Animal Planet is preparing yet another "Puppy Bowl." The Hallmark Channel is readying "Kitten Bowl II." It's good to see that at least one animal out there aspires to be something other than an insufferably cute ersatz football player.
He is Puss in Boots, the sword-wielding DreamWorks cat who made such an impression in the "Shrek" movies that he got a movie of his own. Now he has a Netflix series, "The Adventures of Puss in Boots," the first five episodes of which debuted Friday.
Eric Bauza replaces Antonio Banderas as the voice of the title character, although the exotic accent and, equally important, personality are more or less the same. Puss is cocky, dashing and fearless but also a tad reckless; collateral damage seems to follow him wherever he goes. The new series takes place in San Lorenzo, an innocence-saturated city that is hidden from the nasty real world by a magic spell until Puss, in the premiere, accidentally disarms its protective shield.
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Since San Lorenzo is full of treasure, thieves soon come calling, and Puss decides he must become the city's defender. That an attractive female cat named Dulcinea (Jayma Mays) is one of the inhabitants makes his decision easier.
The show is nicely drawn, and San Lorenzo is populated with some appealingly odd young residents, human and otherwise; children will have no trouble finding a favorite. The humor is relatively sophisticated (you could write a psychological treatise on Dulcinea, who has modeled her life on a somewhat vacuous book of epigrams), but not so sophisticated that children will be left behind.
And Puss is an endearing guy in a small-scale sort of way. He was stretched to his limits trying to carry a feature-length film, but for these 22-minute episodes, he seems just right.
