Upsetting Day: Legends of Evergreen Hills

Chick-fil-A made a TV show. They also made an entire entertainment business. They are poised to conquer American culture. But first, LOL, Chick-fil-A made a TV show???

There is one episode of Legends of Evergreen Hills™, so far. The show’s Google results indicate a rabid demand for more.

Let me help the folks googling the other big question. “Where to watch” this television show? You watch on The Chick-fil-A Play™ App, of course. Download The Chick-fil-A Play™ App to watch Legends of Evergreen Hills™. I’ll wait for you to download that.

Nope, you downloaded the wrong app. It’s not the Chick-fil-A app. It’s The Chick-fil-A Play™ App. The regular Chick-fil-A app orders food. The Chick-fil-A Play™ App offers five entire categories of original children’s entertainment. “Food” is an antique pastime of the Chick-fil-A brand, like how Nintendo made playing cards. Don’t delete the primitive sandwich-purchase app quite yet. Chick-fil-A has not transcended mortal needs, yet. They’ve begun that process by building your child’s new obsession. The Chick-fil-A Play™ App is here to stay. The Chick-fil-A Play™ App is not Chick-fil-playin’ around.

I cannot overstate Chick-fil-A’s readiness to entertain your child, every hour of every day, and reimagine your family’s life in the process. This app has “WWE Universe” level chutzpah. They’ve got “Walt Disney” and “Whoever Makes Minions” on their vision board, and they’re on their way to surpassing both. They’ve already dwarfed the food service of both DisneyWorld and Universal MinionsPark. This app is their next chess move. It’s the start of a Chick-fil-Empire. The only comparable force in modern entertainment is a website rising from the ashes of a frankfurter industry trade journal. Look at this thing:

That’s the app’s push for you to watch Legends of Evergreen Hills™. Legends of Evergreen Hills™ is Chick-fil-A’s tentpole entertainment offering. Surprise: they’ve been making animated short films in The World Of Evergreen Hills for a few years now. They put them online and everything. While you goofed off watching “mainstream” television (a sin), Chick-fil-A laid the groundwork for a weekly Chick-fil-A animated series.

I have terrible news about Legends of Evergreen Hills™. Legends of Evergreen Hills™ both stinks and does not stink enough. This is a ferociously professional production. The pilot begins professionally, establishing the premise in a brisk voiceover.

You’re looking at Sam, the protagonist of Legends of Evergreen Hills™. In the five Stories of Evergreen Hills™ digital shorts, produced prior to the launch of Legends of Evergreen Hills™ on The Chick-fil-A Play™ App, Sam’s powers lead her to the workshop of The Time Keeper. Following the instructions of The Time Keeper’s magic snow globe, Sam does good deeds that boost the “Spark” amounts in “The Spark Tree” in the magical realm they access through a portal. Sam’s Sparkventures culminate in an official role for her at the Time Keeper’s Time Workshop. Sam begins Legends of Evergreen Hills™ as the full-fledged apprentice of The Time Keeper. I’m confident Chick-fil-A’s lawyers would tell me The Time Keeper is a new, original character who is not at all Geppetto.

This show doesn’t merely rip off Geppetto, rip off Dora The Explorer’s personality/clothes, and imitate Homer Simpson's street name. Legends of Evergreen Hills™ commits an artistic crime I never dreamed possible. The crime involves concepts I figure not every Hotdogger is familiar with. This may not be a reference you know. Here’s that crime/reference anyhow: Legends of Evergreen Hills™ steals, and de-atheisms, the world of Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials. I’m not kidding. Re-read that voiceover intro I screencapped. It’s the hollowed-out gist of The Golden Compass. Here are a few major spoilers for why it is bonkers any American company would do that, let alone CHRIST-FIL-A. In this Christian chicken sandwich company’s TV show, a magic young girl has a special relationship to (a copyright-safe, church-approved version of) Dust. The young girl explores that magic power in a parallel version of our world. And at the end of this pilot episode, she acquires a magical Golden Compass Bracelet, and a magical furry companion.

Don’t get me wrong: this show is crud. Stealing The Golden Compass isn’t a perfect crime. You can’t take Pullman’s concept of physical particles representing free will, mangle that into “people being nice = sparkly”, and get something great. Unfortunately, you can get something watchable. I wasn’t bored watching this. After that voiceover, Sam races to the Time Workshop and establishes her two good deeds of the week. She’s required to do these good deeds because they will something something something Spark. It’s junk, done at a zippy pace with solid production value.

For her two good Spark deeds, Sam must find the lost dog of Señora Hernandez (Ethnic), and make Isaiah (Black) feel comfortable after moving to the neighborhood. Additional story: Sam’s grandmother (wearing a long blue cloak) gets introduced one scene after a hooded older woman (wearing a long blue cloak) meets privately with the Time Keeper. As viewers, we wonder why two adjacent scenes involve slender sixtysomethings in long blue cloaks. Perhaps long blue cloaks are on trend right now, in nursing homes and also Chick-fil-Narnia? Anyway, Sam uses Spark devices – and more importantly her moral goodness – to find the lost dog and Isaiah both being attacked by a scary junkyard dog.

