The SmarK DVD Rant for The Tick: The Entire Series
“Contrary to popular belief, death isn’t just for dead people.”
– In the long run of boneheaded decisions made by the Fox network over the years, green-lighting this show and then canceling it after no promotion and 8 episodes aired probably ranks up there pretty highly.
Stuck in developmental hell for years and then given a timeslot of death, The Tick was the ambitious attempt by Men In Black producer Barry Sonnenfeld to bring Ben Edlund’s cult classic comic book/cartoon superhero spoof to the small screen, with decidedly mixed results. While wildly funny a lot of the time, 8 episodes just wasn’t enough to ever get things into a groove, or find the right character notes from the main group of heroes, and the end result is a fairly uneven, but still worthwhile, superhero romp that was totally unlike anything else on TV at time.
But hey, Columbia has now saved the day by releasing the entire run of the show on DVD, plus one episode that was actually unaired by Fox. SPOOOON!
The Film
The Tick as a hero is kind of hard to pin down. As a concept, it’s easy — a brilliantly written and conceived superhero sendup featuring a giant blue hero and his accountant sidekick Arthur. The Tick himself, however, whose powers consist of being mighty and nigh invulnerable (that we know of, there may be more), is an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in a big blue suit. He’s not dumb, as such — he just has a totally different view on what reality is, and he takes everything at face value. In an age of ironic superheroes, he’s a hero with absolutely no sense of irony. Just fair play, decency, and justice. Lots of justice. Steaming ladlefuls of justice, served up to evildoers standing in the soup-kitchen of crime!
Sorry, got caught up in the moment there.
The Tick has no backstory in the traditional sense of word — in the comics he broke out of an insane asylum and started superheroing, while in the show he just shows up at a bus station one day and tackles the fiendish villainy of the coffee machine.
Patrick Warburton was BORN to play the Tick, and the series would have been dead in the water without his deadpan delivery and sense of humor. Well, it was dead in the water regardless, but even more so. The problem is that Fox never knew how to market it — it’s not a show about superheroes, it’s a show about what superheroes do in between jobs.
There’s some minor changes from the comics, as womanizing Batman clone Die Fliedermaus has become BatManuel, and crusading cleaning lady American Maid is the much more dull Captain Liberty. Otherwise, the tone and attitude is much the same. The cartoon is still light-years better, as you’d expect, but boy did they give it a go here. The show’s 9 episodes (8 aired plus one shelved for god knows what reason) are presented in original production order, showing that Fox not only cancelled it early, but messed around with the order, too.
Disc One:
– Pilot. The most ambitious and elaborately produced of the series, as you’d expect, sees the Tick battling a coffee machine at a bus station, until the owners send him to The City to battle more appropriate foes and get him out of their hair. We meet Arthur, dull accountant who dreams of being a superhero, specifically a flying moth. Where the suit comes from is never explained, nor does it need to be. Tick saves Arthur from a horde of Russians, and the scourge of any good superhero — the giant communist robot — but soon they find themselves racing against time to save Jimmy Carter from assassination! But who will save Jimmy from the Tick? Great, insanely quotable stuff from The Tick here (“Gravity is a harsh mistress”) as Arthur learns to fly and we meet the supporting cast.
– The Terror. Shot second but never aired, this is the episode that bridges the gap between the pilot and the rest of the series, which makes it all the more baffling as to why it was dropped. As Arthur recounts the story of how he realized that he was destined to battle evil alongside his big blue buddy, we flash back to a year before, as Captain Liberty gives the Tick, who is craving a real challenge, the home phone number for the most fearsome supervillain of the 20th century the Terror! Unfortunately, it’s the 21st century and the Terror isn’t quite as spry as he used to be. Armin Shimerman (Quark from Star Trek DS9) is absolutely brilliant as the aging villain and questionable plot structure aside, this one is howlingly funny from start to finish, with Tick becoming accustomed to living with Arthur and Arthur battling the 112-year old supervillain to earn his stripes. If you need one reason to get this set, this is it.
– Arthur, Interrupted. Aired last and shot third, this one takes a gentle and touching look at an issue many teenagers can relate to — having the talk with your family and admitting that you’re a superhero. Arthur’s uptight mother and sister react as you’d expect, and have him committed to a loony bin run by the scene-chewing Dave Foley, who has an unexpected fetish of his own. Tick, meanwhile, does battle with his greatest foe to date — an uncooperative toilet! And I think the bathtub was plotting against him, too
– The License. Another brilliant one, as newcomer Tick doesn’t realize you need to carry a superhero license to practice superheroics in The City, which leads to a problematic conversation at the DMV — how does someone with no identity and history fill out the “birth date” portion of a form? The only solution is to put his face on milk cartons, which leads to someone claiming him his wife? Tick’s classic clueless nature and willingness to agree with any strong opinion is great here, as he just accepts anything that appears to be true. Meanwhile, BatManuel seeks out representation to get his name in the papers, for a reasonable rate, of course.
