Jerry is a 2007-2009 series by HotDiggedyDemon told over the course of 5 Flash shorts thematically centered around helplessness, poverty, and the inability of the characters to handle the world around them.
The first cartoon was about Jerry's life as a young bachelor, the monotony of his day-to-day life and the birth of his child. Two of the other shorts dealt with his childhood, and the other two with the people whose lives were affected by Jerry. All in no particular order.
The episodes in order are:
- "Jerry": Jerry's depressingly monotonous life leading up to his suicide.
- "Little Jerry and the Closet": A peek into Jerry's miserable childhood and his mysteriously horrifying closet.
- "Jackie": Taking place during the same time as the first episode, we see the life of Jackie, whose life isn't as better as Jerry's.
- "Junior": Several years after Jerry's suicide, we see his son discover Jerry's abusive father.
- "Jerry: The End": The Series Finale. Taking place a day after "Little Jerry and the Closet", we see how little Jerry deals with the death of his mother.
- "Jerry 2": In this comedic
Bizarro Episode, Jerry acts ike Jerry Seinfeld.
Despite its crude animation and short running time, Jerry manages to weave a web of complicated, rounded characters and events.
The whole series is about a half hour and is available on YouTube here
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These are tropes.
- Abusive Parents:
- Jason. He was emotionally abusive to his son Jerry, doing little to hide his contempt, and showing absolutely no emotional support whatsoever. He ends up bonding with Junior when they turn out to agree about him.
- Junior's mom as well. She straight up abandons him forever, on his birthday.
- Anachronic Order: Chronologically, the series starts with "Little Jerry and the Closet", then "Jerry: The End", next is "Jerry" (with "Jackie" taking place at the same time), and then lastly "Junior".
- However, if you believe that most of the series was just the nightmarish vision Jerry saw in the closet then the show starts with "Little Jerry and the Closet", then "Jerry" all the way to "Junior", and then finally ending with "Jerry: The End".
- Anti-Hero: Are heroes:
- Jerry, who works a dead-end job, takes no control in his life, lets people walk all over him, and eventually kills himself.
- Jackie, cheats on her boyfriend, lives on the street, steals money, and does heroin.
- Junior, a spoiled immature child, who would even punch his own grandparent.
- Alcoholic Parent
- All Just a Dream: Maybe? Many fans theorize that the entire series up until "Jerry: The End" were nothing more than just the horrifying visions that Little Jerry saw in the closet. Thus explaining why the series ends with Jerry in Heaven, rather than him burning in Hell like the others episodes showed.
- Alliterative Name: Jerry, Jackie, Jason, Junior, Joann.
- All Men Are Perverts: Just about every male Jackie encounters in her short attempts to have their way with her (and gets beat up for the trouble). Even Jerry, who's a lot less malicious about it, can't help but cop a feel on her when they're making out (though that one's more understandable since they're already in a consensual sexual encounter).
- Arc Words: The final few sentences of The Shining are read by Jason to his son, and later to his grandson.
- Art Evolution: The animation becomes a lot smoother by the end.
- Babies Make Everything Better: Strongly averted when Jerry finds out the girl he had a one-nighter with has had his child. Life only seems to get worse for him from there.
- Black Comedy: Holy Sweet HELL.
- Book Ends:
- Jerry staring in to the moon in the original short. In the first shot, he's smiling. At the end, he's not.
- The first short ends with Jerry burning in Hell. The last one ends with him playing a harp in Heaven.
- Break the Cutie: The original short is about the weight of the world being too much for the sensitive, passive Jerry.
- Brick Joke: Inverted. At the end of the first short, we see Jerry burning in Hell. This is explained in the second short, and it was because Jerry opened the Closet of Unimaginable Horrors which, according to his dad, would cause a person to go to Hell when they die. When he went to bed that night he had a nightmare about burning in Hell Of course, Jerry ends up in Heaven in the final short, suggesting that Jerry's father was wrong.
- But We Used a Condom!: Jerry uses one when he's about to do the Mexican chick... and then some time later, that chick comes back with their infant son.
- Calling the Old Man Out: Junior breaking his grandfather's nose after comparing him to his father.
- Cerebus Syndrome: The series never become deadpan serious, but the earlier installments are lighter in tone, and by the last installment all the humor has been replaced by Jason's deliberately Dude, Not Funny! snarks.
- Character Title
- Childhood Friend Romance: Subverted with Jerry and Jackie. They first met when they were young, hit off immediately, and it's implied that Jackie seems to harbor some feelings for him as an adult...but she never commits, opting instead to take his money and sneak away after every one-night stand.
- Crapsack World: Pretty much every single character who has appeared in this series is either unpleasant, selfish, perverse, unhappy, or all of the above.
- Crossover: Junior was going to appear in the second season of Wacky Game Jokez, 4 Kidz!, which was never produced.
