Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Go! Go! Cory Carson’ on Netflix, a Gentle Kiddie Cartoon About Sentient Cars and Trucks

New Netflix kiddie series Go! Go! Cory Carson poses the question, “What if Cars wasn’t nearly as tonally grating or conceptually fraught?” This cutesy preschool cartoon about sentient cars and trucks seems mostly harmless until you realize it’s based on a line of toys — but it’s actually not nearly as obvious a commercial as similar shows. It’s also for a line of toys that isn’t insanely ubiquitous, which is a nice way of saying they’re not nearly as popular as megaviolent foam-bullet-firing facsimiles of war weapons or plastic dolls that urinate and/or come with all the accessories of your favorite social media influencers. My preschooler has a few of these l’il cars and they’re roughly No. 17 on his list of preferred playthings, which is great, because some of them are so loud I fear we might not hear the smoke alarm if the house was burning down. Anyway, the series consists of teensy, six-minute episodes, the first of which is so slight, it probably doesn’t deserve this painfully overwritten intro, so I’ll shut up and get into whether or not it’s worth the attention of our eyeballs.

GO! GO! CORY CARSON: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Cory Carson (voice of Alan C. Lim) snoozes in bed, and his mom wakes him, reminding him it’s his first day of preschool.

The Gist: Cory is a little orange car with neat racing stripes. His Mama (Kerry Gudjohnsen) is a blue coupe, his Papa (Paul Killam) is a wood-paneled sedan and his little sister (Maisie Benson) is a wee green car. They live in Bumperton Hills with a diverse variety of talking vehicles who’ve formed a society reflecting our own, from the education system to the anxieties we feel. Cory heads out the door for school, and Papa, in so many words, voices a common lament that kids grow up fast, and time is going by too quickly, and his son will be heading out to the highway before he knows it, and after that goes his body to the junkyard and his soul to the eternal void. It’s a beautiful day!

Cory is so eager, Mama says he should slow down before he gets a speeding ticket. He wants to make a whole bunch of new friends, and he’s been rehearsing his greeting: “I’m Cory Carson, and my favorite color is blue!” When he gets to school, he feels shy and anxious while meeting his school-bus teacher Ms. Motors (Esther Kibreab) and his new schoolmates. At snack time, he wrinkles his hood at a “delicious, organic, plant-based, flavor-neutral” brown brick, so these vehicles must run on ethanol? Why can’t they juice up on electricity and be more environmentally friendly? I know — stop bringing politics into a discussion of a whimsical kids’ cartoon! Stay in your lane! (Pause; groan.) Anyway, Cory overcomes his nervousness and makes friends and everything’s perfect, just like real life. The end!

Our Take: Finding anything objectionable about Go! Go! Cory Carson — outside of wrestling two exclamation points when typing the title — requires a level of curmudgeondom on par with Archie Bunker or Friedrich Nietszche. The show is adorable and colorful and harmless and so simple, garden snails can follow the plots. One might be tempted to harrumph and wonder if anyone will ever create a children’s entertainment franchise for the sake of pure creative whimsy and the art of storytelling, instead of the pure commercial desire to sell crap at big-box stores, but this is the world we live in, and at least wide-eyed Cory isn’t voiced by a grating and screaming celebrity or owned by Disney (yet). It’s the vanilla ice cream of kids’ shows; it’s from two guys who used to work at Pixar; if it was any less fraught with conflict, it would evaporate; it’s fine.

Sex and Skin: The cars’ body panels and paint jobs all remain intact.

Parting Shot: Cory cavorts and giggles with his new friends in the play area at school.

Sleeper Star: Kimmy O’Tool is a wrecking ball — literally. Her brother is a tractor. Shouldn’t they both be the same vehicle? Do genetics operate under different scientific laws in the Go! Go! Television Universe? Maybe we shouldn’t be asking these questions.

Most Pilot-y Line: Cory cruises into class for the first time and blurts, “Hi everybody, I’m blue, and my favorite color is Cory Carson!” Oh well — pobody’s nerfect!

Our Call: STREAM IT. The toy brand name only manifests as a logo during the show’s intro, and is never mentioned during the narrative of the first episode. Please note the toy brand name isn’t mentioned in this review, either. Kids will be moderately charmed, and they may not even whine for a $22.99 Cory Carson gewgaw with no volume control (batteries not included) the next time you’re sloughing wearily through Wal-Mart.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Stream Go! Go! Cory Carson on Netflix