The Boss Baby: Back in Business

• Dreamworks Animation Television
• Netflix
• April 6, 2018 to present

Voice Cast

• Theodore Lindsey “Ted” Templeton Jr. / Boss Baby-JP Karliak
• Timothy Leslie “Tim” Templeton-Pierce Gagnon
• Ted Templeton Sr.-David W. Collins
• Janice Templeton-Hope Levy
• Jimbo-Kevin Michael Richardson
• Staci-Alex Cazares
• The Triplets-Eric Bell Jr.
• Gigi (Season 2)-Nora Dunn
• Turtleneck Superstar (Season 2)-Cynthia Erivo
• Frederic Estes (Season 2)-Victor Raider-Wexler
• Mega Fat-Flula Borg
• OCB (Season 4)-Aasif Mandvi
• Maria-Maria (Season 4)-Carla Tassara
• Happy Sedengry (Season 3)-Rhys Darby
• Bootsy Calico (Season 1)-Jake Green
• Marisol-Sarah-Nicole Robles
• Magnus-David Lodge
• Manager Baby Hendershot-Brandon Scott
• Marsha Krinkle and R&D Baby Simmons-Kari Wahlgren
• Danny Petrosky-Justin Felbinger

The further adventures of The Boss Baby as he tries to balance family life with his job at BabyCorp.

The Boss Baby: Back in Business is another one in a long line of television adaptions of successful films. I grew up in the 80s and they were everywhere then on TV. Anything was fair game. RoboCop and Rambo both got their own cartoons as did the Ghostbusters. This is perhaps a more appropriate film to TV adaption though.

I thought The Boss Baby, upon which this is based, was an enjoyable enough story. It was an animated feature that one could take as either an enjoyable romp through a hidden reality or a parable told to a young girl about her newly arrived baby sister. Here they ditch that, and everything is definitely that it really happened as presented. Admittedly that was the only way to go if you were turning the movie into an animated series, but I found it a little disappointing. It takes away some of the cuteness of the movie.

The Boss Baby: Back in Business also takes the relationship between Tim and The Boss Baby back to more or less what it was at the beginning of the film. Not quite there but very close. By the end of the film they had bonded and were genuine brothers. Here they are brotherly, but I would say their dynamic is more like the midpoint or first third of the film than it is at the end. Tim is not trying to prove Ted can talk and all that, but he does at times chafe under his brother and at others is just kinda clueless on everything.

To be sure the show has its moments. It is a fun series that expands on the characters and their world. As with most film to TV adaptions it does alter or muddle things established in the film. One thing that gets me is that the babies that were portrayed as helping Boss Baby in the film appeared to be stuck with their parents but here they are much more present at corporate headquarters than at their houses. Traveling between adult world and corporate headquarters is very easy from the looks of it. They do stretch the hidden world aspect and at points I am left questioning how hidden things actually are.

The animation is not nearly as polished as it was in the movie. That is to be expected since the difference in cost and production needs of a television show is much different than an animated feature. Personally I would have gone with hand drawn animation but that is falling by the wayside these days. I am not sure what the percentage is, but it looks like the majority of animated TV is CGI.

I do not think any of the feature film cast reprise their roles here other than Eric Bell Jr. who returned as The Triplets. They get the replacement voices right. Not that the film voices other than Baldwin were anything special but sometimes they cast somebody that is wildly different from the film.

In the end I think if you liked the film, you will enjoy The Boss Baby: Back in Business as well. It is light fluff that will appeal to kids and adults.