The Tick was created by Ben Edlund and started life as an independently published comic book in 1988. The book featured an intellectually challenged protagonist called the Tick who - despite being well intentioned - was catastrophically clueless. This amusing parody of various superhero comics was further enhanced by the Tick's knack for causing massive amounts of property damage and his penchant for rambling, nonsensical speeches regarding life and the nature of good and evil. Due to the multimedia success of another independent comic - Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - people began approaching Edlund with the idea of bringing his big blue hero to animation in the late 80's and early 90's. Premiering in 1994 The Tick would go on to become a modest success running three seasons and 36 episodes before its end in 1996. Despite never becoming a merchandising juggernaut like TMNT, the Tick did maintain something the "heroes in a half-shell" couldn't, creative integrity. Amusingly bizarre, insanely clever and chock full of great characters, the Tick is one of the greatest cartoon superhero parodies ever made.
The fact that the Tick was able to stay true to his satirical roots wasn't an accident by any means. Creator Ben Edlund was not only very involved in the show, he was waist deep in it from beginning to end. Serving as both the primary writer and co-producer of the series, Edlund's tireless efforts to make the Tick work in animation are a big reason the show has aged as well as it has. As for the writing itself, it employees various forms of humor when poking fun of the superhero genre. From outlandish ideas like paleontologist Dinosaur Neil accidentally turning himself into a godzilla-like creature, to everyday concerns like Author (the Ticks sidekick) getting angry with the Tick for charging an overabundance of crime fighting equipment to his credit card, the show likes to explore both the practical and zany aspects of superhero life. Though Freakazoid would go on to be far zanier and Venture Bros. has mastered the art of applying everyday life to people who are anything but ordinary, I'm hard pressed to think of any cartoon that balances the two as well as the Tick. Having said all that, I must admit that the humor of the series doesn't produce enough "laugh out loud" moments, especially in the first season. I smiled a lot and chuckled quite a bit, but despite the hilarious premises I often found the jokes lacked a certain "punch" necessary to leave me in stitches. Seasons two and three are definitely better with some episodes like "Armless but not Harmless" and "Coach Fussell's Lament" hitting on all cylinders. Overall though I wish the show had made me laugh a little more.
One area the Tick doesn't come up short in is quality characters. The cast of this show is huge, amazing when you consider it was only 36 episodes in length. Some of my favorites include: the suave yet cowardly Die Fledermaus, rain-man sound alike Sewer Urchin, shoe throwing patriot American Maid, the maniacal Chairface Chippendale (whose head is literally a chair), the Mad Bomber what Bombs at Midnight and geriatric villain the Terror. All of these characters - and more - make wonderful parodies with subtle and not so subtle character quirks. Personally I thought American Maid was a riot. She's a strong, independent and capable woman who can take charge of dangerous situations and commands the respect of her peers. Yet she chooses the guise of a maid (which is neither patriotic or authoritative) and throws high-heeled shoes at her opponents, there's just something hilariously ironic about that. The enormous creativity and shear number of characters found in the Tick is staggering, outside of the Simpsons I can't think of any other show featuring a cast this large and unique.
Another unique - but mostly under appreciated - aspect of the Tick would be its attention to detail. Often times cartoons will say or do things in one story then completely ignore them in later episodes. Things like Peter Griffin losing his job in Family Guy but then having that same job in the very next episode (heck, the show even joked about the fact they were going to do it in the Black Knight story). This practice has become pretty standard but I've always felt it was a little lazy. By contrast the Tick not only respects its own continuity, the show goes the extra mile to bring back little easter eggs for loyal viewers to enjoy. One example can be found in season two when several heroes are forced to hitch a ride with El Seed's truck driving trees who escaped capture in season one. Another would be when the Tick travels into space in season two and Yank (an astronaut monkey who temporarily gained super intelligence in season one and was subsequently put in charge or NASA) is in the command center during lift off. The most impressive thing has to be the moon though. In season one Chairface Chippendale carves the first three letters of his name (CHA) into the moon with a giant laser, those same letters appear every time the moon is shown until the Tick uses explosives to fill-in the "C" early in season two. During that same episode however, the planet eating giant Omnipotus (a Galactus spoof) takes a large bite out of the moon to help curb his appetite, so now we have a big chunk missing from the moon with the letters "HA" still carved into it. While this is - in and of itself - very funny, what I find most impressive is how the series never fails to consistently show this lunar defacing throughout the remaining episodes, even at the end you can still see the letters "HA" right next to a big bite in the moon. Like I said, great attention to detail.
Visually the Tick was an excellent series, even if the animation was sometimes unspectacular. The show probably looked best early on with some episodes - like Dinosaur Neil - being exceptional. As the series moved along though, the animation became more pedestrian and less ambitious. Still, the character models were consistent and the movement fluid so I don't have anything really "bad" to say about it. Backgrounds are likewise pleasant, if not impressive.
On a more positive note, character designs from the Tick are great. Outside of Author and the Tick himself I don't know how many costumes stemmed from the comic book source material, but regardless I thought both the hero and villain designs had just the right amount of "whacky" necessary to support the show's tone. Overall the Tick's visuals have held up relatively well given the show's age (hard to believe its been 16 years), they're definitely better than Saban's 1990's shows (I'm looking at you X-men), but nowhere near as good as the Bruce Timm's Batman and Superman cartoons.
From a voice acting standpoint the Tick is nearly perfect. With a plethora of actors - almost as large as the cartoon cast itself - the show never fails to produce distinct voices for all of its characters. The most important of these is - of course - the Tick who receives the services of veteran actor Townsend Coleman. Coleman IS the Tick as far as I'm concerned, his ability to belt out heroic ultimatums, nonsensical metaphors and bizarre battle cries (Spoooooooon!) is unbeatable. Other talented veterans like Jim Cummings, Maurice LaMarche, Jess Harnell and Rob Paulsen get to strut their stuff as well. The one downside in this department is that some of the shows voices change during the course of the series. The only one that really bothered me was Author being that he's one of two main characters. Micky Dolenz (of Monkeys fame) provides the voice of Author in season one with Rob Paulsen taking over in seasons two and three. Though both actors do an excellent job, it bums me out to see the break in continuity, especially when the show took such pride in being consistent with its presentation. Still, the change took very little getting used to and doesn't really diminish the show.
The Tick is an easy recommendation. The show has aged exceptionally thanks to its immensely talented and dedicated creators, the characters continue to be brilliant - even some 16 years later - and the series helped pave the way for much of the great action-adventure satire we enjoy today. Both accessible and appropriate for all ages, the only people who shouldn't watch this series are people who hate any and everything to do with superheroes. Unfortunately the DVD releases for this show have some problems. Let's start with the obvious. Only the first two seasons of the Tick are available in the US (season three did not get released here for some reason) and they don't have any special features. Worse still, the season one set clearly had authoring problems because the video is not good, especially the Proto-clown episode which looked nothing short of awful. Even MORE worse is the fact that both seasons one and two are each missing an episode (apparently there were copyright issues) including the great Omnipotus story. I believe that the entire series was properly released in the UK, but that doesn't do North American residents much good. So if you want to take my advice and watch this show you'll probably be in for a little bit of a hassle, luckily the Tick is well worth the effort.
