Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context YMMV / TheCritic

Go To

1* AdaptationDisplacement: For anyone living outside the US, as well as anyone too young to have seen the show while it was on the air, the show is better known for [[Recap/TheSimpsonsS6E18AStarIsBurns "A Star is Burns"]], its crossover episode with ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''.
2* AmericansHateTingle: A rare example of this happening ''within'' the work's country of origin. The show was supposed to be a love-letter to New York City... where it got the lowest ratings.
3** Hollywood, the other thing it was a love-letter to, didn't appreciate it either.
4* AudienceAlienatingPremise: It was very funny and well-written, but it's hard to find an audience when the focal character is a StrawCritic - [[ThisLoserIsYou a fat, bald, acerbic, whiny loser]] — no matter how it portrays him sympathetically, particularly regarding his struggle against his boss's and popular culture's AntiIntellectualism. It didn't fit with the "wacky family" comedies of ABC in season 1, and even if season 2 on Fox went LighterAndSofter and gave him a love interest, being ScrewedByTheNetwork didn't help the show find its niche.
5* SugarWiki/AwesomeMusic: Music/HansZimmer's [[Music/GeorgeGershwin Gershwin]]-esque theme song, which sounds like a smooth jazz version of "Rhapsody in Blue".
6* BigLippedAlligatorMoment: The show featured some very strange aside moments, such as Jay suddenly revealing that his navel can play the trumpet and performing "Flight of the Bumblebee".
7* CrossesTheLineTwice: In "Miserable", when Jay went missing and everyone was trying to find him, in mulling over his enemy list, one of them was apparently actor Haing S. Ngor, who not only survived the Khmer Rouge massacre but played a character in the film based off of it, ''Film/TheKillingFields'' (and won an Best Supporting Actor Oscar for it). Jay had previously written the man off in a review of the film, citing how he "should go back to the ''acting'' fields".
8** Later in the episode, Jeremy (among others including a crazy looking guy and a small child) are in line to buy handguns from ''a vending machine.'' One of the questions even asks before selling it is if the purchaser is a criminal.
9** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0IX0srz0w8 "Nothing's Gonna Stop Me Now."]]
10** "Marty's First Date" has Jay, Marty and Carmen watching a foreign film whose company logo is a dancing filmstrip [[MoodWhiplash who gets killed via being sucked into the film reel.]] [[BlackComedy Worse,]] the filmstrip's ''son'' then comes looking for him calling out "Daddy?"
11* CultClassic: The show became more popular when it got canceled than it did when it aired on TV.
12* EnsembleDarkhorse: To the surprise of production, testing audiences rated Doris as their favorite character. Franklin is also a fan-favorite for his hilarious {{Cloudcuckoolander}} personality.
13* FanPreferredCouple: Jay and Alice, which is one of the reasons why the web series wasn't well received. Considering how much trouble Jay went through in season 2 to be with Alice (especially the next to last ep), you can't blame their reaction at seeing Jay trying to woo another girl.
14* FanonDiscontinuity: Most people who liked the TV show hate the short-lived Flash Internet revival. [[http://www.retrojunk.com/content/article/7731/index/ This fan review]] should further explain why.
15* GeniusBonus:
16** In the ''Philadelphia'' parody ''Schenectady'', the judge is voiced by Charles Napier, Duke's voice actor. [[ActorAllusion This is fitting]], as Napier played the judge in the original film.
17** When Jay took in a homeless puppy, he gave it the full name "Un Chien Andalou," after Creator/LuisBunuel's famous short film; the title translates to English as "An Andalusian Dog."
18** One of the ''Coming Attractions'' {{Couch Gag}}s has Franchise/JamesBond having a toupee blown off. Creator/SeanConnery started losing his hair when he was in his 20s and had to wear a toupee when he played Bond.
19* HarsherInHindsight: The entire episode "Siskel and Ebert and Jay and Alice" was bad enough when Creator/GeneSiskel died and Creator/RogerEbert was left all alone and looking for a replacement, but now it's worse thanks to Roger Ebert dying. On the plus side, if there is, in fact, an afterlife, it's heartwarming to think that Siskel and Ebert have reunited, just like they did at the end of the episode.
20** In "Dr. Jay," Duke collapses to the floor and is sent to the hospital. The doctor tells Duke he has four years to live. On October 4, 2011, Duke's voice actor Charles Napier collapsed in his home and passed away in hospital the following day.
21** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J711Qizp0JQ#t=704 "Bazooka Duke says CHEW ON THIS!"]] Aside from the usual opposition to banning assault rifles, [[http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/12/rocket_launchers_lapd_gun_buyback.php this makes the scene creepier and eerie]][[note]]This is not as troubling as it may appear. Empty rocket launchers can indeed be found on the collector's market, but they are functionally useless without ammunition and quite obviously so, being essentially a hollow metal tube; the rockets themselves are ''incredibly'' expensive and difficult to legally obtain, and some like the M72 LAW are disposable and can't even be reloaded[[/note]]. The rise of the NRA as a major lobbying force supporting conservative candidates, and their staunch and uncompromising anti-legislation stance even in the aftermath of numerous school shootings and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Las_Vegas_shooting the 2017 Las Vegas shooting]] (many of which were facilitated by the same sort of high-capacity, high-rate of fire weapons mentioned in the episode) also makes the scene significantly less amusing.
22** The opening shot of every episode prominently featuring the World Trade Center.
23** The 1994 episode "A Day At The Races And A Night At The Opera" features a flash-forward to 2014 of Jay's son Marty performing at Carnegie Hall. Marty's voice actress Creator/ChristineCavanaugh passed away in 2014.
24** Pretty much all jokes or references to Doris' smoking after the death of her actress, Doris Grau, due to her smoking habits.
25** One the films Jay reviews is a remake of ''Film/ThePrideOfTheYankees'' which revises its famed DownerEnding to one a happy one where Lou Gehrig makes a full recovery from ALS and is popular with test audiences for being "nicer." Starting in TheNewTens, Disney would release several live-action remakes of their animated classics which have been criticized for using PoliticallyCorrectHistory to whitewash the problematic aspects of those films, which were still considered classics ''despite'' being [[ValuesDissonance somewhat problematic]].
26** From that same episode, the movie clip ends with a gag where Lou Gehrig looks forward to enjoying Bill Cosby's warm and family-friendly style of humor. At the time, it was a jab at Cosby's brand of perceived "soft" humor, but by 2015, his numerous sexual assault charges revealed that the squeaky-clean image was all a front to lure women into a false sense of security and trick the general public into never suspecting him, making the gag feel like an outright lie.
27** The episode "Sherman, Woman and Child," which aired in March 1995, had a scene in which Doris (an active chain smoker) attempted to make a smoke ring bunny but it ended up turning into a shape with a demon-like appearance, which told her [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaMBKDA-vzw "Doris ... Tick! Tock!"]] Seven months after it aired, her voice actress Doris Grau died from respiratory failure.
28** As noted in the DVDCommentary for "Eyes on the Prize":
29--->'''Al Jean:''' Ironically, this is the episode where we got canceled by ABC, and it's about Jay getting canceled.
30** ''Dr. Jay'' sees Duke announce the creation of "Phillips-Vision" where he uses up-to-date technology to completely rewrite the endings of various movies, all the while exploiting the actors' (both dead and alive) images without their consent, much to Jay's disgust. This is prophetic of numerous controversies surrounding Hollywood and the use of deepfakes and A.I.-generated scripts during TheNew20s.
31* SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct: Siskel and Ebert did marvelous voice-acting for ''Siskel & Ebert & Jay & Alice'', even taking potshots at each other physical deficiencies; Siskel calls Ebert "porky" while Ebert calls Siskel "cueball."
32** Creator/JonLovitz certainly counts too: He gave Jay Sherman a wider range of emotions and vocal inflections than [[LargeHam a lot of the characters he had played up to this point.]]
33* HeartwarmingInHindsight: "Marty's First Date", Marty falls for classmate Carmen, who's later revealed to be Fidel Castro's granddaughter. [[BittersweetEnding The two unfortunately part ways due to the American embargo against Cuba]]. In December 2014, Fidel's brother Raul, now leader of Cuba, and President Obama announced that they'd be normalizing relationships, effectively ending the embargo, meaning Marty and Carmen could be together again. (Of course, they could've been together anyway had she continued attending his school.)
34* HilariousInHindsight:
35** Creator/JonLovitz insisted that Jay Sherman's character design not resemble him. Al Jean has gone on to say that Jon Lovitz can now play Jay Sherman in a ''live-action'' series. Ouch.
36** The Broadway musical ''Hunch'' appeared in the Season One episode "Every Doris Has Her Day" as a parody of Creator/AndrewLloydWebber musicals — two years later, Disney released their own musical version of ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}''. For that matter, it isn't even the only RealLife musical version!
37** This was {{Lampshaded}} years later in the DVD commentaries by Mike Reiss, who recollected they all thought it was a dumb idea at the time, "but not too dumb for Disney."
