''Bordertown'' is an American adult

animated sitcom An animated sitcom is a subgenre of the sitcom that is animated instead of live action and is generally made or created for adult audiences in most cases. ''SpongeBob SquarePants'', ''The Simpsons'', ''South Park'', and ''Family Guy'' are four of ...

. The series follows two families living in a Southwest desert town on the United States–Mexico border. ''Bordertown'' is a joint production by

Bento Box Entertainment Bento Box Entertainment (also known as Bento Box Animation) is an American animation studio located in the North Hollywood neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. It was founded in 2009 by executive producers Scott Greenberg, Joel Kuwahara, and ...

Fuzzy Door Productions Fuzzy Door Productions is an American film and television production company founded by Seth MacFarlane in 1998. The company's productions include animated series ''Family Guy'', ''American Dad!'', the ''Family Guy'' spinoff ''The Cleveland Show' ...

20th Century Fox Television 20th Television (formerly 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Century-Fox Television, and TCF Television Productions, Inc.) is an American television production company that is a division of Disney Television Studios, part of The Walt Disney Co ...

, Hentemann Films and syndicated by

20th Television 20th Television (formerly 20th Century Fox Television, 20th Century-Fox Television, and TCF Television Productions, Inc.) is an American television production company that is a division of Disney Television Studios, part of The Walt Disney Comp ...

. On May 12, 2016, the series was canceled after one season.

Plot

''Bordertown'' takes place in the fictitious town of

Mexifornia Mexifornia (also Calexico or Califaztlán) is a portmanteau of Mexico and California. Description Mexifornia refers to what some see as the Mexicanization/ Hispanicization of the U.S. state of California as a result of increased documented and und ...

(which is on the border of

California California is a state in the Western United States, located along the Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the most populous U.S. state and the 3rd largest by area. It is also the m ...

and

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

). Mexifornia is based on the town of

Calexico, California Calexico () is a city in southern Imperial County, California. Situated on the Mexican border, it is linked economically with the much larger city of Mexicali, the capital of the Mexican state of Baja California. It is about east of San Diego ...

, sharing a similar location and dynamic as Mexifornia. The two main characters are Bud Buckwald and Ernesto Gonzalez. Bud is a border agent living at 25200 Cedar Road with his wife, Janice Buckwald, and their three children, Sanford, Becky and Gert. Living next door to him is Ernesto Gonzalez, an ambitious immigrant and family man, who has been in the country less than 10 years and is happy to be with his family in the

United States of America The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territo ...

Voice cast

Hank Azaria Henry Albert Azaria ( ; born April 25, 1964) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is known for voicing many characters in the animated sitcom ''The Simpsons'' (1989–present), most notably Moe Szyslak, Chief Wiggum, Comic Book Guy, Sna ...

as Bud Buckwald, a Border Patrol agent. *

Nicholas Gonzalez Nicholas Edward Gonzalez is an American actor. He is best known for playing the roles of Alex Santiago on the Showtime television series '' Resurrection Blvd'' and Dr. Neil Melendez on the ABC television series ''The Good Doctor''. Early li ...

as ** Ernesto Gonzalez, Bud's Mexican neighbor who's been living in Mexifornia for 20 years. ** J.C. Gonzalez (Juan Carlos), Ernesto and Maria's 21-year-old college graduate nephew and Becky's fiancé. ** Pablo Barracuda, the biggest drug lord in Mexifornia. *

Alex Borstein Alexandrea Borstein (born February 15, 1971) is an American actress, comedian, writer and producer. Borstein voices Lois Griffin on the animated comedy television series '' Family Guy'' (1999–present), and won a Primetime Emmy Award for the rol ...

as ** Janice Buckwald, Bud's wife and Becky, Sanford and Gert's mother. ** Becky Buckwald, Bud's 18-year-old daughter and J.C.'s fiancée. *

Judah Friedlander Judah Friedlander (born March 16, 1969) is an American actor and comedian, known for playing the role of writer Frank Rossitano on the NBC sitcom ''30 Rock''. Friedlander is also known for his role as Toby Radloff in the film ''American Splendor' ...

as Sanford Buckwald, Janice and Bud's 24-year-old rebellious son. In the episode "American Doll", it's revealed that Sanford was born on a skip day; 32 February, which is why he's never had any birthdays. In the same episode, it is hinted that Sanford is just a cover name and that his real name is Vince though this was previously hinted in the episode "Groundhog Day" . *

Missi Pyle Missi Pyle (born November 16, 1972) is an American actress and singer. She has appeared in a number of successful films, including ''Galaxy Quest'' (1999), ''Big Fish'' (2003), ''Bringing Down the House'' (2003), '' Dodgeball: A True Underdog S ...

as Gert Buckwald, Bud and Janice's 5-year-old daughter who is a beauty pageant contestant. * Jacqueline Piñol as Pepito Gonzalez, Ernesto and Maria's youngest son who pranks Bud regularly. *

Efren Ramirez Efrain Antonio Ramírez (born October 2, 1973) is an American actor and DJ, best known for playing Pedro Sánchez in the 2004 indie film ''Napoleon Dynamite''. He later reprised his role in the 2012 animated series of the same name. Early ...

as Ruiz Gonzalez, Maria and Ernesto's eldest son. *

Carlos Alazraqui Carlos Jaime Alazraqui (born July 20, 1962) is an American actor, stand-up comedian, impressionist, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his role as Deputy James Garcia on ''Reno 911!'' and for his voice acting roles. His extensive ...

as ** Placido Gonzalez, Ernesto's undocumented father who is cranky. ** El

Coyote The coyote (''Canis latrans'') is a species of canis, canine native to North America. It is smaller than its close relative, the wolf, and slightly smaller than the closely related eastern wolf and red wolf. It fills much of the same ecologica ...

