SPOOOOON!
August 31, 2014 5:21 PM   Subscribe

The Tick is a big, blue, nigh-invulnerable, possibly brain-damaged super-hero created by Ben Edlund in 1986. He has appeared in comic books (1988), animated TV (1994), and live action TV (2001). According to The Wrap, Patrick Warburton has worked out a deal with Sony to create a new Tick pilot for Amazon.
posted by Guy Smiley (99 comments total) 50 users marked this as a favorite
 
According to The Wrap, Patrick Warburton has worked out a deal with Sony to create a new Tick pilot for Amazon.

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS
posted by tzikeh at 5:22 PM on August 31, 2014 [6 favorites]


No, you mean SPOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNN!
posted by GamblingBlues at 5:24 PM on August 31, 2014 [7 favorites]


Arthur! Arthur! Arthur!
posted by Buttons Bellbottom at 5:24 PM on August 31, 2014


BEN! EDLUND! BEN! EDLUND!
posted by The Whelk at 5:28 PM on August 31, 2014 [7 favorites]


Gary Busey as The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight. This MUST happen.
posted by delfin at 5:34 PM on August 31, 2014 [19 favorites]


I hope they don't pull the same crap with American Maid they pulled in the live action. Batmanuel can stay.
posted by angerbot at 5:34 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


That's great news... the tick was an amazing show, but definitely niche, and amazon or netflix would be a great fit.
posted by Huck500 at 5:34 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


No, you mean SPOOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNNNN!

Yes. Yes I do.
posted by Guy Smiley at 5:36 PM on August 31, 2014


Not in the face! Not in the face!
posted by Grimgrin at 5:37 PM on August 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


El Seed still makes me laugh.
posted by MonkeyToes at 5:38 PM on August 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


Oh my god, the animated part where the Tick says to Arthur while they are dangling from a rope and need to build momentum, "Swing with me, Arthur, swing!" - and then swing music starts playing, OMG, that alone almost makes me feel that there's some worth to humans.
posted by Frowner at 5:40 PM on August 31, 2014 [7 favorites]


Not in the face! Not in the face!
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 5:42 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Hug your destiny, Arthur. Hug it!
posted by underflow at 5:47 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


The 2001 The Tick starring Patrick Warburton is f'ing brilliant. If you haven't seen it, go do that.

One of my favorite lines: "Who puts gum on a roof?"
posted by mcstayinskool at 5:59 PM on August 31, 2014 [6 favorites]


Warburton is currently being wasted as a smug asshole (but not a particularly funny one) on a terrible sitcom whose name I refuse to look up. I would much rather see him back in his Tick costume.
posted by emjaybee at 6:00 PM on August 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


Gary Busey as The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight.

Oh sure, that sounds real.
posted by George_Spiggott at 6:03 PM on August 31, 2014


I love that The Tick: The Naked City starts off with him breaking out of the insane asylum because he's bored.

What ever happened with the comics, though? They've been out of print for ages. Sometimes you can find them on amazon or ebay reasonably priced, but most of the time people want to charge some insane amount for the books.

According to Wikipedia, Edlund worked with Joss Whedon on Firefly and came up with Bad Horse and Moist for Dr. Horrible. I had no idea.
posted by johnofjack at 6:05 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


I got a Tick comic on Free Comic Day, it was pretty fun. Don't know if there's a run going otherwise, I haven't sought them out.
posted by emjaybee at 6:08 PM on August 31, 2014


The city...My the city...stop writing letters, they're made of trees.
posted by vrakatar at 6:09 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Edlund worked with Joss Whedon on Firefly

As soon as you said that I thought, "I'll bet he came up with Jayne. Much more an Edlund character than a Whedon one. And I'll bet he wrote 'Jaynestown' too because that whole thing is pure Edlund."

