History WesternAnimation / TheCritic

Jay is the adopted son of former New York governor [[CloudCuckoolander Franklin Sherman]] and his wife [[{{Socialite}} Eleanor]]. Their butler Shackleford (not pictured) has a tendency to greet Jay as "Adopted Master Jay" whenever he sees him. Jay also does have a few friends: His best friend Jeremy Hawke (a combination of Creator/PaulHogan and Creator/MelGibson); restaurant owner Vlada Veramirovich (well, he's nice to Jay's ''face'', anyway); his teenage sister Margo; and his and Ardeth's son Marty, who attends United Nations High School (where one of his classmates is a [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Klingon]], and another from UsefulNotes/EasterIsland has a head made of stone).

** Geraldo Rivera interviewed Jay and Eleanor. It ended with [[CloudCuckoolander Franklin dancing in a diaper]].

-->'''Jay:''' It stinks!
-->'''Jay:''' Hotchie motchie!
-->'''Jay:''' Oh, how awkward...

* CloudCuckooLander: Franklin is too ''rich'' to be "crazy", so let's just call him 'eccentric'.
* ClusterFBomb / SoundEffectBleep: Music/{{Cher}} does this to Jay during his interview with her on ''Coming Attractions''.

** One webisode sees Jay at a Broadway production of ''Film/TheGraduate'', featuring a much publicized nude scene with Creator/KathleenTurner as Mrs. Robinson. Unfortunately, she was unavailable, and [[TakeThatMe Jon Lovitz was her understudy, much to the audience's disgust]]. [[CelebrityParadox Jay is pleased.]]

* SelfDeprecation: Much of their TakeThat was aimed at FOX. "Where coming in third is a ''triumph''!"

* {{Sequelphobic}}:[[invoked]] A lot of the movies bad enough for Jay to bash are sequels.
-->'''Jay:''' After Roman numeral II, ''give it a rest.''

Jay is the adopted son of former New York governor [[CloudCuckoolander Franklin Sherman]] and his wife [[{{Socialite}} Eleanor]]. Their butler Shackleford (not pictured) has a tendency to greet Jay as "Adopted Master Jay" whenever he sees him. Jay also does have a few friends: His best friend Jeremy Hawke (a combination of Creator/PaulHogan and Creator/MelGibson); restaurant owner Vlada Veramirovich (well, he's nice to Jay's ''face'', anyway); his teenage sister Margo; and his and Ardeth's son Marty, who attends United Nations High School (where one of his classmates is a [[Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration Klingon]], and another from [[EenieMeenieMinyMoai Easter Island]] has a head made of stone).

* EenieMeenieMinyMoai: The Easter Island children have the stone Moai heads atop human bodies.

-->'''Franklin:''' TakeThat ''Guernica''!\\

* ParentsSuckAtMatchmaking: In one episode, Margo's parents attempt to set her up with a young man who's young, rich, and has literal blue blood. Margo asks him a question, to which he struggles to come up with an answer. She concludes he was rendered an idiot by inbreeding and rejects him.

* EverythingsBetterWithPenguins: Or worse with penguins, in this case. Apparently, they're bad pilots ("[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6JsZbSzMi08 Penguins can't fly... PENGUINS CAN'T FLY!!!]]") and slack off drinking piña coladas when there's work to be done.
-->'''Penguin:''' ''Wah-wah-wah...''\\
'''Franklin:''' ''No'', I will ''not'' pray with you!

* NoOSHACompliance: One episode has Jay on a new set in the former of a log cabin setting and with a bear in the background. Since the censors wouldn't allow a dead bear on display (or apparently, even a fake one), a ''live'' one was used, albeit "real doped up". Needless to say, Jay accidentally disturbs it twice, with it attacking him the second time live on air. [[MoodWhiplash Which the camera then cuts to a playful commercial bumper featuring Jay's face in the tire of an old-timey bicycle, with the card saying "Wheel Be Right Back".]]

** Another episode had Franklin talk about the one time that he had amusement from when Jay fell off a cliff [[WesternAnimation/WileECoyote "trying to eat that bird"]]. While Eleanor initially believed that he was confusing it with a Road Runner cartoon, Jay (quite embarrassingly) admitted that it really was him.

* UncannyValley: [[invoked]] Invoked when a robotic Rosie Perez approached Creator/RogerEbert and Jay about ''It Could Happen to You''. When the Perez-bot shorts out from a LogicBomb (Jay: "Ben Turpin is ''dead''!" [[note]]Making it funnier, Turpin died in 1940, long before Rosie Perez was born[[/note]]), she crashes through the wall and sucks on a live wire. Then enters Creator/WilliamShatner.
-->'''William Shatner:''' ''(like a robot)'' [[AC: Great-party-wouldn't-you-say? Read-my-book-read-my-book-read-my-book...]]\\
'''Jay:''' Hey! There's the William Shatner robot!\\
'''Ebert:''' No, that's really him.\\
'''William Shatner:''' ''(rushing over to Perez)'' [[AC: Don't bogart that juice, Rosie!]] ''(starts sucking down electricity from the live wire like alcohol.)''

* PoliticalCorrectnessGoneMad: Savvy Indian Chewing Tobacco was going to be called ''Savage'' Indian, but was changed due to concerns over political correctness.

* IAteWhat: After Jay reviews ''The Cockroach King'', he remarks that the best thing about the film was the free roach-shaped chocolates they handed out at the theater. He takes a bite out of one...and the other (decidedly real) roaches swarm off the plate. Later in the same episode, he reminisces about [[Film/KingdomOfTheSpiders a movie William Shatner made about giant spiders]], which also provided free candy arachnids...no points for guessing what happens.

* BackgroundMusic: The webisodes mostly recycled music cues from the TV series (as a cost-saving factor), though Alf Clausen still receives credit.