, 'Redwall', 'The Adventures of Tintin' and 'The Magic School Bus' being among their best still.
While there are far worse animated shows out there ('Johnny Test', 'Uncle Grandpa', 'Angela Anaconda', 'Breadwinners', 'Problem Solverz', 'Fanboy and Chum Chum', 'Chalkzone', 'The Cleveland Show' for examples), 'Sidekick' still isn't good. As far as Nelvana's output goes, it is for me definitely in the lesser end and actually had a hard time believing that it came from them. This could easily pass for past prime Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon, and it would be understandable if anybody ever mistook it as one of theirs.
There are good things with 'Sidekick'. The voice acting is game with the voice actors doing all they can injecting some degree of energy into their very tired material. Did like the backgrounds, which does have some nice colour and detail.
Some of the music is quite cool. Did like Eric at times and Master XOX is a very interesting and sinister antagonist.
All the other characters are poorly written and really irritated me. The show always overdid it with Trevor's jerkish-ness, while Pamplemoose is insufferably annoying (haven't seen an animated character this annoying in a long time), a character with no redeeming qualities and his rambling over-explanatory dialogue makes one want to turn off the television fast. The character interaction lacks wit and any kind of connection, with not much chemistry. Even the friendships don't feel like a friendship and the antagonistic teacher-student chemistry is very mean-spirited. The father-son relationship potentially had heart, but hurt by that the father is an under-developed character and his behaviours vague.
Didn't care for the humour, gross out, crude humour has worked very well in animation numerous times. The writing and jokes just come over as really juvenile and generic, as well as lacking in variety and overdone in the gross out aspect to a distasteful degree. Like Pamplemoose and the teacher-student chemistry, there is too much of a mean spirited edge. The concept sounded quite nice and potentially original, but the execution is paper thin, bland and very generic and repetitive. Nothing original whatsoever. Despite some nice backgrounds, the animation is not to my tastes. The colours are flat and the character designs hideous.
Very mediocre overall. 4/10.