And then I looked. Hee.
posted by George_Spiggott at 6:11 PM on August 31, 2014 [6 favorites]


I save quotes from anything and everything -- this is from a 2001 review of the live-action Tick that was published just before the premiere aired (I cannot remember the source; it might be the AV Club):
THE TICK: Fox brings the beloved cult comic book The Tick to life in a brilliantly-executed sitcom, then schedules it opposite "Survivor: Africa." Next week: Fox creates a delicate, jeweled statue fashioned of hand-wrought platinum and ivory, then sinks it in Canada's icy Beaufort Sea.
posted by tzikeh at 6:12 PM on August 31, 2014 [28 favorites]


Also, I'd bet a Blue Sun t-shirt with a slash in it that Edlund wrote Wash's first scene, with the dinosaurs. As well as lines like "Y'know, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle."
posted by George_Spiggott at 6:17 PM on August 31, 2014 [4 favorites]


Ben Edlund also wrote the amazing wishing well episode of Supernatural. He's currently writing for Gotham.
posted by Bookhouse at 6:26 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


I hope we'll get to see a live-action Civic-Minded Five., or maybe that meddling Captain Decency and his Decency Squad.
posted by mogget at 6:27 PM on August 31, 2014


Part of what made the cartoon version so great was its soundtrack. And the opening credits music is simply perfect.

I recently started a re-watch of the Tick cartoon and ended up searching for the origins of that piece, and I found an interview with the guy that made it. I've been saving it for a post, but never found the time or the right pieces to go with it, so I'll just leave this here.
posted by ursus_comiter at 6:35 PM on August 31, 2014 [7 favorites]


According to Jose Molina and Javier Grillo-Marxuach's amazing podcast "Children of Tendu", Edlund was 17 when he started writing "The Tick". 17. Years old.
posted by Shotgun Shakespeare at 6:38 PM on August 31, 2014


Also, I played on a pool team called the Civic-Minded Five.
posted by Shotgun Shakespeare at 6:38 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


I love Patrick Warburton so hard, both in live action and in animation. He can play smart as well as dumb; he can play naive as well as jaded as all hell. There's nobody in the world better suited to playing a real-life The Tick. And I'll tell you: at first I was skeptical of the face-revealing costume, but I quickly realized just how much Warburton can accomplish with just one perfectly controlled eyebrow.

He also plays a perfect foil as a straitlaced American rocket scientist in 2000's The Dish, which you should see if you haven't already, because it's thoroughly charming.
posted by Faint of Butt at 6:51 PM on August 31, 2014 [6 favorites]


Ben Edlund also wrote the amazing wishing well episode of Supernatural.

Edlund in the writing room was partly responsible for the bonkers, genre bending manic comic book episodes of Supernatural I: E the parts I totally love so I want to see anything and everything he wants to do.
posted by The Whelk at 6:55 PM on August 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


If someone were to ask me to defend what happened in the '90s that so shocked everyone, we've had 15+ years worth of 80's nostalgia defining everything - it would be the Fox cartoon. Someone gave Ben Edlund a cartoon. One based on his comic, which was a parody of a parody of a parody, drawn in black and white and printed on the cheap by a Massachusetts comic shop chain that made most of its money at the time with sports trading cards.

The Tick. Poorly animated, even by contemporary standards. There's a backstory and origin sooomewhere, no one cares. Really. No one cares. One of the genius parts of this. The Tick's origin is a cheap throwaway gag, and Super Heroes(TM) don't dooooo that with origin stories.

The theme song is jazz scat. Villains are stopped in mid-evil-plot, and their partial success is on display every full moon, you cannot escape your mistakes. The trick is not to care, and move on, trying really, really hard not to be as crazy next time, but... even when you win outright, you still loose a little, and Arthur never clues in, and the Tick is at this point beyond reaching...

The live action series only explored the aspect of heroes getting crazier with every victory, which didn't play so well - it was like Sienfeld episode in colorful tights. It didn't explore the random broken nature of the Tick's opponents.

So. If Warburton, who IS the Tick, every inch as much as Robert Downey Jr. is Iron Man, a role he was destined to play, and play supremely, can recapture that magic with a Ben "Suprnatural" Edlund script... only glory awaits.
posted by Slap*Happy at 6:56 PM on August 31, 2014 [21 favorites]


Vaguely recalled thru a dim haze:

Villain, sneers: "Like Achilles sulking in his tent!"

Villain's henchman, adds, mumbling: "Like AkIleez slulkin iniz tenz!".
posted by ovvl at 7:00 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Guys, I'm sorry I haven't been around much lately. I'm easily distracted by shiny objects -- wait, what was this thread about?
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:00 PM on August 31, 2014


ovvi, I think you're referring to this scene: "Read a book!"
posted by mogget at 7:10 PM on August 31, 2014 [5 favorites]


He baked the muffin that stole my car!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:15 PM on August 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


Yuuulleeeeeetiiiiideeeeeeeeeeeeee!
posted by phearlez at 7:20 PM on August 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


The Tick is also the tipping point that moved ninjae from being some sort of vaguely yellow peril-esque oriental menace* to more of a nuisance along the lines of raccoons and Jehovah's Witnesses.


