The Tick

Years: 2001-2002
Seasons: 1
Episodes: 9
Created by: Ben Edlund

Main Cast:

Patrick Warburton as The Tick
David Burke as Arthur
Nestor Carbonell as Batmanuel
Liz Vassey as Captain Liberty

One of the best things about going over a bunch of canceled TV shows is that, while there are always the obvious “gone too soon” series with rabid fanbases, occasionally you’ll find something brilliant that hardly anyone remembers and that you didn’t even know existed. This is certainly the case with The Tick, a show that deserved at least a couple full seasons to grow, but was sadly cut short after a mere nine episodes. While it does maintain some cult popularity (what the hell doesn’t these days?), it definitely deserves the kind of fan worship that helped created the Firefly movie and brought back the dead Futurama and Family Guy.

I haven’t read the comic books, nor have I ever seen the successful cartoon version, but apparently The Tick was always a parody of the superhero genre, and the man himself was kind of a bumbling dumbass with super strength. In this version he’s played by Patrick Warburton, famous for playing Puddy on Seinfeld. Warburton plays the Tick as somewhat slow, borderline retarded at times but generally good-natured. He doesn’t mean harm, he’s just an idiot, and his stupidity sometimes leads to things inadvertently getting destroyed. Imagine Homer Simpson without his asshole streak, and you get the idea. He’s teamed up with his idealistic sidekick Arthur, who has no real super powers and works as his frustrated voice of reason. You see, Arthur became a superhero because he wants to do good in the world, to make it a better place for everyone. He’s a rookie at this kind of thing, and more often than not gets tossed around rather than tossing other people around. He and the Tick share an apartment, and sometimes have Odd Couple-like exchanges, such as the Tick leaving the cap off the toothpaste and whatnot. It’s funnier than it sounds, trust me.

The two are also usually accompanied by two friends, the boner-inducing Captain Liberty and the ridiculous Latin lover, Batmanuel. Captain Liberty works for the government, which is unfortunately only explored briefly in the series when some nude photos of her turn up in a local stroke magazine, putting her job in jeopardy. Like the Tick, she seems to legitimately have superpowers, and can easily beat the crap out of villains without much trouble. She is frequently joined by Batmanuel, her occasional fuck buddy who takes every opportunity to get back into her pants. He has an ridiculously high opinion of himself, and typically evaluates things on how it would benefit him the most. He drives around in the “Manuelmobile,” which is just an old car that he loves so much that he takes up two parking spaces for it, just to make sure it has room. His superpowers are a little more dubious, and in a few episodes we get to see people kick the crap out of him. He’s played by Nestor Carbonell, who also plays the eyeliner enthusiast Richard Alpert on Lost.

While occasionally battling supervillains, the show deals more with the day-to-day problems that plague a superhero, such as getting a license to fight crime, dealing with the judicial system while putting a supervillain on trial, “coming out” as a superhero to your friends and family, etc. The best way to describe this show is to mention what executive producer Larry Charles had in mind for it. He basically wanted the characters to share a friendship similar to that in Seinfeld, which he wrote a bunch of episodes for (he’s also directed several episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm). I personally love the idea of Seinfeld with superheroes, and even in it’s embryonic phase, you could see where the show was going with that concept. The small annoyances that take up a superhero’s life make for the funniest jokes, such as Batmanuel needing a ride from Captain Liberty to pick up the Manuelmobile from the repair show, and Arthur trying to get the Tick out of the apartment so he can screw an old high school crush. What doesn’t work so well are the more obvious jokes that spring from the Tick just being an idiot. There a scene in one episode where Arthur and the Tick see a document written on extremely rare paper, and you pretty much already know what’s going to happen with the Tick grabs it. Also, when the Tick enters Arthur’s apartment for the first time, he starts guessing where all the secret devices are, which leads to him almost completely destroying the place. The dumb jokes get even worse when Batmanuel and Captain Liberty try to explain to him was sex is, and when another hero keeps removing his glasses, therefore bouncing back and forth between his superhero and secret identities.

There are a number of reasons why this show failed, but the most baffling one has to do with FOX under-promoting it due to them not owning the series. I understand that running a major TV network is complicated business, but why the hell would you even green light an expensive show like The Tick and then not even try to make it successful? Further, they botched the scheduling for this show, and put it up against NBC’s “Must See TV” lineup, where it didn’t stand a chance. Wouldn’t it make more sense to put this show on after The Simpsons? The humor is so similar that at least some of their fans would stick around and keep watching. I know that networks make enough money that they can just chalk something up as a loss and forget about it, but the total indifference that the network had with The Tick is mind-boggling.

What if it was a hit? The first season of any show is usually the weakest, as everyone is fumbling around trying to find an appropriate rhythm. The idea behind The Tick was so good that it probably would have had a strong run of at least a couple great seasons. There is so much about the daily lives of superheroes that never gets addressed in comic books because of how mundane they are, and a show like this could take that and run with it. It would basically operate “between the panels,” so to speak. In order for that to work it would have to had been a huge hit, due to the budget needed to produce each episode. Even with a lower budget, I think the show would still have been great, and I wish that they had the opportunity to do something like that Chinese restaurant episode of Seinfeld or something. More than anything, I just want to see more of Batmanuel. Now that’s a character I’m going to miss.

Recommended for: People who really wanted to like Mystery Men, comic book fans with a sense of humor, people who love bad “Latin Lover” stereotypes.