'Mike Tyson Mysteries' review: Plenty of punch lines

ANIMATED SERIES "Mike Tyson Mysteries"

WHEN | WHERE Premieres Monday night at 10:30 on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim

WHAT IT'S ABOUT So what does a guy like Mike Tyson do when he isn't hanging at his pool with his crew? They would include adopted Korean daughter Yung Hee (now a teen, left on his doorstep as a baby), a sleaze-mouthed pigeon who used to be a human (cursed by an ex-wife) and the ghost-white ghost of the Marquess of Queensberry (19th-century boxing rules dude).

In his free time, Tyson does what any other heavyweight champ, ex-con and Broadway one-man-show star would do. He solves mysteries.

Compare and contrast: cartoon Mike Tyson, cartoon dog sleuth Scooby-Doo -- it's uncanny, down to the "quality" of their Warner Bros. animation and largely indecipherable discourse. While Tyson's gang debates the relative merits of authors Cormac McCarthy and John Updike, their leader races off in his Mysterymobile, crooning "bird sex" songs, to fight centaurs. Next week, he faces IBM founder Thomas Watson, chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov and the specter of '80s fight rival Trevor Berbick.

MY SAY Whoa, that's a mess to pack into 15 minutes. But this is Adult Swim. Why make sense when there's so much to mock?

"Tyson Mysteries" is highbrow lowbrow lampoon, alternately smart and stupid, dizzy and disgusting. Now factor in your opinion of its notorious lead voice. Yes, that's Tyson playing himself, bouncing off Norm MacDonald's skanky pigeon snark.

BOTTOM LINE Adult Swimmers should score it a knockout.

GRADE B+