, a Mexican trickster and

people smuggler People smuggling (also called human smuggling), under U.S. law, is "the facilitation, transportation, attempted transportation or illegal entry of a person or persons across an international border, in violation of one or more countries' laws, ei ...

who always tries to cross the border and regularly taunts Bud in the

cold opening A cold open (also called a teaser sequence) is a narrative technique used in television and films. It is the practice of jumping directly into a story at the beginning of the show before the title sequence or opening credits are shown. In Ameri ...

Episodes

Production

Producers

Seth MacFarlane Seth Woodbury MacFarlane (; born October 26, 1973) is an American actor, animator, filmmaker, comedian, and singer. He is the creator and star of the television series ''Family Guy'' (since 1999) and ''The Orville'' (since 2017), and co-creator ...

and

Mark Hentemann Mark Henry Hentemann is an American screenwriter, creator and producer for television and film. He is a writer, executive producer and former showrunner of the animated series '' Family Guy'', where he started as a writer in its first season. ...

were announced as executive producers. Shortly afterwards, Alex Carter and

Dan Vebber Dan Vebber is an American writer best known for his television work on animated shows such as ''The Simpsons'', ''Space Ghost Coast to Coast'', '' Futurama'', ''Daria'', ''Napoleon Dynamite'' and '' American Dad!''. He was also a writer on '' Buffy ...

were announced as co-executive producers.

Lalo Alcaraz Lalo Alcaraz (born April 19, 1964) is an American cartoonist most known for being the author of the comic ''La Cucaracha'', the first nationally syndicated, politically themed Latino daily comic strip. Launched in 2002, ''La Cucaracha'' has becom ...

and

Gustavo Arellano Gustavo Arellano is an American writer and journalist. He is a featured contributor for the ''Los Angeles Times'' and the former publisher and editor of Orange County's alternative weekly ''OC Weekly''. He is most notable as the author of the c ...

are consulting producers, and Valentina L. Garza is a supervising producer.

Writing

There were thirteen writers who worked on ''Bordertown''. Mark Hentemann wrote or co-wrote three episodes. Lalo Alcaraz co-wrote the first two episodes.

Broadcast

In the United States, the series premiered midseason on January 3, 2016, on Fox. The series was picked up by

ITV2 ITV2 is a British free-to-air television channel owned by ITV Digital Channels, a division of ITV plc. It was launched on 7 December 1998. For a number of years, it had the largest audience share after the five analogue terrestrial stations, a ...

in the United Kingdom on March 23, 2015, to premiere on February 29, 2016 - immediately after the new season of ''Family Guy'' on the same channel. The series was also picked up by

Network Ten Network 10 (commonly known as Ten Network, Channel 10 or simply 10) is an Australian commercial television network owned by Ten Network Holdings, a division of the Paramount Networks UK & Australia subsidiary of Paramount Global. One of five ...

in Australia and started airing on February 3, 2016 on its sister channel,

Eleven Eleven or 11 may refer to: *11 (number), the natural number following 10 and preceding 12 * one of the years 11 BC, AD 11, 1911, 2011, or any year ending in 11 Literature * ''Eleven'' (novel), a 2006 novel by British author David Llewellyn *'' ...

. In Canada, it was broadcast on

City A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...

Reception

The first and only season of ''Bordertown'' received mixed to negative reviews from critics. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, it has a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

score of 46 out of 100 based on 15 reviews, which indicates "mixed or average reviews". On

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the series' first season has an approval rating of 39% based on 18 reviews, with an average rating of 5.28/10. The critics' consensus reads: "''Bordertown''s controversy-rich premise is an idea disappointingly ill-served by its execution, which repeatedly mistakes crass, desperate gags for

topical humor The topical humor and topical jokes is humor framed around a specific topic related to current events or dealing with issues that are important or popular at the current time. The value of this kind of humor often diminishes when the topic is no ...

Notes

References

External links

*
No Walls Here: Lalo Alcaraz Discusses the New Fox Animated Series, ''Bordertown''
(''The Huffington Post'', December 29, 2015, interview by

Daniel Olivas Daniel Anthony Olivas (born April 8, 1959, in Los Angeles, California) is an American author and attorney. Biography Daniel Olivas was raised near downtown Los Angeles, the middle of five children and the grandson of Mexican immigrants. He at ...

) {{Fox Animation 2010s American adult animated television series 2010s American animated comedy television series 2010s American sitcoms 2016 American television series debuts 2016 American television series endings American adult animated comedy television series American animated sitcoms Animated television series about dysfunctional families English-language television shows Fox Broadcasting Company original programming Television series by 20th Century Fox Television Television series by Fox Television Animation Television series by Fuzzy Door Productions Television shows set in California Television series created by Mark Hentemann Latino sitcoms