I haven’t posted a DVD review-story-recommendation since July due to inertia (*cough!* laziness), other stories were more pressing as they were more timely in nature and probably a touch of my ongoing anxiety (which subsided a few notches with the end of the election). This hasn’t meant I stopped watching and buying DVDs. Heck no! I’m an American to the end, consumption is in my DNA. Besides, we don’t have cable-satellite anymore so we watch our collection instead. This leads to purchasing more to build a library to loan out to friends, relatives and co-workers. Sadly, I was finally motivated to get off my butt to cover a trio of animated comedies I have always enjoyed because Fox officially cancelled King of the Hill to make room for more of Seth McFarlane’s mediocre crap. The following are three shows to consider when [Adult Swim] isn’t available.
I’ll kick off with the long awaited Duckman set covering the first two seasons. Back in the mid-Nineties, this obscure cartoon on USA never developed much of a following despite Jason Alexander as the lead character’s voice. It did have a brief rerun stint on Comedy Central but this network never pushed it like their current support of Futurama. Klasky-Csupo used to produce The Simpsons before this so my guess is they acquired the rights to Everett Peck’s comic strip to keep something adult in their portfolio to counter all the kiddie fare they did on Nickelodeon: Rugrats, Rocket Power and As Told by Ginger. The premise revolves around the misadventures of Duckman, an incompetent private detective who spends his free time hanging around topless joints. His wife Beatrice died a year earlier and left the house to her twin sister in the will; the mean-spirited, exercise-obsessed Bernice who continuously denigrates everything about Duckman. Living with the bickering duo are Duckman’s three sons: Ajax (a complete idiot), Charles and Mambo (the two-headed one); and the flatulent mute Grandma-ma. He fares better at work because he takes out his frustrations on the receptionists; the sickeningly sweet stuffed bears Fluffy and Uranus; and can get away with bullying his business partner Cornfed, a pig with Joe Friday mannerisms. Duckman’s antics vary. Some cover very obvious social commentaries on America’s character, celebrity rehab resorts and the nature of comedy. Others are escapades involving him in a reality show, dating a very ugly woman, overcoming his guilt with Beatrice’s death and meeting his reincarnated mother. Filling out the cast were spectacular guest voices, something a cable-only cartoon didn’t normally have until Duckman. This list included Michael McKean, Ed Asner, Ed Begley Jr., Ben Stiller, Katey Sagal, Bobcat Goldthwait, Gilbert Godfrey, Heather Locklear and Tim Curry (Duckman’s recurring nemesis, King Chicken). Watching the set in a couple evenings did reveal one element I grew tired of quickly…his predictable lectures disguised as rants. These must have been less noticeable when he was only on once a week. Still, the bulk of Duckman was a treat to revisit because much of the jokes survived the passing of time, few were caught up in current events which keeps its re-viewing capability high. I’m sure I’ll see things I missed the first time. In the extras department Duckman is pretty thin. Only the pilot has a commentary from creator Everett Peck and star Jason Alexander. There is an explanation of how the show was developed and brief interviews with the primary cast EG Daily, Nancy Travis, Greg Berger, Pat Musick and Jason Alexander. The “making of” featurette surprised me the most: I figured Peck was a political cartoonist or underground comic guy, not an instructor and consultant for other animated shows. If you’ve seen his original Duckman strips, you’d think Peck was a self-trained doodler who got a group of talented animators to clean up his characters to make this show possible. Thankfully, his creation got to keep its mean-spirited humor through the transition and did it 100 times better than Family Guy or in a less-preachy manner than South Park.
Another series I thought was great had a much shorter life span on two networks which didn’t “get it.” Everyone has seen the majority of The Critic thanks to Comedy Central playing it to death which made its complete boxed set less compelling in 2004. I bought it more recently since I got enough distance from its stint on cable. Much like Duckman, this show was developed by another set of people involved with The Simpsons but these were the show’s key writers: Mike Reiss, Al Jean and the legendary James Brooks. If you watch the DVD extras, you’ll find out the original plan for The Critic. It was going to be a sitcom for ABC involving the cast of a daily morning show; a cross between Broadcast News and Larry Sanders. Jon Lovitz would be a minor character, its movie critic. Due to the logistics and Lovitz’s availability, the live aspect was scrapped so the trio revamped it as a cartoon revolving around the critic. It worked out pretty well. This allowed Lovitz the opportunity to keep shooting movies while he would lay down his voice tracks between gigs. Admittedly the show appears centered around poking fun at movies (many of the jokes were rather dated too) which is probably what killed it in the ratings. Such a pity, the writers did a terrific job going beyond the superficial premise. Half of the episodes really cover Jay’s relationships with his family, co-workers, boss, friends and the women he dates. Jean even admits, the whole point of having the main character be a movie critic was to stick in brief clips poking fun at contemporary films. Strip away those jokes and the bulk of the show is not terribly different than The Simpsons as it tried to recapture the emotional resonance Jean & Reiss nailed in the legendary first season on Fox. The DVDs’ extras include commentaries on several key episodes, an explanation of the program’s evolution with Jean, Reiss, Brooks, Lovitz and LaMarche; and the entire collection of The Critic‘s brief run on the Internet as a web cartoon circa 1999-2000. I think many detractors might reconsider watching it again because of its legacy. What legacy? Many of the writers went on to produce episodes for The Simpsons and Futurama: Ken Keeler, Patric Verrone (WGA president during the recent strike) and Tom Gammill; Larry Sanders: Jon Vitti; Sabrina the Teenage Witch: Nell Scovell; and Hollywood’s current golden boy, Judd Apatow.
Closing out is King of the Hill Season One, a show I feel will have a key spot in TV and animation history. I broke down and scored it around my birthday because I hadn’t seen much of it in syndication. It’s still as funny as I remember when it debuted in 1997. Maybe my perspective is colored by 14 years of living in Central Texas since I am familiar with the common stereotypes it features, but you’d have to seek them out in the nearby towns around Austin. Many long-term residents such as my wife have always found this cartoon annoying, it probably hits too close to home like Office Space does for me. Mike Judge and Greg Daniels did an incredible job creating another animated show about a family without resorting to it being a poor, carbon copy of The Simpsons, aka Seth McFarlane’s over reliance on flashbacks, “what if‚” jokes and absurdity. A huge part of its longevity was how it remained anchored in “reality,” never allowing the writers to cop out with the creative license animation can take, namely physical humor, exaggerations or continuity violations like “Treehouse of Horror.” King is really just a sitcom using animation to get around casting limitations (Stephen Root and Toby Huss each play at least two recurring characters) and sometimes cartoon characters can get away with saying certain things live actors wouldn’t dare on TV. King shines in the extras through numerous deleted scenes-alternate endings (I prefer the one aired in “The Company Man”) and the “Making of,” featurette. There are commentaries but I skipped them because they’re narrated in the voices of the characters. Maybe I’ll go back, check out the ones done by Greg Daniels though. My only hope is that Fox allows King‘s writers time to wrap up everything and give one of their longest running programs some closure. Not a cheap, tacked on ending Married with Children had foisted upon it. Something conclusive, memorable and classy like M*A*S*H or Newhart.