- Died Happily Ever After: In the very last scene, Jerry appears in Heaven.
- Dirty Old Man: Jason.
- Disproportionate Retribution: Inverted (more or less). Despite Jason pinning the blame on Jerry for his mother's death, the most he could think of was having him grounded for three days.
- Don't You Dare Pity Me!: Jerry's only spoken lines in the series consist of an effort to console his father, Jason. Jason instantly rebuffs him.
- Doting Parent: While not quite this Joann, Jerry's mother, makes it entirely clear that she loves her son more than anything else about ten minutes before she dies.
- Driven to Suicide: Our protagonist, Jerry, ends up hanging himself at the end of the first short.
- Drunk Driver: Jerry at one point is pulled over for driving drunk, and has to take the bus to work for a time before having his license reinstated.
- Dysfunctional Family: Apparently, Jason ends up adopting Junior and letting his teenaged asian hooker move in with them.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: After living a miserable life, terrible childhood, and several episodes implying that he's going to burn in hell forever, the Series Finale's Stinger ends with Jerry peacefully residing in Heaven.
- Freaky Is Cool: Although Young Jerry is initially traumatized when he opens up the Closet of Unimaginable Psychological Horror (to the point where his hair turns white on the spot), he soon enough gets amused with opening and closing the door just to hear and see the unimaginable horrors within.
- Freeze-Frame Bonus: The form for Jerry's license reinstatement is just a modified version of the Lord's Prayer.License Reinstatement Form: "Blessed Jesus, our lager, which art in barrels, hallowed be thy drink. Thy will be drunk, I will be drunk, at home as in the tavern. Give us this day our foamy head and forgive us our spillage as we forgive those who spill against us, and lead us not into incarceration but deliver us from hangovers, for thine is the beer, the bitter, and the lager, forever and ever, barmen."
- Gag Dub: sort of...
- Self-Parody: Apparently as an April Fools Joke.
- Grandparental Obliviousness: Junior sits in his grandfather's house for about two weeks without him noticing.
- Heroic Mime: Jerry and Jackie.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood
- I Have No Son!: In Junior, Jason initially refuses to acknowledge that he ever had a son.
- It's All About Me: Jerry's father is completely indifferent about his son and only concerns himself with his own pain and suffering.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Jason didn't seem to be lying about staying away from the closet.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: Jackie, Jason, and Junior. Not always, at least.
- Jump Scare: The "Closet of Unimaginable Psychological Torment" is filled with screamers.
- Karma Houdini: Only the more jerkish characters get happy endings. "Jackie" even ends with her strolling down the street into the sun while The Salteens' "Nice Day" plays.
- Knight of Cerebus: Though the series was always dark, Jason becomes this in the final episode.
- Luke You Are My Grandfather
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: Jackie's masculine girl to Jerry's feminine boy.
- Melancholy Moon: A recurring motif.
- Mirror Character: Jerry's dad, Jason, starts taking to Junior after the latter punches him in the face, proving to be the "little me" he always wanted in a son. Jason works at a crummy job he hates, gets his money stolen by every woman he sleeps with, and he keeps forgetting to find a different place to hide his wallet. He's a lot more like his son than he realizes.
- Never My Fault: Jason blames his wife's death on Jerry.
- No Name Given: Junior's mom or the policeman Jackie was married to.
- Overly Long Gag: The first short uses an incredible amount of repetition to emphasize the monotony of Jerry's life. It works well enough that many viewers get bored or frustrated, thus feeling Jerry's pain.
- Parental Abandonment: Junior's mom ditches him forever.''Junior, Went to Reno, be back never. Have a nice life. -Mom P.S. Happy 6th birthday.
- Parental Issues: Jerry's dad Jason is basically an angry man with big dreams that never came to pass and has emotionally detached himself from the world. It also doesn't help that Jerry's mom died right in front of him and Jason blames him for it.
- Robbing the Dead: After discovering Jerry's corpse hanging in his bedroom, Jackie steals a wad of cash out of his dresser. And 73 cents from his pocket.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Jerry's son Junior has red eyes and he's a total brat. Kinda odd seeing that his father had blue eyes and his mother and grandfather had brown eyes.
- Parental Neglect
- Shoot the Shaggy Dog: Life only gets progressively worse for Jerry. And then he hangs himself.
- Sudden Downer Ending: The original short.
- Sympathetic P.O.V.: Jackie's short shows us her side of the story. Turns out her life isn't much better than Jerry's.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Jerry: The End ends with a shot of Jerry living it up in Heaven.
- Why Couldn't You Be Different??: Jason's got this on a huge level for his meek son Jerry. He eventually gets along better with Junior since he's a vicious brat, differing him from his "loser" father.
- Yawn and Reach: Jason does this to the title character in Jackie. She beats the crap out of him.