*Ignoring the fact that most people's actual conception of a ninja involves confusing Sengoku-period spies with kabuki stagehands.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:22 PM on August 31, 2014 [5 favorites]


I'm making gravy without the lumps. Yeah baby yeah.
posted by Poldo at 7:23 PM on August 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


Edlund worked with Joss Whedon on Firefly and came up with Bad Horse and Moist for Dr. Horrible.


That makes so much sense, I'm surprised I never realized it before. DAMN YOU FAKE THOMAS JEFFERSON!
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 7:26 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


Edlund in the writing room was partly responsible for the bonkers, genre bending manic comic book episodes of Supernatural I: E the parts I totally love so I want to see anything and everything he wants to do.

Edlund was also one of the creative forces behind the creation of The Venture Brothers, which I love only slightly more than my family.
posted by Pope Guilty at 7:31 PM on August 31, 2014 [9 favorites]


The Tick is also the tipping point that moved ninjae from being some sort of vaguely yellow peril-esque oriental menace* to more of a nuisance along the lines of raccoons and Jehovah's Witnesses.

But hedges? You have to be careful with hedges.
posted by delfin at 7:35 PM on August 31, 2014 [5 favorites]


Yeah, baby!
posted by evilmidnightbomberwhatbombsatmidnight at 7:40 PM on August 31, 2014 [10 favorites]


So he says to me, “You gotta do something smart, baby! Something big!” He says, “You want to be a super-villain, right?!” And I go, “Yeah, baby, yeah! Yeah! What do I gotta do?!” He says, “You got bombs! Blow up Amazon.com! It now owns Comixology, packed with super-heroes! You'll go down in super-villain history!” And I go, “Yeah, baby! 'Cause I'm the Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight!” Ah ha ha ha ha ha!
posted by evilmidnightbomberwhatbombsatmidnight at 7:43 PM on August 31, 2014 [21 favorites]


Maurice LeMarche was the voice of the Mad Bomber what Bombs at Midnight Yeah Baby Yeah. Of course he was.
posted by Slap*Happy at 7:52 PM on August 31, 2014




When the final part of Dr. Horrible appeared, my wife was shocked that Bad Horse was literally a horse. I, being familiar with the works of Ben Edlund, was shocked that she thought he wouldn't be. Bad Horse is so part of the same worldview that gave us Man-Eating Cow.

... wait.

OMG, how did I not see this before. DOCTOR HORRIBLE and THE TICK are (quite possibly) part of the SAME superhero universe!
posted by fings at 7:59 PM on August 31, 2014 [16 favorites]




This needs to happen. I stumbled onto the live action show on Netflix and loved it.
posted by arcticseal at 8:05 PM on August 31, 2014


OMG, how did I not see this before. DOCTOR HORRIBLE and THE TICK are (quite possibly) part of the SAME superhero universe!

That first time watching Dr. Horrible, I felt so warm inside and happy. There was just something so familiar about its sensibility ...and then, when we see that shot of Bad Horse and his council, that's when I understood... Its the same Universe as The Tick, and that has been my head-canon ever since.
posted by The Legit Republic of Blanketsburg at 8:05 PM on August 31, 2014 [4 favorites]


I am delighted by this, but deep down I was always secretly hoping that Patrick Warburton would have the opportunity to play Lester Girls someday.
posted by MrBadExample at 8:11 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


When the Animated Series came out in 1994, I engaged in spirited debatesfights with other Adults Who Watch Cartoons, both in real life and on the pre-Web Internet, over which was the better superhero spoof cartoon, The Tick or (Steven Spielberg Presents) Freakazoid. While solidly preferring the Big Blue Guy, I also raised the Important Question "Why can't we just enjoy BOTH?"

One thing the two series had in common was that their final episodes were the best of the series. For Freakazoid, it was "Normadeus" with special guest voice "PBS's famed carpenter, Norm Abram". But The Tick topped it by a mile with "The Tick Vs. Education", with a cavalcade of 'superheroes in training' like Gezundtitan, Sacastro and Babyboomerangutan, and some very special guest stars, Bobcat Goldthwait as 'Uncle Creamy', an ice cream mascot who is mutated into an ice cream man*, Jim Belushi as an evil corporate executive (his best role EVER), and Original Recipe Saturday Night Live's Laraine Newman as The Flying Squirrel, shy would-be superheroine who ends up saving the day.

