With such talents as Eddie Murphy and Will Vinton involved, why does “The PJs” feel so lightweight?

The new half-hour series, which debuts at 8:30 p.m. Sunday on Fox before moving to its regular 8:30 p.m. Tuesday time slot Jan. 12, centers on the life of Thurgood Stubbs (voiced by Murphy). Thurgood, the superintendent of the Hilton-Jacobs housing projects, wants to relax in his recliner, sipping a “forty” while watching “Wheel of Fortune,” but he keeps getting interrupted by the problems of a colorful cast of characters, voiced by veteran actors such as Loretta Devine, Pepe Serna and Janet Du’Bois.

Make that extremely colorful, as “The PJs” is the first stop-motion animation series ever to air in prime time. It’s animated by Will Vinton Studios of California Raisins fame. Fortunately, the “foamation” characters aren’t nearly as distracting as the scattershot scripts.

It was natural that Murphy would want to branch out. After all, he’s no longer the golden child at the box office, as for every success like “Dr. Doolittle” there’s a bomb like “Holy Man.” So he’s slumming in TV, where the stakes are lower.

Creator Murphy supposedly got the idea to take an artificial medium such as puppets and animate them against a realistic backdrop like an urban housing project. To help him realize his vision, the former stand-up comic and “Saturday Night Live” star recruited executive producers Steve Tompkins (“In Living Color,” “The Simpsons”) and Larry Wilmore (“In Living Color,” “The Fresh Prince of Bel Air”).

One result of this collaboration is that “The PJs” (short for Punch and Judy) comes off with the hit-or-miss quality of sketch comedy. The debut episode, “Hangin’ With Mr. Super,” offers sly references to “Titanic,” “The Lion King” and “Twister,” but is filled out with a hackneyed story line and too many toilet jokes.

Sure, some may object, it’s a cartoon. It’s OK that the characters are rather one-dimensional. But “The Simpsons” has raised the bar for all adult animated programs to follow, as the creators of “King of the Hill,” “Celebrity Deathmatch” and “South Park” have discovered. Being ethnic or bizarre or gross isn’t enough, in and of itself. The audience needs well-rounded characters they can relate to, and “The PJs” can’t meet that standard.