spoooooooooooooooooooon

My friend Tim has a knack for buying DVD's that I didn't even know existed. Example: Prior to two weeks ago, I didn't even remember that there was a short-lived (9 episodes total), live action version of "The Tick." I loved the cartoon version, and I think I vaguely remember hearing about the live action incarnation back when it came out (in 2001). But, to say it wasn't exactly a ratings success would be an understatement. Anyway, the entire series has been released on DVD, and I had the chance to watch a couple of episodes over the weekend.

Overall, it was kind of entertaining. The casting is decent. Patrick Warburton (Puddy, from Seinfeld) plays the big blue guy, and he's a pretty good match for the part. Granted, he should be a lot bigger, but the Tick's insanely idiotic dialogue flows fairly naturally from Warburton's mouth. Arthur, the timid accountant/moth/sidekick, is also well-cast. I'm not too keen on the new characters, Captain Liberty and Batmanuel, who are actually variations on the cartoon's characters (American Maid and Die Fledermaus). But, perhaps they will grow on me. They'd better hurry up, though, since they've only got 7 episodes left. The show also managed to maintain some of the bizarre humor I liked from the cartoon. Example: in the pilot, a group of neo-Commies unleash a vintage 1979 Soviet robotic assassin ("The Red Scare"), who is still programmed to kill President Carter.

Of course, the live action show relies on a fair share of innuendos and semi-objectionable material to get laughs -- which is to be expected, since it was on Fox. I never read the comic, but I hear that the live-action show was closer to it than the animated series was. Nevertheless, I thought the cartoon was a whole lot funnier than the live-action version, and a whole lot cleaner. But, I'm still planning to watch the remainder of the series.