Although that’s the only instance he’s really been focused on, he’s also cropped up in the background a few times since they’ve moved to New York. On the “It Happening One Night” commentary Jackson Publick outlined the entire aborted subplot he had for him(?) that couldn’t fit in the episode, which I’m guessing will…

Season 2, at the time, was far and away the best-animated show Adult Swim had ever commissioned. It’s a testament to how far the series has come that those episodes now look pretty stiff with fairly rushed backgrounds by comparison to season 3 even.

Definitely my favourite Doc Hammer episode this season. As pointed out in the review, he’s really good at writing episodes that bounce around from these almost little vignettes of people bantering while cool shit is going on in the background (e.g. “Tag Sale — You’re It!”, “Victor. Echo. November.”, “The Buddy…

I liked this one a lot. My favourite sub-genre of Venture Bros. eps are the “kitchen sink” episodes (usually) by Jackson Publick AKA the ones that are seemingly overstuffed with ideas that maybe shouldn’t even be sharing screentime with each other, but then somehow it all clicks together in the last moments. (A few…

Considering Presto Chango’s gimmick and the sheer commitment from Mark Hamill, I was disappointed at how few jokes they were doing with him and how flat his transformations were. And then he temporarily duped Brock by changing into a stairmaster and got stabbed in the face, which three days later is still making me…

I had kind of put a pin in assessing season 6 for the past two and a half years since I knew it wasn’t the full picture Publick and Hammer wanted to paint. What I initially adored about this show is the way each episode stood out from each other due to the character focus and/or settings shifting week to week, as well…

There really is an endless list of great Sean O’Neal pieces, and I can’t wait to lose my day revisiting or finally discovering the stuff that’s inevitably going to get posted here. Two fairly recent ones that I loved were his dives into anime and Frank Zappa that he did with his “College Try” feature. They really…

I remember in Roger Ebert’s review of The 40-Year-Old Virgin he referred to some of the scenes between Steve Carell and Catherine Keener as being “almost too sweet to be funny, but not quite.” It’s a tremendously tricky being balance to pull off, but Superbad’s ending absolutely earns it. As much as I’ve enjoyed some…

Yeah, I give this and Princess Mononoke credit for being just about the only animated environmental films out there in which nature pretty definitively loses. “We already fucked up, so make sure we do better moving forward” is a much better message than “The natural world is in danger, but we fixed it within 90…

The unofficial Simpsons oral history by John Ortved that came out about a decade ago out was a pretty weak book with a ton of problems that, nevertheless, I have read eight times. I have a feeling I’m going to agree with many of these criticisms, but there’s no way I’m not buying Reiss’ book and devouring it anyway.

I was legitimately bummed when I finished watching Home Movies and realised that I wouldn’t get to hear Small do his Addleburg voice. Then, years later, Victor was born and I’ve gotten to hear that voice again for literally hours. A beautiful thing.

It was never my favourite part of the show or anything but I have to give the writers credit for their sheer commitment to finding increasingly insane variations on the “Ya get that thing I sent ya?” joke.

It’s been awhile since I’ve thought about Harvey Birdman’s, uh, lore, so forgive me if this is inaccurate, but I think the show’s universe already laid the groundwork for his return. Check it out:

- The season 3 finale features Lewis Black’s Deadly Duplicator making multiple copies of Harvey. These copies are seemingly…

I’d wager that Harvey Birdman’s turn from wacky parody of Hanna-Barbera cartoons to workplace comedy/social satire was one of the better unsung pivots a TV show has done. I wouldn’t call it the sharpest animated satire of its era or anything, but it worked within the show’s universe surprisingly well.

As a movie I don’t think we’re missing out on much, but I must admit that I like the idea of everyone having the shared cultural experience of being forced to see Coupon: The Movie from Mr. Show.

I think the laugh you’re referring to is from none other than creator James L. Brooks. I heard him laugh identically on a Simpsons commentary track, and for one glorious moment it felt like every mystery in the world could be solved.

Even though the Two Face glass had a series of coins as a handle that made it impossible to comfortably hold, I still loved that thing as only a boy who had no desire to actually see the movie could.

I am sorry to report that all they will serve is <i>Only Yesterday</i>-inspired Disappointing Pineapple.

The Pete 2.0 that springs up around season 4 is actually one of my favourite aspects of the show. He can still be the straightman when the joke calls for it, but they added this fringe lunatic element to him and piled on these absurd details about his incredibly depressing personal life that I just loved. Stealth MVP…

The animated Buzz Lightyear cartoon, of all things, beat them to it with their Craig Ferguson-voiced robot vampire.