*"I bleed Triple Ripple Vanilla Road Monkey - I sweat Triple Ripple Vanilla Road Monkey - I cry Triple Ripple Vanilla Road Monkey - I EVERYTHING Triple Ripple Vanilla Road Monkey!!!"

Such a cavalcade of quotes. And don't forget: "It's okay to play with dolls!!!"
posted by oneswellfoop at 8:33 PM on August 31, 2014 [4 favorites]


No, no... he's got a point.

(The sequel is immensely disappointing.)
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:35 PM on August 31, 2014


A few years back, I was at San Diego Comic Con and got in a line that turned out to be for a signing at the Supernatural booth. Fan girls around me were losing their shit over Jensen and Jared, who are quite lovely young men, but I blew past them to get to the nerdy looking dude at the end. I'm sure I annoyed the shit out of the people behind me, but the chance to chat with Ben Edlund was freaking awesome. He wrote "Spoon!" on my Supernatural poster and told me to keep the faith when I asked if the live-action or cartoon Tick could ever come back.

I did Mr. Edlund, so thanks.

"SPOON!"
posted by teleri025 at 8:44 PM on August 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


Da. Daaaaah. Da. Da. Da. Dweeee. Dow.
posted by device55 at 8:56 PM on August 31, 2014 [8 favorites]


I engaged in spirited debatesfights with other Adults Who Watch Cartoons, both in real life and on the pre-Web Internet, over which was the better superhero spoof cartoon, The Tick or (Steven Spielberg Presents) Freakazoid.

That was the same time Earthworm Jim was on TV. It was a weird time for superhero spoof cartoons.
posted by fshgrl at 9:01 PM on August 31, 2014 [5 favorites]


He's currently writing for Gotham.

If this is the new Batman-lite TV series, it gives me more hope for the show than anything I've seen yet--and I was already sold on it.

The Tick makes me very happy, and I'll be delighted to see it come back.
posted by immlass at 9:21 PM on August 31, 2014


Edlund in the writing room was partly responsible for the bonkers, genre bending manic comic book episodes of Supernatural I: E the parts I totally love so I want to see anything and everything he wants to do.

He wrote the best action episodes too, notably the one with the bank robberies which is a better heist movie than most actual heist movies. Too bad he's went to write for Revolution, a show with not one iota of humor or zaniness.
posted by fshgrl at 9:21 PM on August 31, 2014


...Susan?
posted by Evilspork at 9:22 PM on August 31, 2014 [2 favorites]


EARTHWORM JIM through the soil he did crawl EARTHWORM JIM but a supersuit dd fall!

(I remember that but I dropped out of college I wonder if there is a connection)
posted by The Whelk at 9:22 PM on August 31, 2014 [7 favorites]


AND HIS REALLY NEAT RAY GUN
posted by The Whelk at 9:23 PM on August 31, 2014


CHA
posted by shakespeherian at 9:36 PM on August 31, 2014 [3 favorites]


(I remember that but I dropped out of college I wonder if there is a connection)

A minor setback.
posted by bakerina at 9:52 PM on August 31, 2014


The real Spoon.
posted by notyou at 10:17 PM on August 31, 2014


I've got Spoon's ashes in a case, just so you know. And his death paw prints.

And some scars. So does my wife. He was a mean kitten. On her ass. So cute.

Miss you, buddy.
posted by notyou at 10:22 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


I think he wants a quarter.
posted by boo_radley at 10:29 PM on August 31, 2014



Villain, sneers: "Like Achilles sulking in his tent!"

Villain's henchman, adds, mumbling: "Like AkIleez slulkin iniz tenz!".


First:
"Even now he sulks like Achilles in his tent!"

"Achilles?...It's the Iliad?...It's Homer?... Read a book!"

Then later:
"Hah...hah..hah...your Tick won't come! He's sulking in his tent like a guy from Chile....."

"Don't you mean Achilles?"

posted by weston at 11:14 PM on August 31, 2014 [1 favorite]


shakespeherian: "CHA"

*CHOMP*

} HA
posted by Strange Interlude at 11:55 PM on August 31, 2014


Come quickly, chum, there's fire everywhere!
posted by anazgnos at 1:11 AM on September 1, 2014


Wicked Men! Cease your antics, or I may be forced to assault you with the U.S. Postal System!
posted by the_artificer at 1:36 AM on September 1, 2014


Now Tongue-Tongue is sad, because he has only one tongue with which to taste the world.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 4:01 AM on September 1, 2014 [4 favorites]


Gary Busey as The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs At Midnight.

