#3
THE CRITIC
Why I liked it: The 90s were a great time for films and television. This show blended the two. It was produced by one of the two guys behind The Simpsons (which later came back to bite them in the ass). The premise surrounded a film critic, Jay Sherman (voiced by Jon Lovitz), and his wacky life. His main problem was that he thought the film industry was dumbing down movies to appeal to a wider audience, but in reality, Jay just thought he was smarter than everyone else. One of the best parts of each episode was Jay's show Coming Attractions, where parodies of popular movies were "reviewed." Often these were just silly, but had some serious comic weight to them--this was before the horrendous influx of the "Whatever" Movie franchise. One of the most memorable films lampooned was The Merchant of Venice Beach, starring Keaunu Reeves as a tortured surfer where he says: "Hath not a dudes eyes? If you prick us, do we not get bummed? If you poison us, do we not blow chunks?" But the real heart of the show came from the people Jay surrounded himself with. He had a nutty family, a rag-tag group of nutty friends, and a boss that loved/hated him--much like the relationship between Tina Fey's and Alec Baldwin's characters in 30 Rock. The interactions Jay had with these people showed that he was more than just an egotistical movie critic who hated every movie being made, but that he also had a humanity to him that, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't get rid of.
Why it got the boot: For one thing, it jumped networks in between seasons one and two. The first season aired on ABC, the second on FOX. One of the reasons for this was the apparent success of the animated sitcom that FOX had perfected. ABC just wasn't in to it. Fox put more of a driving force behind the show, but, ultimately refused to produce any more episodes--several scripts were written for a third season, pending another network jump to UPN, but nothing happened with that because FOX didn't officially cancel the show until after the deal with UPN expired. (Boy, FOX seems to be screwing with a lot of my favorite shows.) There were some digital webisodes that were shown at AtomFilms and on Shockwave in the first part of 2000, and they are included on the DVD box set.
The Critic waas such a funny show. I remember so many lines from it (which is impressive given how long ago it was on.) And you're right, the more I think about it the more I think Fox sucks.
ReplyDelete