Series Review: I Am Groot, Season 1

I Am Groot, Season 1

A quick little review before we get back to our irregularly-scheduled Ms. Marvel reviews. So Disney+ released I Am Groot, five episodes of... roughly less than five minutes of Baby Groot doing wacky hijinks. I'm not sure what this even counts as? It's barely a cartoon. But it's short, it's adorable, and it's obviously geared towards Baby Groot's ridiculous marketability (and frankly, it's surprising that the MCU in general only spent a single movie with Baby Groot before turning him into Teenage Groot). 

Now being a throwaway filler superhero cartoon, I Am Groot can just comfortably take place in-between the end of Guardians of the Galaxy and Avengers: Infinity War...  and the fact that the rest of the Guardians don't even really show up other than a small role by Rocket Raccoon (himself a CGI character, just a more elaborate one thanks to having dialogue) and a barely-cameo by an obscured Drax makes this pretty standalone. 

But the series itself is kinda fun, for what it is. The first season runs five episodes -- "Groot's First Steps", "The Little Guy", "Groot's Pursuit", "Groot Takes A Bath" and "Magnum Opus". And... from the first episode, you'd be forgiven into thinking that everything is just kinda sweet and saccharine and that's all we're getting. And... and that is kind of what we're getting, around 80-90% of the time. The second through fourth episodes have surprisingly dark punchlines to what are otherwise just adorable CGI Groot running around doing cute baby things. I guess this is the same Groot that would grow up into a cranky teenager that sends out giant tree-spikes to spear Thanos's alien minions, but it's actually funny that the punchlines to three out of the five episodes are surprisingly... I won't say that it's "dark" or whatever, but it sure does fall into the realm of black comedy. Particularly the second one, where Groot literally annihilates an entire microscopic civilization... accidentally. 

This is a pretty low-budget effort that I do really think that the MCU should put more effort into doing, though I'm also positive that this is meant to be some sort of test run for the format. I feel like being five minutes apiece is relatively short enough to make the shorts feel... well, digestible in an evening without it being a full commitment like a full season of TV show -- something that a lot of people complained about when Disney+ started essentially making their television shows 'essential' to understand the MCU's new storyline. 

It's just fluff, but it's cute fluff.