The Tick

The Tick ran on Saturday mornings for kids, but I knew of numerous adults that watched this show and loved it. The show is not for everyone, mind you. You will either understand the humor and love it, or not get it and quickly turn the channel. I was hooked on it from day one. The show had memorable characters, villains and very witty dialogue. It often left me thinking to myself that many kids were not going to get the humor because the show came off as more of a comic book satire than a kiddie show. The show did offer enough action and colorful characters to appeal to the Saturday morning crowd, though.

The writers of the show, which included Tick creator Ben Edlund, really hit a bull's-eye by creating such memorable heroes like Sewer Urchin (sounded very much like Dustin Hoffman in Rainman) and Die Fledermaus and great villains like The Terror and the unforgettable Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight. I also felt that Townsend Coleman did a wonderful job in bringing The Tick to life. He gave The Tick some real heart and soul. This show will always be one of my all-time favorites because of its satirical humor and memorable characters. I never get tired of it. I have as much fun watching The Tick now as I did when I first saw the show in the mid 1990's.

I thought it was impossible to find cartoons that parents can enjoy as much as (if not more than) the kids. The Tick proved me wrong. I laughed until I cried. Highly literate, The Tick is set in The City, a metropolis overrun with superheroes and villains. See Die Fledermaus, The Civic-Minded Five (yes, they drive a Civic), and American Maid as they battle evil with The Tick and his sidekick Arthur ("I'm not a bunny! I'm a moth!)

The Tick is really one of the most hilarious and original cartoons I've seen in a while. It's about a Stupid and clueless but good-hearted Superhero called the Tick (when asked if he could destroy the world he says "Egad, I hope not. That's where I keep all my stuff"). When he moves to The City he meets up with a meek accountant who becomes his sidekick. Based on the Comic book of the same name, the Tick has proven itself repetedly that superhero spoofs still work. Watch it when you can.

This was just a perfect show. It's too bad it appealed almost exclusively to a more mature audience. That is why it was cancelled. To stay on the air on Saturday morning you have to be able to sell toys to kids. If only FOX could have realized that this show could have been a huge success if they placed it in a timeslot that the more mature audience could be the target audience for the commercials.

Ludicrous, over the top and often hilarious cartoon based on the cult comic book character created by Ben Edlund. If you've read the other reviews, you know by now that the Tick is a 7-foot tall, 400 lbs blue superhero who is in fact a spoof of other superheroes and more often than not, feels as though he were based on the Adam West interpretation of Batman (from the 1960s TV series). The Tick is ungodly strong and ungodly tough, but he's a bit too dense and cheery for his own good, so he relies on his pudgy sidekick Arthur to be the brains between the two. The City they oversee is crawling with superheroes but most of them are either incompetent or cowards or both or maybe just plain crazy (American Maid is one of the few exceptions; Sewer Urchin is a true fish out of water, as he's not very useful on land but quite a bad ass in his natural environment: the sewer), so it's usually up to Tick and Arthur to save the day.

The first season was by far the best, pitting the Tick against the Idea Men, a mad chef, a giant man-dinosaur (Dinosaur Neil), another guy who used the name Tick, a giant lava monster, a mutant killer clown, a big Jaba-the-Hutt like alien, a green clone of himself, and even Arthur's bank account among others! It's hard to believe that Townsend Coleman, who voiced the Tick, was also the voice of Michaelangelo on "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" (former turtles-in-arms Cam "Leonardo" Clarke and Rob "Raphael" Paulsen also worked on this show, Clarke as Die Fleadermouse and Paulsen as the 2nd voice of Arthur).

Sadly, both this show and the live action one that starred "Seinfeld" alumnus Patrick Warburton as the Tick, kept getting canceled by Fox.

A while back I picked up "The Tick: The Naked City", which was a collection of the first six Tick issues done by Ben Edlund. I can't quite place my finger on it, but there was something different about the Tick in the original comic book from his cartoon and live action incarnations. The comic book humor, while still zany, was a bit darker. Seeing as how some of the original comics and classic moments from the original comics were adapted for the cartoon (like Tick tearing up Arthur's apartment because he thinks it's a secret headquarters) makes me wish they'd have adapted the ninja story line for the show or at least featured Oedipus (a ninja babe who was kind of like a spoof of the Elektra character who appeared in the Daredevil comics) and Paul the Samurai (the man with the sword disguised as French bread) once. I still haven't read or found any of the other Tick comics so I have no idea really if the comic book Tick eventually evolved into what his cartoon counterpart is or not.

But overall, I loved this show and miss it greatly.