38** In the pilot, Vlada gets orgasmic at Creator/ConanOBrien entering his restaurant. At the time, O'Brien was considered a flop. (It was likely a friendly ShoutOut, as O'Brien is a friend of creators Jean and Reiss.)
39** ''Jurassic Park II: Revenge of the Raptors'' and the [[Series/BarneyAndFriends Barney]] movie.
40** Several jokes involved blatant ProductPlacement within the movies Jay watched, much to his disgust. During the early '90s, product placement in films was indeed fairly uncommon, making the writers seem almost clairvoyant for predicting how much the practice would come to dominate cinema.
41** ABC objected to "Miserable" on the grounds of sexual content. As pointed out in the commentaries, this from the same network that later aired ''Series/TheBachelor'' — as well as later airing sexual content in many of its primetime dramas.
42*** On the subject of "Miserable", ''WesternAnimation/DrawnTogether'' later reused the [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhW3s7Z6j5o gun vending machine gag]].
43** Phillipsvision, which adds new endings to movies, as well as rewriting scenes for product placement, came true (in a way) when [=DirecTV=] started airing ads made from scenes of famous movies re-edited to talk about [=DirecTV=].
44** In the episode "A Song For Margo", Penny calls Jay's boss "Uncle Duke". In the later episode "Dukerella", Duke marries Alice's sister Miranda, meaning he really does become a uncle to Penny.
45** Early in the show's run, Siskel and Ebert reviewed the first three episodes, and gave it quite a bit of criticism such as more parodies, make it more about the movie industry, give us some TV parodies, and make it less about sitcom staples. As the show went on the parodies improved and were more numerous, some episodes focused on the film industry, more fun was poked at Hollywood, and Siskel and Ebert eventually guest starred as themselves.
46** ''[[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2308733/ Home Alone 5.]]''
47*** To make matters worse, the series actually reached its ''sixth'' film in 2020.
48** In "Every Doris Has Her Day", it's mentioned that Duke is funding a remake of ''Film/TheDirtyDozen'' starring Creator/ArnoldSchwarzenegger, Creator/SylvesterStallone, and Creator/BruceWillis (among others). [[Film/TheExpendables Sound familiar?]]
49** In "L.A. Jay" when Jay is taking suggestions from directors about the film he is writing "Ghostchasers 3"(a parody of Ghostbusters) one of them suggests making one of the Ghostchasers a strong and independent woman. This became funny when it was announced that the remake of ''Ghostbusters'' would have an all-female lead cast.
50*** The fact it's an entire parody of the TroubledProduction and DevelopmentHell of ''Ghostbusters 3'' that continued well into the 2010s.
51** [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/08/the-critic-predicted-the-future-nbc-ratings_n_3040025.html "NBC Sinks To 5th."]]
52** In "From Chunk to Hunk", there are a few comments regarding "that show about the talking butt". [[WesternAnimation/AssyMcGee Funny they should mention that...]]
53** Many of the trailer parodies were oddly prophetic. "Honey I Ate the Kids" shows Clarice Starling and Hannibal Lecter as husband and wife — some years later, ''Literature/{{Hannibal}}'' came out, and the novel version ends with Hannibal and Clarice getting together; likewise, ''Jurassic Park II '' is about the velociraptors getting smarter — which became the plot of ''Film/JurassicParkIII''.
54** In one episode, Creator/OrsonWelles attempted shilling Rosebud Frozen Peas with the slogan "Full of [[CountryMatters count]]ry goodness and [[UnusualEuphemism green pea-ness]]". A [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCS_4bizDUw similar statement]] later popped up on a 2006 episode of ''Iron Chef America''.
55** At one point Jay reviews a "politically correct" Franchise/JamesBond film, the joke being that such a film where Bond doesn't smoke, and is expected to act respectfully towards women would be uninteresting...then we get Creator/DanielCraig, who doesn't smoke, has never once forced himself on a woman, and is generally regarded as one of the best Bonds to date. This could, arguably, be an example of ValuesDissonance, as the definition of positive masculinity has changed quite a bit over the last two decades.
56*** On the subject of PoliticalOvercorrectness jokes, the plot of the episode "Uneasy Rider" involves Jay delivering a shipment of politically correct textbooks to schoolchildren. One concerned father bemoans that his son asks "When is he going to get here?" and not "When is he or she going to get here?" Now, with the concept of nonbinary genders becoming more socially accepted, the all-inclusive "they/them/their" pronouns have become more commonplace, meaning [[LogicBomb "he or she"]] ''[[LogicBomb is now]] politically incorrect!''
