So let's run nowhere together!
Can't understand it
But everything is gonna be just fine!
These days gone by
Seem to last forever!
Yeah, yeah, yeah~
Long Live the Royals is a four-part animated Mini Series created by Sean Szeles, writer and supervising producer on Cartoon Network's Regular Show. Based on the Emmy Award winning short of the same name, this served as the second original mini-series produced by Cartoon Network Studios, following Over the Garden Wall. The series aired from November 30th to December 3rd, 2015.
The mini-series is a quasi-soap opera taking place in a Schizo Tech world, and follows the activities of your typical royal family as they prepare for the annual Yule Hare Festival (which is like Thanksgiving, but with more archery and guacamole) and deal with traditional family issues. In contrast to Over the Garden Wall, which utilized a large cast of operatic and folk singers, the characters in Long Live the Royals were voiced by prominent American comedians such as Fred Armisen and Jon Daly.
This show provides examples of:
- Affectionate Parody: Of aristocratic Period Piece Soap Operas like Downton Abbey and Upstairs Downstairs, reframing the melodrama of such shows as Dysfunctional Family antics in the vein of The Flintstones, and beginning every episode with a Previously on… opening that's just a non-sequitor only tangentially related to the last episode.
- An Odd Place to Sleep: Once Queen Eleanor's snoring becomes unbearable, King Rufus opts to sleep in the one place in the entire palace where the sound of her snoring doesn't reach: the dungeon.
- Big Ol' Eyebrows: Alex sports some impressive ones to signify his wild nature.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: After Queen Elinor's brother makes his surprise return after she supposedly killed him, King Rufus looks directly at the fourth wall and says "To be continued!"
- Cain and Abel: As an example of Black Comedy, Queen Eleanor confesses that she killed her own brother to cover up her snoring. He shows up at the end of the last episode, most likely planning to get revenge.
- The Dandy: There's a club of noble scions which call themselves "The Dandies". And boy, do they live up to that name.
- Deadpan Snarker: Queen Eleanor. When King Rufus says the Yule Hare Feast is the one time of year he can let himself go, Eleanor responds "Yes but how far can you go? You're already gone."
- Delinquent Hair: Princess Rosalind has long hair shaved on one side.
- Enhance Button: Queen Eleanor does this to find out that Peter never socialize during the Yule Hare Festival. There's thankfully no problem with blurry images, since she does so with paintings.
- Fictional Holiday: The Yule Hare festival, which appears as a hare-themed mix of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
- Hair-Raising Hare: The Great Yule Hare, supposedly. Alex discovers that it's actually a Gentle Giant.
- Pants-Free: The first episode opens with King Rufus addressing his subjects, after which it's revealed that he was only wearing underpants behind the balcony.
- Parental Substitute: King Rufus' Aunt Mildred, who wasn't his actual aunt so much as she was the woman who actually raised him his entire life because his birth mother the queen was too busy.
- Previously on…: Played With; Each episode, even the first one, begins with such a segment, but they serve more as a humorous way to tie up loose ends from the previous episode's plot.
- Same Language Dub: Jane Horrocks voices Queen Eleanor in the UK version.
- Schizo Tech: The setting seems mostly medieval, but they have things like Twitter, electric guitars and cereal.
- Shout-Out: The Dandies are introduced in a spoof of the opening shot of A Clockwork Orange.
