'American Dragon' fires up the cliches

At least the Disney Channel's new prime-time cartoon, American Dragon: Jake Long, offers a unique take on New York. In the show, which debuts at 8 tonight, it's a city where unicorns frolic in Central Park, leprechauns are the real force on Wall Street, and centaurs commute atop subway cars.

But despite that mythical menagerie, there's nothing magical about American Dragon, a train crash of cliches staler than a Henny Youngman one-liner.

Jake is a brash 13-year-old Chinese American boy who seems to have learned to talk by watching reruns of Pauly Shore. "Check this out, G," he crows. "American Dragon is in the house."

Or as the show's execrable theme song puts it, "He's the Mac Daddy dragon of NYC/ You heard?"

Jake, you see, can transform himself into a flying, fire-breathing (and rather demonic-looking) red reptile. He is responsible for protecting the supernatural members of the Manhattan populace.

Before going into battle he soliloquizes, "Are we going to open a can of smack daddy?"

Unfortunately, he's not a very dependable guardian. Jake boasts about his "mad skizzles," but those powers tend to desert him at the worst possible times.

Luckily, he has his venerable Chinese grandfather to train him. Grandpa is a diminutive, wisdom-dispensing figure in a silk robe with a snowy beard. To Jake's distress, the old man isn't a big advocate of smack daddy, canned or otherwise. Instead, he stresses study and discipline.

At one point, he forces his protege to clean a nasty toilet, moving the brush "first clockwise then counterclockwise. (Can you say Karate Kid rip-off?)

The other member of the training staff is Fu Dog (sounds like a member of the Wu-Tang Clan, no?), a talking shar-pei. Curiously, this 600-year-old canine has a heavy Bronx accent and a demeanor appropriate to the 700 level.

Jake's skateboard buddies at school, Trixie and Spud, are black and Hispanic. Not enough diversity for you? Jake's dad is a white Midwesterner out of the Darrin Stephens mold ("Great news... . I just landed the Wholesome Heifer account!"). Pops is oblivious to the fact that he has married into a family of dragons.

American Dragon is shabbily imagined and anemically animated. Cobbling together ethnic stereotypes with hoary hip-hop dialogue doesn't make you fresh. In fact, there's something distinctly rotten about this scaly creature.

Contact staff writer David Hiltbrand at 215-854-4552 or dhiltbrand@phillynews.com.