Ben Jensen
I vaguely remembered this show from it's first airing. I was the right age for the cartoon when it aired, and I remember liking that a lot, but I'd just started college when this hit the air and didn't watch much TV. This show was ahead of it's time, especially considering the recent slate of "vigilante superhero" films. Great over the top single cam comedy. Great Cast, great direction, and an excellent script. Standout episode 8 is hilarious, all of them are very funny. Aspiring writers should take notice of the the easily discerned A plot, B plot, C plot structure. The cast grew together and they really put the chemistry on screen after the first couple episodes.Do yourself a favor and watch all 9 on netflix. We rarely get anything out of the ordinary on TV and this is a perfect example of something that suffered from poor placement(direct competitor to survivor-which was new at the time) and lack of support from network.
Rob_Taylor
Fox is such a lame-ass network these days. Always canning shows because they aren't instant hits but never thinking that they should give them a decent time slot to begin with.The Tick is a classic piece of comedy that really should have been given at least two seasons to develop. Instead we got, what, 9 episodes or something. Just as you were beginning to really like the characters the series is over.Most of the humour comes from The Tick's complete lack of understanding of anything resembling normal human values or maturity. All he knows is that he must fight evil (and utter priceless lines of dialogue in the process).Batmanuel (originally Deflator Mouse in the cartoon) started off a little weakly, but quickly grew to match the Tick in humour value.It's a crime worthy of the Tick himself sorting out that this show did not last longer. Another season and we could have got a lot of the superheroes from the cartoons involved, and perhaps some really awful cheese-laden SFX to add to the mix. But it was not to be.Watch what there is and mourn the missed oppportunity.
liquidcelluloid-1
Network: Fox; Genre: Comedy; Rating: TV-PG (for suggested adult content); Available: DVD; Classification: Contemporary (Star range: 1 - 4); Seasons Reviewed: Complete Series (9 episodes) With rare exception, producer/director Barry Sonnenfeld has given us works with a one-of-a-kind live-action cartoon visual style but a weak handle on the comedy. He sets that tone for the rest of the series in the pilot of "The Tick", the latest incarnation of Ben Edlund's comic book creation about a mysterious blue superhero with the mental capacity of a child, an accountant, Arthur (David Burke) whose half-baked decision to become a superhero gets him in over his head and the stuff that happens between all the crime fighting and do-gooding.Patrick Warburton plays The Tick like he was born to fill that big plastic blue suit. While he is instantly recognized as David Puddy ("Seinfeld"), Warburton plays it here quite different. A reliable supporting actor on many shows, this is the first time Warburton has been allowed to hog the screen and he is a delight. Listening to him chew up and spit out the thick nonsensical word salad that makes up Edlund's monologues is the highlight of the series.It is all essentially a 4-person show. The Tick's partner, Arthur (a moth-man costume always confused for a rabbit), is supposed to be our guide into this superhero world but is such a wet blanket that he dampens the fun and begs the question if this show really needs a straight-man. It is a delight to see Liz Vassey (Captain Liberty) again, years after appearing in Sonnenfeld's superior, actually classically brilliant, Elmore Leonard adaptation "Maximum Bob". Nestor Carbonell ("Suddenly Susan") is an absolute hoot as the hapless, egotistical and cell phone-attached Batmanuel. Even viewers who don't like "The Tick" as a series will no doubt find something funny in Batmanuel. Don't scratch the Manuel-mobile, treat her gingerly.Sonnenfeld got a pretty good roster of guest stars in these 9 episodes. Sam McMurry ("Freaks and Geeks") shows up as a celebrity superhero, with the unfortunate name of "The Immortal", who winds up dead in "The Funeral". In "Couples" Ron Pearlman steals the show as The Torch, a superhero who constantly belittles his sidekick, Friendly Fire (a name so perfect it still makes me laugh).The Tick is a mystery who has no idea where he came from, who he really is or how he got his super powers in a universe where most superheroes are just wannabes in tights. The powers that be at Fox may bang their heads against the wall with the presentation of an enigmatic lead character, but that is what viewers really find interesting.Our lead provides the show-runners an interesting opportunity to play with how characters are usually developed. Where we usually learn more about a character as the show goes on, here what we learn of The Tick is retroactive as the show undoes things we just assumed a grown man of the Tick's age would know. There appears to be no bottom to it. As the episodes go on what we are consistently blown away with is how little The Tick knows - about anything. When the Tick gets a headache for the first time he describes it like his head is having a baby. The Tick wanders the streets trying to find out what "do it" means. The Tick doesn't know that people die, but thinks death is only for "dead people". And The Tick's reaction to seeing a picture of a naked women for the first time is priceless."The Tick" is by no means a sitcom. A studio audience would have no idea how to take it and wouldn't be able to pick up the more subtle dialog jokes. But for a single-camera series it feels uncharacteristically confined. We feel like we are constantly on a set. The characters, even the larger-than-life The Tick, are always stuck between 4 walls, whether it is Arthur's scuzzy apartment or the rooftop patrol. It is almost enough to give me claustrophobia. For a live-action cartoon the show is remarkably stagnate. Look at this show's distant canceled cousin "Greg the Bunny" to see what I mean. That show opens itself up and explored the format - and it stars puppets! While it's status as a canceled Fox series make it look like one, "The Tick" quickly falls well short of that exclusive Great Shows Canceled Before Their Time club. Uneven and unsatisfying, the show often falls back on relationship stories, couples spats, don't-be-alone lecturing and uninspired social parallels (superheroes must come out of the closet to their parents and it never goes well) then forging some new material. If you get a kick out of seeing the Tick arguing with a toilet, be my guest. This is a unique show, one so quirky I'm surprised it ever got on the air frankly. It is a great novel idea that doesn't appear to have a lot of play. The Tick never saves the day, there aren't any arch villains and giant robot fights. This is a show about the monotony between all that stuff, when the cape is let down and superheroes try to interact with the rest of us. "The Tick" is based on the principle that seeing a guy in a ridiculous costume walk into a bar, among regular people, and order a drink is inherently funny. That it is... to an extent.* * /4