I don't know...I can't say I like the cut of his jib.
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 4:01 AM on September 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


What ever happened with the comics, though? They've been out of print for ages. Sometimes you can find them on amazon or ebay reasonably priced, but most of the time people want to charge some insane amount for the books.

New England Comics seems to have a bunch of anthologies for sale.

The other day I passed their delivery van in traffic and it made my day to see the the big blue guy's face on it.
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:37 AM on September 1, 2014


"No offense, but you scare me"

"What's going on little bunny guy?"

"First of all, I am a moth! And are you aware that your roommate is a hideous monster from another dimension with evil plans for world domination?"

"Listen, a good roommate relationship is based on a respect for privacy"
posted by RonButNotStupid at 4:59 AM on September 1, 2014 [3 favorites]


> Da. Daaaaah. Da. Da. Da. Dweeee. Dow.

Zabbadabbadoodow... AAAAAAH!
posted by davelog at 5:14 AM on September 1, 2014 [3 favorites]


Maybe I can watch that (ah wacky?) TV show Revolution if I follow that it also is part of the Tick comic universe.

The Sci-Fi mcguffin is *electricity* stops, the world is instantly post-apocalyptic. So the cute hero girl and her cohort need to go on a trek to the big city. Of course in this universe I now understand bicycles were all electric. But the small plot point (as a sailor) that I could not get past was a minor character had treked across the USA on foot to an east coast port, and was shown talking to "an old sea captain" who said "there's no more boats to England without electricity" Arghhhh?!?

I'm not much of a comic person, but that show makes more sense with comic sensibility. There just should've been a cameo by the Tick in the first show. Perhaps in the background in the bar scene.
posted by sammyo at 5:26 AM on September 1, 2014


Thanks, RonButNotStupid. I was thinking of the original trade paperbacks, but maybe they overlap somehow and there's a way to get the full run.

As for Dr. Horrible and The Tick being in the same universe ... hm. This is making sense. And now I'm wondering if Edlund wrote certain lines in Dr. Horrible (e.g. "It's curtains for you, Dr. Horrible. Lacy, gently wafting curtains.")
posted by johnofjack at 5:52 AM on September 1, 2014


Ah. No. They do have the original TPBs. And I have less money.
posted by johnofjack at 6:06 AM on September 1, 2014


For a while, I had all The Tick live-action episodes on my DVR, and I transferred them to videotape for a friend of my mom's, who lives in England. I think my mom watched the tape once before handing it over to her friend, but to this day, no Chinese meal is complete without one of us popping an entire fortune cookie in our mouths and pulling out the fortune with a surprised and excited exclamation of
"A secret message ... from my teeth!"
posted by kcds at 6:20 AM on September 1, 2014 [5 favorites]


That was a little... dancey.
posted by cmyk at 6:38 AM on September 1, 2014


Secret weapon moustaches that speak Spanish!
A Russian scientist that transferred his thinking parts into a walking & talking vending machine, and can be defeated by buying his brain!
An evil genius dolphin, sick of doing tricks for his Las Vegas trainers, builds his evil super-weapon: a fish magnet!

And who can forget...Pigleg THE DEADLY BULB!!!
posted by JHarris at 8:43 AM on September 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


I wish they would bring back the animated series. Live action is ok I guess.
posted by humanfont at 8:54 AM on September 1, 2014 [4 favorites]


Oh man, I hope this flies. Television is a harsh mistress.
posted by LooseFilter at 9:20 AM on September 1, 2014 [1 favorite]


Oh god and the one where dr mungmung swapped everyone's minds and the tick was a zebra and arthur was tungtung and he was sitting on the zebra and said in the most horrified little voice "I CAN TASTE YOUR BACK"

also this is where my obsession with the luftwaffe came from

also also I spent many years abroad constantly saying "the night is young and we have umbrellas in our drinks!" and no one ever had the faintest idea what i was on about, very sad.
posted by elizardbits at 10:28 AM on September 1, 2014 [6 favorites]


An object at rest, cannot be stopped!
posted by Splunge at 11:50 AM on September 1, 2014 [6 favorites]


I am a huge fan of The Tick and have been since the first comic (one of the only comics I have really thrown myself into other than Jhonen Vasquez stuff), I even collected the spin-off Chainsaw Vigilante, for a while. I watched both the animated version as well as the live action; so I think I'm probably as good a fan of the show as anyone.