Sam And Two Friends rush over to the junkyard, and pull Dog And Boy out of danger. Everyone hurries away from that junkyard dog… into an abandoned car? With a rusted-shut door? Oh no! Wait: good news. White Male Friend uses Spark to power up his shoe so it can kick the rusty car door off of the vehicle, freeing them all. Spark can do that, it turns out. Spark is both a mystical sign of good deeds and a Popeye Spinach Can for your dominant leg. Don’t think about it. Eat your sandwich.

These kids and the Good Dog leave the junkyard, and escape back to their neighborhood. The junkyard is a good indicator of how “heavy” this show ever gets. Yes, a dog almost bit kids. Yes, refuse is dirty. However, this is a show made by suburban Christians. That means the signage for the “terrifying” junkyard is done in quaint rustic handlettering. The abandoned junkyard’s signage guy is also gigging for “Fresh Apple Cider” and “The Christian Girl Autumn Wide Hat Store”.

Once the show’s danger is over, it foreshadows future danger. Sam gets glowered at by one masked child hiding in the magic world. Then she learns her blue cloak grandmother is ALSO the blue cloak hooded dignitary because – get this – hoods both cover and reveal a head. Sam’s Fairy Bluemother wields Spark like a Gandalf, revealing stone inscriptions of the seven values Sam must hold dear. This approach to values is messy, because seven generic values is too many for a viewer to remember. Viewers top out at remembering three normal things, and maybe a bonus fourth thing if it’s weird. Seven is a memory challenge. The show probably knows better? I figure the show is padding out their fundamental moral code, to stretch for time. That way a heterosexual mother and father can finish their waffle fries before their child starts a’hollerin’. That child will holler, because they haven’t learned patience, because “Patience” is the forgettable fifth value on the Values Pillar.

Let’s address another elephant in this room. Yes, these screencaps look nice. I’m as upset about that as you are. Chick-friggin-A has a bigger animation budget than Adult Swim, because that’s the way the societal business cookie crumbled. However, Legends of Evergreen Hills™ looks cruddier than these still images suggest. Animating motion is hard. These characters move realistically, unless they run, which they do a lot. Sam moves her feet and arms in a style I call “ice skating but smoother”.

The show writes itself into a similar corner regarding faces. Don’t get me wrong: half of network television dramas feature a performer who’s been peer-pressured into surgical facial neutrality, as if that is “youth.” That’s Hollywood for you! Meanwhile, in Holywood, characters’ faces don’t do more than “smile” or “rotate smile 180 degrees”. There aren’t more settings because Evangelical Christianity isn’t in touch with more than two feelings. The pilot’s script struggles with that limitation in Scene One. A joke requires Sam to fake a smile about a task she doesn’t want to do. The writing is okay. The voice acting is good. The visual is a bland rictus. “False enthusiasm” is a challenging expression for any actor, let alone a 3D-animated hermunculus.

I could keep whining about other details of Legends of Evergreen Hills™. The video player’s buttons are almost as bad as every other streaming service’s buttons. I also couldn’t get rid of the giant “X” button in the upper left corner. Tragically, I’m nitpicking. No issue derails the show. Legends of Evergreen Hills™ delivers exactly what its audience’s parents want, which is eighteen blessed minutes of uninterrupted peach milkshake. Kids pipe down and watch any show if the show works fine. This show works fine. Also, huh? What? Chick-fil-A’s show works fine? Do you know how staggeringly hard it is to make a show work fine? Hollywood professionals fail to do that all the time. How did Chick-fil-A bat one thousand here? Most of the answer is the show’s credits. Hollywood professionals made Legends of Evergreen Hills™. The voice cast features Phil LaMarr, Kari Wahlgren, and Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck. Its credits also list an army of animation staff. And the showrunner/creator is as professional as professional gets, in this type of context:

Aaron Johnston is Creative Director Of Brand Entertainment at Chick-fil-A. He got into media by making original content for BYUtv. “BYUtv” is what you think it is. Meanwhile, in the dead medium of “words on paper”, Aaron Johnston is Orson Scott Card’s extra hands. Legends of Evergreen Hills™ is professional level stuff because Aaron Johnston is a professional level stuff-scribbler. I cannot help but hand it to him. This guy does his job. And nobody’s better suited to the BRAND ENTERTAINMENT AT CHICK-FIL-A job than the smaller name on Ender’s Game tie-in covers. From evangelical Christian entertainment to evangelical specifically-Mormon entertainment, Aaron Johnston does “it all”!

