“Make America funny again” is the strapline for The New Norm, the “first animated sitcom on X” (formerly Twitter). The mini-pilot was posted online yesterday, featuring unshowy animation, well-designed characters and setting, and decent voice performances. Technically, it’s fine.

Unfortunately, the script is excruciating. The conceit of The New Norm is that it is a traditional American family sitcom, complete with the canned laughter of the Bewitched/That Girl! era. It features an old dad — Norm — bemused by the modern “woke” world, exemplified by his non-binary daughter and her new boyfriend.

There’s no reason why this show had to be terrible, and yet it is. In fact, it is not just terrible but flesh-creepingly awful. The jokes, such as they are, all crash like bags of tools being dropped down a lift shaft. An AI bleats robotically that what Norm says is “offensive!”. There are lines — supposedly funny lines — such as “Y’all influence my boy to cut off his junk but draw the line at beer?” The three-minute clip ends with a cringe-inducing genuflection to Elon Musk.