But of the three formats, both TV versions messed something up; it wasn't as bad with the Warburton work, because the whole cast was so charming it overwhelmed my one minor complaint, but as it appears to have new life once again, I'll tentatively ask that they make an effort to capture the best aspect of the comic in a way that hasn't been shown on screen yet;

Make the Tick crazy. Because the Tick isn't stupid, as typically portrayed, the Tick is batshit fucking crazy.

I provide two pieces of evidence to support this claim; one, the first page of the first comic which shows him straight jacketed in a padded room, and two; the narrative that immediately follows it

"Destiny is a funny thing. Once I thought I was destined to become Emperor of Greenland, sole monarch over its 52,000 inhabitants. Then I thought I was destined to build a Polynesian longship in my garage. I was wrong then, but I've got it now. I'm the destined protector of this place. I'm this city's superhero."

Warburton is by and far the best person I could think for the role, just throw in a little bit less wide eyed 400 pound naive waif, and maybe add a little angry chimney throwing once in a while.

Also; wub wub wub wub wub wub
posted by quin at 12:07 PM on September 1, 2014 [4 favorites]


>Tick to Sarcastro: Well, the first thing you'd better learn is that we don’t aim our secret super power weapons at other super heroes.

This has become something of a personal mantra for me, to be less like Sarcastro and more like The Tick.
posted by Skwirl at 1:21 PM on September 1, 2014 [5 favorites]


When the Animated Series came out in 1994, I engaged in spirited debatesfights with other Adults Who Watch Cartoons, both in real life and on the pre-Web Internet, over which was the better superhero spoof cartoon, The Tick or (Steven Spielberg Presents) Freakazoid. While solidly preferring the Big Blue Guy, I also raised the Important Question "Why can't we just enjoy BOTH?"

For me, it's because Freakazoid's look and personality were at least partially poached from Mike Allred's Madman. The Tick has arguable similarities to other past parody characters (e.g. Wally Wood's "Superduperman" parody for Mad, The Cockroach from Cerebus, etc.), but Freakazoid always seemed more like a direct imitation than a true character in his own right.
posted by Strange Interlude at 7:20 AM on September 2, 2014 [1 favorite]


The Sci-Fi mcguffin is *electricity* stops, the world is instantly post-apocalyptic.

And somehow no one has peanuts, a press, and a lister engine?

Chain and leather belt drives were how things were done long before things became run by electric motors. But perhaps that is how they had the nice teeth and good condition clothing - from all the belt-drive factories?

At least that show died. The fragmentation of the media market is what is allowing The TIck to make a return. Smaller but counted on watchers is what will allow lower cost story driven series to flourish - if one picks mediums that don't require complicated sets then it will just be access to the animation methods for a small team to have a shot at something "big".

An example of live actors with no set to speak of - the movie Dogville.
posted by rough ashlar at 10:18 AM on September 2, 2014


An object at rest cannot be stopped!

This was the greatest line in all of television.
posted by aramaic at 11:28 AM on September 2, 2014


Make the Tick crazy. Because the Tick isn't stupid, as typically portrayed, the Tick is batshit fucking crazy.
I provide two pieces of evidence to support this claim; one, the first page of the first comic which shows him straight jacketed in a padded room, and two; the narrative that immediately follows it


I think the Tick's insane in all versions, but only the comic version actually shows him in an asylum. The other versions show him as insane but (despite his bigness, strength and nigh-invulnerability) basically harmless, and the comic version doesn't take long to establish that too. Although it's important to note that, in the comics, when The Tick meets Arthur for the first time, Arthur tells him: superheroes don't kill. Ever. Maybe that had an effect on the big blue oaf.

After Ben Edlund left the comic (or rather, left it on indefinite hiatus, he never explicitly ended it), it was picked up by the (quite underrated IMO) Eli "5" Stone, who may not have had Edlund's star power, but produced some very entertaining stories that kept the tone of the Tick's universe at a pretty even keel. He produced a villain who was an art snob, and by eating art gained the ability to turn himself into art objects.