57** [[http://41.media.tumblr.com/b9d993446eb5f0c66d1aba2c7a572487/tumblr_nqsanrBGWD1r7wyhgo1_500.jpg Marty and Carmen]] eerily resemble [[http://41.media.tumblr.com/8466ec2f1c2231e27945a4dc78eb068c/tumblr_nec3ebJPSU1sr0k7ao1_500.jpg Steven and Connie]] from ''WesternAnimation/StevenUniverse'', with the difference being that Carmen is Latina, while Connie is East Indian. In the episode "Historical Friction", [[http://mega-madridista-4-life.tumblr.com/post/124278571568 Steven even wears a sweater over a button-down shirt]] not unlike Marty's
58** "[[https://youtu.be/TDPY8qlnOv8 All the Duke's Men]]" is this. A New York City-based billionaire with an iconic skyscraper, with no political experience runs for President? [[UsefulNotes/DonaldTrump Like that would ever work...]]
59*** That episode is a double whammy, since it also involves a presidential campaign that gets derailed in large part thanks to the candidate's loopy running mate. Are we talking about Franklin Sherman or UsefulNotes/SarahPalin?
60** In the first webisode, Jennifer informs Jay that the internet doesn't have commercials. That isn't the case anymore, with most internet videos preceded by (or interrupted by) an ad.
61** One of the last episodes seen on Creator/{{ABC}} before its cancellation/ChannelHop to Creator/{{Fox}} has Jay addressing those who tuned into the last moments of this show just to wait for ''Series/HomeImprovement''. Over two decades later, [[Series/LastManStanding another sitcom starring]] Creator/TimAllen would itself end up being canceled by the former network only to be soon picked up by the latter one.
62** The infamous [[MemeticMutation "And nothing of value was lost"]] scene involving the destruction of a ''Theatre/{{Cats}}'' musical play becomes this after 2019's live-action/CGI hybrid of ''Film/{{Cats}}'' was absolutely ''brutalized'' by critics all over.
63** Also ironically, this is the episode where a desperate for work Jay agrees to take a terrible job his agent found and then asks, "Wait a minute - it's not on Fox, is it?" The show would later be picked up by Fox.
64** A Jurassic Park skit has a raptor slide a newspaper under a locked door, knock the stuck key out of the knob so that it lands on the paper, and slide it back in to unlock the door. ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'' has Maisie use ''this exact same trick'' to get out of her bedroom when [[spoiler: Ethan Mills]] locks her in there.
65* HoYay: See MistakenForGay example on the main page; Jay also had a "date" with a fellow prisoner in one episode (which he refers to as the best one he's ever had up to that point).
66** Siskel and Ebert have some HoYay (possibly NoYay) in the episode where they remake ''Sleepless in Seattle,'' which they {{Lampshade|Hanging}}.
67--->'''Ebert:''' This is just a rip-off of ''Film/SleeplessInSeattle.''
68--->'''Siskel:''' Which was in itself a rip-off of ''Film/AnAffairToRemember.''
69--->'''Both:''' Which wasn't that good of a movie to start with.
70** One of Jay's pairs of underwear has the title ''For The Boys.'' Another says ''Film/RearWindow'', and another ''Film/{{Backdraft}}''.
71* MemeticMutation: [[Memes/TheCritic Has its own page.]]
72* OnceOriginalNowCommon: As insane as it seems, this show was highly controversial when it aired on ABC. On the making-of featurette on the complete series DVD set, Al Jean mentioned one time when a big bag of angry letters from viewers was hauled into the office. Nowadays, the risqué jokes have easily been surpassed by ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' and the like.
73** While fans will certainly claim the show has held up in terms of its humor, more modern viewers may find the film parodies unremarkable, even if enjoyable. However, the idea of a show, let alone a prime-time cartoon, specializing in film parody was a rather new concept back in 1994. However, today, we have shows that consistently parody films, television, and pop culture, such as later seasons of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'', ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' (particularly its cutaway gags and family TV interludes), ''WesternAnimation/SouthPark'', and ''WesternAnimation/RickAndMorty'', just to name a few.
74* ReplacementScrappy: Jennifer in the webisodes. She replaces Jay's original make-up artist Doris and Jay's ''real'' girlfriend Alice. In fact, she replaces almost the ''whole'' TV cast.
75* SuspiciouslySimilarSong: The theme song by Hans Zimmer is very reminiscent of [[Music/GeorgeGershwin "Rhapsody in Blue,"]] especially the opening clarinet glissando.
76* TearJerker
77** Gene Siskel pining for his reviewing partner in "Siskel and Ebert and Jay and Alice." In fact, the entire episode is now too depressing to watch now that both Siskel and Ebert are dead.
