Freakazoid: Season One – DVD Review

With Tiny Toon Adventures and Animaniacs under his belt, Steven Spielberg set out complete his trifecta of “Presents” cartoons by executive producing Freakazoid in 1995. With initial concepts by Bruce Timm and Paul Dini, and using a hodgepodge of writers and voice actors from some of the best episodes of Animaniacs to flesh out the series, Freakazoid follows the life of Dexter Douglas and his titlular superhero alter-ego. As we learn from the Emmy Nominated theme song, Dexter Douglas is a nerd computer ace who went surfing on the internet and was zapped to cyberspace; he turned into the Freakazoid who is strong and super-quick and drives the villains crazy because he’s a lunatic. And that is about all the background you’ll get and need for this superhero.

Freakazoid is a superhero spoof that fires on all pistons as it lovingly pokes at the genre with incredibly witty dialogue and an inspiring array of supporting characters and villains. In addition, the show is very aware of itself, which works in the favor of its anarchic comedic styling. The show will often cut away to talk about tie-in merchandise that doesn’t really exist or how well a test audience liked a certain segment. And being that the cartoon was produced by Warner Bros, the show gets away with taking digs at DC Comics characters, which Time-Warner owns. Increasingly strange and obscure pop culture references also help to give the show its unique voice. How many kids shows can you name that will reference Ed Wood?

Freakazoid, dressed in a red spandex jumpsuit with blue skin and hair styling inspired by Bride of Frankenstein, is an absolute whirlwind force to reckon with. Voiced by series writer Paul Rugg, somewhat involuntarily because no one else could quite get the insane script right, he taps into a mish-mash of classic cartoon characterisms along with an overly dramatic Jerry Lewis impersonation as he belts out the mile-a-minute puns and gags. Aiding him are talented supporting voice actors including legendary Ed Asner as Sergeant Cosgrove who is constantly sidetracking Freakazoid, as well as guest spots like Ben Stein as a network executive who introduces relax-o-vision and Mark Hamill as himself. Then President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton also made frequent “guest” appearances in the episodes.

Like Animaniacs, each episode of Freakazoid is broken down into multiple cartoon shorts and bits. While Freakazoid takes center stage as the star he is joined by an assortment of characters that help expand the show’s universe. Stand out characters include the British superhero Lord Bravery who is harassed by his mother-in-law, and The Huntsman who never quite gets to see any action or catch any bad guys.

Running congruently with the cartoon adaptation of cult comic book The Tick in the mid-nineties, Freakazoid captured a peculiar niche audience of mid-teenagers and adults, rather than the initially targeted Saturday morning child demographic. But with references to the New Yorker magazine, an entire episode that revolves around the viewer knowing the movie The Day The Earth Stood Still and children being scared that Sinbad will get another television show, is it any wonder the show flew straight over the kids laying on the rug and directly hit the adults sitting in the background? Unfortunately, Warner Bros never did figure out how to market their audience, and after two seasons the show was sadly canceled.

Up until now, the show has only been available with sporadic early morning syndication on The Cartoon Network and poorly created bootlegs. Finally though, Warner Bros has finally taken the hint and succumbed to the rabid fans’ demands for an official DVD release. Was it worth the wait? Absolutely! This two-disc set features all fourteen episodes of the first season completely uncut, unhinged and waiting to be rediscovered in all its glorified freakiness. After waiting all these year, fans can finally rejoice and once again Freak Out!

Presented in their original full-screen broadcast ratio with bursting color, each episode includes the English soundtrack in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0, along with English subtitles. The picture quality looks as good as when the episodes first aired, if not better.

Audio Commentary – Voice actor Paul Rugg, writer John McCann and producer Tom Ruegger comment on three key episodes of the series. Though the trio get caught watching the episodes a few times, there are some great tidbits that fans will definitely savor as we learn how the episodes and characters came to be.

The Original Freak – Find out just how Freakazoid evolved into the off-the-wall insaniac we all know and love with a retrospective look including interviewees Paul Rugg and co-creator Bruce Timm, and learn just how much Steven Spielberg was involved in the initial creation.

Freakazoid-less Freakazoid Promos – Take a look at the original promos leading up to the premiere of the shows, which are parodies of cruise ship commercials and don’t actually have any clips from episodes.

An absolute must for comic book and cartoon superhero fans, and worth a look for those that remember the good old days of Looney Tunes anarchy.

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Warner Brothers presents Freakazoid: Season One. Directed by Various. Starring Paul Rugg, Ed Asner, Frank Welker, Joe Leahy, Tracy Rowe. Written by Various. Running time: 300 minutes. Rated Not Rated. Released on DVD: July 29, 2008. Available at Amazon.com.