Mission Hill

Last week, season seven of The Simpsons appeared on DVD. Besides it being the season which started with the conclusion of who shot Mr. Burns, it is also the season Bill Oakley and Josh Weinstein took over David Mirkin’s position as the Show Runners; probably a fancier name for head writers but there are probably some legal definitions involved too. After their tenure on The Simpsons, Bill and Josh moved on to develop Mission Hill for the young WB network.

Sadly, the show only had a few episodes air before it was cancelled much like every other program on a struggling network no one is watching. Thanks to Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network, this show received another opportunity to broadcast all 13 of the produced episodes and gain the audience that it was truly made for. Now all 13 are available in this two-disc DVD set for $30 and it includes commentary on four shows along with a quick history of its evolution during the two years of development.

I’m not really impressed with commentaries on most movies or shows, unless it’s The Simpsons or Futurama because Groening and his staff actually have jokes, stories and explanations worth listening to. Mission Hill is a welcome addition to that pair even if there isn’t commentary on all 13. Oakley & Weinstein at least chose the shows they felt were critical to the program’s story arc and like Crusade (the sequel to Babylon 5) they reveal what they were planning if MH survived for several seasons. Too bad the suits at WB weren’t people of patience and vision.

What’s Mission Hill about? It’s the adventures slacker Andy (Wally Langham) living in the hip Mission Hill neighborhood of Cosmopolis with his roommates Jim (Brian Posehn) and Posey (Vicki Lewis). Andy aspires to be a cartoonist but for now he’s content getting by with his gig at the waterbed store. This perfect world is disrupted by his parents foisting his ultra-nerd, teenage brother Kevin (Scott Menville) on him because they’re moving to Wyoming and Kevin wanted to finish senior year close to home. It wasn’t always about the fraternal friction though. There was an episode mocking MTV’s annoying The Real World invading their neighborhood, a couple involving Andy’s employer “Ron” (an immigrant from an undetermined Eastern European nation) and another explaining the relationship between the elderly gay couple in Andy’s building. It works really well as a cartoon for the same reasons why The Simpsons does:

1. The show can have a larger cast through animation and voice actors while a traditional sitcom would be too expensive.
2. Humorous physical violence is impossible “live” yet effective in animation.
3. Mission Hill used similar techniques from comic strips to illustrate a character’s mood. My personal favorite was the daggers shooting from Andy’s eyes at Kevin when he was ticked off.

After watching this on Adult Swim a couple of times, I used to wish that the Cartoon Network would revive it and bankroll at least another season as they did with Home Movies. Then I listened to Oakley & Weinstein’s commentaries explaining the MH‘s mindset. I feel the show’s moment passed shortly after it was cancelled. Too many years have gone by for them to pick up where they left off, especially with the majority of Generation X being in its late 20s to early 30s (their words, not mine). MH wasn’t meant to be a show with its characters frozen in time while the world advances like The Simpsons or Family Guy. It’s better to appreciate what Bill Oakley & Josh Weinstein did accomplish and not ponder the possibilities of what might have been. I highly recommend this show since it also promoted how well animation can entertain at an adult level in the tradition of King of the Hill and Futurama.