78** Margo, under the assumption that her parents died at sea, listening to her parents' music box on their video will and fighting back tears in "Frankie and Ellie Get Lost."
79** "Every Doris Has Her Day": Jay and Doris learning they aren't mother and son.
80* TooGoodToLast: It's one of the funniest animated sitcoms ever made... and it only got 23 episodes. If only the president of Fox at the time didn't hate the show, we could've gotten more.
81* UnintentionalPeriodPiece:
82** Besides the fact that the Twin Towers are in the intro sequence, some of the (then) fake movies reviewed actually got made later (''[[Film/TheLostWorldJurassicPark Jurassic Park 2]]''). And the original Broadway production of ''Theatre/{{Cats}}'' closed in 2000.
83** Then there's the "topical" political references. Jokes about Malcolm Forbes and Admiral James Stockdale do ''not'' age well. On the other hand, the Reverend Al Sharpton has actually gained ''more'' national recognition since the show.
84** Yes, there was a time when the most common jokes made about UsefulNotes/BillClinton were about him supposedly eating a lot (see also the Clinton-at-UsefulNotes/McDonalds sketch on ''Series/SaturdayNightLive'') rather than his promiscuity, save for the "Fat Lecherous Hillbilly Wins" sub-headline in "Sherman of Arabia". Ever since the Monica Lewinsky scandal that unfolded a few years after this show's television run ended, whenever a joke is made about Clinton it's not about food, but sex. Plus, Clinton had noticeably slimmed down throughout his two terms.
85** Another topical reference that aged badly is a joke about ''Series/TheTonightShowWithJayLeno'' and Creator/JayLeno's awkward rapport with his ''first'' band leader, Branford Marsalis, whose brief tenure is almost forgotten.
86* UnintentionallySympathetic: The writers never intended for the audience to not sympathize with Jay in Season 1, but they underestimated the reaction to his repeated misfortunes and his overall lot in life (where you could only say Marty, Margo, and Jeremy consistently liked him). Needless to say, Season 2 went about correcting this and [[ThrowTheDogABone throwing Jay some serious bones]].
87* ValuesDissonance
88** The RunningGag of Duke mistaking Jay for gay isn't nearly as funny, if at all, in an age where homosexuality isn't considered anywhere near as unusual or amusing as it once was.
89** The many PoliticalOvercorrectness jokes were considered fair game in 1994, when UsefulNotes/GeorgeHWBush's "kinder, gentler America" concept was just getting off the ground and largely considered flimsy. Nowadays, they come across as dismissive, if not just hackneyed, due to the term "political correctness" often being used to shoot down criticism and comments made by marginalized people.
90** Related to the above, one such joke in "Uneasy Rider" involves a shipment of politically correct textbooks that need to get to a preppy school before the kids believe that "someone other than Christopher Columbus discovered America." While it was already common knowledge in 1994 that Columbus didn't "discover" America (that would've been the people already living there), his reputation eventually shifting fully from a flawed-but-important historical figure to a genocidal imperialist makes the joke feel especially tone deaf.
91* ValuesResonance
92** The RousingSpeech from Jay about not going to bad movies, sequels past the second, TV-to-theater movies and remakes, has seen a lot of people praising the concept, as many people feel Hollywood relies too much on remakes, franchises, and has very little in quality original material.
93** Compounding the ValuesDissonance about political correctness jokes as listed above, the joke from "Uneasy Rider" of a wealthy father bemoaning how his private school student son doesn't say "he or she" instead of just "he" still works as a satire of [[BourgeoisBohemian wealthy alleged liberals who are woefully out of touch with the values they claim to support]]. It's even funnier now that "they" is the more accepted gender-neutral pronoun.
94* VindicatedByHistory: It had mixed-to-positive response in its time, but has since been regarded as an underrated gem from the 1990s.
95* WhyWouldAnyoneTakeHimBack: InUniverse, Jay asks Alice this when she considers going back to her philandering husband, Cyrus. Alice then confessed to Jay that whenever she's about to throw him out, he sings to her and she "melts like butter on a bagel."[[note]]'''Alice:''' Oh, God. I've been in New York too long.[[/note]] Sure enough, he sings to her when she attempts to throw him out again, and it almost works until Jay counters it by singing about his faults.
96* TheWoobie: Jay is treated like crap by just about everybody, always struggles for ratings (and by extension, employment), forced to watch the film industry sink lower and lower, and doesn't have much luck with women. However, [[ThrowTheDogABone Alice becomes his long-term girlfriend in the second season]].

Top