I must ask you a question, My Dear Hotdogger. A question I put off as long as possible. Have you patronized Chick-fil-A? Because, uh, hrm, well, I have. Most people have. Chick-fil-A’s dead founder’s three failsons are each worth eleven figures, because most people eat Chick-fil-A. Chick-fil-A is the most popular brand for the most popular fast food trend (chicken sandwiches). They also played both sides of their anti-gay controversy like a violin. Despite what most people tweeted, Chick-fil-A enjoyed a national sales boom during and after that dust-up. Everybody eats there. Right-wing authoritarians think it’s the only chain that’s NOT WOKE. Your favorite Marxist appreciates Chick-fil-A’s commitment to a relatively consistent and restful shift schedule for laborers. Diners love their clean interior and efficient drive-thru. Their franchises for big city elites are so slammed, Chick-fil-A built a special Manhattan rest stop for their e-bike lackeys. Chick-fil-A even calls the shots in In-N-Out’s backyard. They rolled in, put down stakes, and said “sorry not sorry” when vehicular demand for Chick-fil-A strangled Santa Barbara.

I encourage you to never eat Chick-fil-A if you despise them. I also encourage you to realize Chick-fil-A makes McDonald’s look unambitious. Media elites chuckled when Chick-fil-A announced a TV show. But media elites are the only Americans without a bottle of Chick-fil-A sauce in their refrigerator. Legends of Evergreen Hills™ is not your daddy’s harmless, soft-penis’d "Trial Of The Hamburglar"-style whimsy. Legends of Evergreen Hills™ is a flex of Chick-fil-A’s Chick-fil-might. It’s one of the many capital ships in their Earth invasion fleet.

The Chick-fil-A Play™ App has a soundtrack, an animated intro, and a menu of five entertainment genres. Everything’s organized into a delightful “Cow HQ”. Remember the billboards where cows can’t spell gud? Chick-fil-A brand-extended those cows into an app experience. You access Cow HQ by pressing a button, and watching a delightful animation of cows going down wacky slides to an underground lair. This fun thing requires computer-animated cows. Chick-fil-A made that by yoinking the exact design style of Aardman Animation. That’s legal, I guess. Turns out those Aardman Brits only copyrighted Wallace, Gromit, and Shaun the Sheep, without locking down their eyes or their souls.

Cow HQ’s first tab (“WATCH”) is how I accessed Legends of Evergreen Hills™ and Stories of Evergreen Hills™. That tab also features a series of original cartoons starring the cows. Even worse, this programming was easy to browse. That haunts me. The next time I’m struggling to find my preferred Star Treks in the hellish Paramount+ menu, I’ll wish P+ achieved the user friendliness of The Chick-fil-A Play™ App. That tiny convenience will change my world. Soon I’ll mutter “which space show had the bald guy?” as a cow’s Christ-safe pratfalls erase my identity. It’s all over. I’m a goner. This time next month I’ll be hotdogging under the byline “Locutus of Fil-A.”

Cow HQ offers four further tabs. The “LISTEN” tab is a podcast network, plus soundtrack album. Chick-fil-A bundled two podcasts with this thing, casually, like it’s no big deal. One podcast is just a trailer. The other is a ripoff of the public domain novel Swiss Family Robinson. It’s got a different title, but it’s about a Robinson family stranded on a desert island. That’s Swiss Family Robinson. The main change? The lead character’s first name is “Colin”. What a galling change. Chick-fil-A is so confident they’ll replace the rest of culture, they made a show about an exciting “Colin Robinson” in Almost 2025.

Every media company, local news channel, and living American is begging you to listen to their podcast. Me included. Meanwhile, Chick-fil-A’s podcasts are only available in The Chick-fil-A Play™ App. It’s the exact mindset of Spotify walling off Joe Rogan’s show, but at a starting listenership of zero. What a bold approach to launching a podcast made by breaded chicken. And who knows? Maybe that’ll work. Chick-fil-A isn’t worried. They don’t need to beg you to subscribe. They know you’ll download the podcast’s one and only app. You won’t resist the lure of two podcasts, three TV shows, four mobile games, twenty e-books, and a “CREATE” tab offering so many recipes & crafts I got tired of counting them. Every one of those numbers is real, and ominous, and our cultural future.

There are silver linings here. Chick-fil-A gave a lot of the bad donations to the Salvation Army, and Salvo bundles social justice upsides into their downsides. Legends of Evergreen Hills™ is at best sleekly crud. And Chick-fil-A isn’t poised to acquire Mountain Monsters, yet. I still have the presence of mind to flee to Alaska, mentally, with Bigfeets. But who knows how long that workable situation will last? So I put it to you, The Entire Rest Of Culture: do you have what it takes? Can you offer a media ecosystem that’s more engaging than the secondary mobile phone app of a chicken sandwich chain? You’re only sort of doing it so far. Chick-fil-A could outdo you any day now. But I have hope. I have faith. And I have a feeling a little company called Poxco will start winning the battle against OH GOD never mind i saw the app ad below this before i finished typing goodbye to all

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Doug Redmond who downloaded The Chick-fil-A Play™ App and oh shit, Ghana Mortal Kombat??

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