Alas I don't remember much else, it's been a while, but there was a running subplot towards the end of his run where the head of the Evanston Clinic (from where The Tick originally escaped), a mad scientist psychiatrist type, was trying to capture him. In a rather awesome ending, it was revealed that his motives were pure: he saw The Tick as a dangerous madman, and although he used creepy hypnotic watches and other supervillain means to recapture him, he really was trying to protect the public, not realizing that The Tick had effectively found his own means of recovery: making friends with Arthur and other superhero types. After he died at the end, they said (I'm paraphrasing, it's been years since I saw them):
Tick: "Arthur, I'm confused, was he a bad man?"
Arthur: "I'm not sure...."

I tried to do a Google search on Eli Stone to see what he's up to these days, but unfortunately there's a TV show going by that name now, and as Google pushes pop culture results up the relevance list, my attempt succumbed to a fatal case of search static. I did manage to find his professional page, though. Apparently he's done art on Venture Bros!
posted by JHarris at 12:44 PM on September 2, 2014 [2 favorites]


Many years ago I ended up in the hospital for emergency surgery. To keep me from going stir crazy for my days in recovery, a friend brought me my laptop and the box set of live action Tick DVDs that had just been released. Over a couple of days I worked my way through all the episodes.

You think The Tick is insane? Try binge-watching the series while on a diet of jello and morphine. It'll make you feel nigh invulnerable!
posted by mkhall at 2:58 PM on September 2, 2014 [7 favorites]


One of my favorite former roommates was a crazy big hyper dude (seriously, he came out to talk to me while he was high on cocaine at a party and I didn't notice any difference in his demeanor), and he was the one who introduced me to several of my pop culture touchstones - Animaniacs, Ren and Stimpy, Cerebus, Neil Gaiman's Sandman and The Tick.

He had the comics, and the animated series started while we were roommates and he was all over it. For quite some time, his personal motto was "you gotta ride that wave, you gotta suck that lozenge - because if you don't, who will?"
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:14 AM on September 3, 2014 [2 favorites]


MetaFilter: a little angry chimney throwing once in a while.
posted by arcticseal at 9:29 AM on September 3, 2014


How did I not know that in the cartoon version Arthur was voiced by Micky Dolenz?
posted by Splunge at 2:39 PM on September 3, 2014 [1 favorite]


Monkee Mickey did Arthur for the first season (13 episodes). After that, it was Rob "Pinky" Paulsen doing a near-perfect Mickey Dolenz impression.

Which reminds me, when the news came out about plans for the FIRST live-action Tick series, and speculation flew about the cast (it was generally assumed Warburton would have the title role and confirmed rather quickly), I was part of a determined group who lobbied for Andy Richter, then recently departed from Conan's Late Night, to fill the white moth suit as Arthur. He apparently didn't want to be typecast as 'sidekick', but after a couple less-than-classic series of his own, he returned to CoCo's side, and I think NOW he could be lured into the role (and be able to do both). It would just make the whole enterprise a bit more of the massively awesome it already is.

"I'm the sidekick."
"Okay, boys. Kick 'im to the side."
posted by oneswellfoop at 2:54 PM on September 4, 2014 [1 favorite]


Almost 2015 Blowhole's time to run is comming.
posted by humanfont at 4:26 PM on September 4, 2014 [2 favorites]


OMG, how did I not see this before. DOCTOR HORRIBLE and THE TICK are (quite possibly) part of the SAME superhero universe!

Wait.

WAIT.

You know what this means, don't you.....?

--

Dear Netflix:

Please let one of your episodes of this be "The Tick Vs. Doctor Horrible". I can pay you in fish.

Thank you.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 12:36 PM on September 11, 2014 [4 favorites]


I remember Pope Guilty mentioning that he's heard at least one person behind one of the properties involved considers The Tick, Dr. Horrible and Venture Bros. to all be in the same universe. There is that central braintrust behind many of these things, of Ben Edlund, Joss Whedon and Jackson Publick (a.k.a. Chris McCulloch), and there's various bleed-overs among them. I think they all knew each other in college at least. (Hank: "Where did you guys go, Super Crazy No-Way School?")
posted by JHarris at 12:59 PM on September 11, 2014 [1 favorite]


Dear Amazon -

Of course, I intended that message concerning The Tick and Doctor Horrible to go to you.

In repentance, allow me to suggest a second villain - someone who cannot distinguish between various forms of streaming media outlets.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:31 PM on September 11, 2014


That would make a good storyline. Villain cannot tell the difference between various businesses beyond the price of their products. He goes on to victimize all the various corporations without impediment because they refuse to believe such a person exists.
posted by phearlez at 11:35 AM on September 12, 2014


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