The Critic

[Egon1982]

Remember this hilarious mid 90s adult animated sitcom? it was pre-Family Guy and loved it since i was 12 when it debuted on ABC then Fox later

[AquaParade]

"It stinks."

[Leo656]

My wife and I literally just finished watching the show again yesterday. Eerie.

Anyways, yeah, I always loved this show to death. A real shame it never found its niche but it was both a little bit too ahead of its time and also a bit too sophisticated for the audience watching in that moment. In reading about it, it would seem that many people wanted it to be more like the Simpsons but with a lot more movie parodies, like the parodies were what the contemporary audience was mostly interested in but less so the trials and tribulations of Jay as a character. Even Siskel and Ebert (who were clearly speaking from a place of slight personal bias, although they liked the show in general) said that they'd prefer the show be more full of movie parody clips and such. I'unno, I partly wish that but I also think that could've gotten really old really fast. I think that was the worm to get people watching but the show's clearly more about Jay's life in NYC than anything else.

It was just a few years ahead of the curve with the surrealist humor, random cut-away gags, and the specific style of parodying movies. It's amazing when you watch it now just how much Family Guy took from it, either directly or indirectly, just a couple of years later.

I generally like Jon Lovitz a whole lot, and this show was a really great platform for him, especially when he'd get to make fun at himself. I always forget about the "No, I don't think he DIED" gag near the end of the series and it never fails to crack me up, the delivery is perfect.

You can tell that Fox really tried to "lighten up" the show very subtly when they picked it up. Not only did the art style get softened up a bit, but Jay actually started saying that he liked most of the films he saw, something he never did in the first Season. Not a "bad" thing exactly, it just really stands out upon re-watching how he never gave anything a good review in Season 1, and then in Season 2 he seemed to like everything. A little more balance across the two would have been nice.

Duke Philips is my personal hero. "Pigeons seem to like the sound of my -HURK-!"

I love Kath Soucie a whole bunch, so I always get a kick out of how she's 99.9% of the female cast in this. She's literally every female character besides like three of 'em, it's awesome.

Some of my all-time favorite TV gags were the repeated Orson Welles bits, which I quote in real life quite often. Nobody watched this show so very few people understand what the f*ck I'm talking about.



But yeah, I love this show. Wasn't in love with the Webisodes that came later but eh, they tried.

[drgon78]

Great cartoon, one of the many that deserved more then 1-2 seasons.