– Arthur Needs Space. Another classic theme is examined — chicks and superheroes — as Arthur bumps into a friend from high school, who happens to think that the moth suit is HOT. Arthur appears headed for nookie, but Tick won’t take the hint and leave him alone for a while. In fact, Tick appears to have no idea what sex even is, leaving a frustrated Arthur trying to ditch him and a baffled Captain Liberty nearly resorting to hand puppets to get the concept into his head. Again, the genius is that Warburton doesn’t play him dumb, just really innocent. The idea is funny but the episode never really clicks.
– Couples. This one is so bizarre and surreal that only Ben Edlund could have thought it up. Basically an allegory for abusive relationships, Tick & Arthur meet their first “couple” since joining up as partners — Fiery Blaze and Friendly Fire, who have a definite superhero-sidekick dynamic going on (“Was someone talking to YOU?”). Tick is happy to have someone to talk shop with, but Friendly Fire uses the opportunity to leave Blaze and move in with Arthur & Tick. This leads Captain Liberty to examine her own loneliness, and she channels it into buying a dog for all the wrong reasons. The speech from the pet store clerk on the subject is a riot. And the dog, which I assume is based on Speak, meets a decidedly R-rated end.
Disc Two:
– The Funeral. This one has all the best Tick quotes, most of them contained in his eulogy for recently-deceased superhero The Immortal. If you’re not laughing at that right now, by the way, you’re not to going get anything in this show, so give up now. The show is told in flashback, as Liberty escorts him from the airport to a book-signing, and they decide to stop at her apartment for a quickie leading to him dropping dead while shooting heat vision at the ceiling in the throes of passion. The visuals of finding the body alone make the episode. From there, it turns a little Three’s Company, as they have to get the body back to the hotel room to prevent any uncomfortable questions from being asked. The combination of sitcom and Weekend at Bernie’s doesn’t work, but Tick’s rambling eulogy is a must-hear.
– The Tick v. Justice. Another one that doesn’t really work, as it focuses on the trial of brilliant supervillain Destroyo. Caught when the Manuelmobile rear-ends him in a parking lot and the trunk is full of nuclear materials (which are inadmissible, of course), he swears revenge on a terrified BatManuel and Arthur (including a near-deadly NINJA ATTACK well, okay, not really deadly, but it sure scared Arthur) while Tick ends up in jail for doing his civic superhero duty and wonders if the system works or not. The joke of course is that he can break out any time he wants. And another subplot sees Captain Liberty getting free relationship counseling from the captive Destroyo in a parody of Silence of the Lambs. I found this one to be all over the place and probably the weakest of the bunch.
– The Big Leagues. The show wraps up with the Justice League spoof, as Tick and Arthur get invited to a prestigious League of Superheroes meeting but quickly discover that the group is a little TOO elitist, especially if you’re a woman or a minority. This leads Captain Liberty to file a class-action lawsuit against them, but her lawyer seems suspiciously like League leader The Champion, with glasses. The running gag with the Tick’s inability to grasp the whole concept of a secret identity is the star of the show.
Overall, while uneven taken as a whole, the show was such a magnificently different attempt to send up the superhero genre that no comic geek should pass it up. Unfortunately, network meddling and inability to “get it” led to an early demise, before the real potential of the show could ever be reached. The result is a disappointment, but it’s better than nothing.
The Video
Presented, amazingly enough, in anamorphic widescreen at 1.78:1, this is a beautiful, film-like transfer for what was a low-rated TV show. Tick’s blue suit is stunning, as are all the primary colors and bright whites of the show. Major kudos to Columbia for taking the time to present it in the ratio intended by the creators.
The Audio
It’s a TV show, so you get 2.0 Dolby Surround, and it’s fine. It’s mainly a dialogue show, but some of the special effects sound pretty good. Not much else to say.
The Extras
I’m shocked we got anything for extras, but we did. Barry Sonnenfeld contributes a commentary for the pilot, and Ben Edlund does one for four of the other episodes. Ben’s kind of a soft-spoken guy, and doesn’t have as much to say about his creation as you’d expect, mainly talking about the production aspect of the show. Barry’s much more animated and full of stories, like his discussions with executives on marketing the show. Still, much appreciated.
You also get a shitload of trailers for Columbia releases, like Bad Boys II, the Men In Black movies, and their recent TV show box sets.
Finally, the disc unlocks a special website, featuring a 25-minute interview with Barry Josephson and Patrick Warburton, as they answer questions about the show. This is actually GREAT stuff and I don’t know why they didn’t just throw it on the second disc, which has only an hour of material on it to begin with.
But hey, considering I was SHOCKED to see this even released on DVD, anything extra is a bonus, so huzzah.
The Ratings
The Film: ***1/2
The Video: ****1/2
The Audio: **
The Extras: **
