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Western Animation / Glenn Martin, DDS

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Let's hit the road!
"That's me, Glenn Martin. Father, dentist, lover, but mostly father and dentist. I took my family on a road trip so we can grow closer. Well, that and I burned the house down."
Glenn Martin, Opening Narration

Glenn Martin, DDS is a stop-motion Nicktoon that aired on Nick at Nite from 2009 to 2011, created by former Disney executive Michael Eisner and Celebrity Deathmatch creator Eric Fogel about a dentist (voiced by Kevin Nealon from Saturday Night Live and Weeds) and his family traveling cross country in their RV. It was only meant as a summer trip but since their house burned down due to his lousy driving, Glenn decided to continue the trip indefinitely.

The show was the fourth original program to be created for Nick at Nitenote . Created in an attempt to bring more animated programing aimed at older audiences to Nick at Nite in a similar vein to [adult swim], it underperformed. It only lasted 40 episodes the show was cancelled in November 2011. It was produced by Tornante Animation, and Canada's Cuppa Coffee Studios. Nickelodeon has thus far not produced any more new animated series for adults.


Glenn Martin, DDS contains examples of:

  • Adventure Towns: They go to different towns and cities each episode.
  • Adam Westing: Howie Mandel and Bret Michaels appear in "Bust 'Em Up" as themselves actively trying to disrupt Glenn and Jackie's marriage for the sake of reality show ratings and a massive payday, respectively.
  • And the Adventure Continues: A lot of episodes end with the family hitting the road again, but "Funshine, U.S.A." is a particularly notable example. To go into greater detail:
    • Jackie starts off the episode complaining about not having a traditional house and lifestyle, but after what happens in the episode's titular planned community, she's come to realize that their "home" is on the road and that their "neighbors" are the eccentric folks that they encounter every week. Jackie decides that, for now at least, they should keep driving in order to see the entire country Warts and All.
  • Bigger on the Inside: After Bobby Panache completely remodels the RV, the living room/dining room/kitchen is as big as the exterior and there's also three bedrooms (one for Glenn and Jackie, one for Courtney and Wendy, and one for Conor).
  • Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Courtney (blonde), Wendy (black hair), and Jackie (redhead).
  • Bowdlerize: According to The Other Wiki article, the show's original theme was called "Let's Kick Some Ass," but was changed to the less offense sounding "Let's Hit the Road."
  • Bumbling Dad: Glenn, of course. Unlike most examples, he's at least book smart, having graduated dental school and his practice is successful enough to support the family's road trip adventures. He's not too competent outside his area of expertise, however.
  • Butt-Monkey: Every single member of the Martin family has their moments of humiliation, regardless of gender.
  • Camp Straight: Bobby Panache is a flamboyant interior decorator—his final scene in the third (production-wise) episode has him driving away with his fiance, who turns out to be an attractive blonde woman.
  • Christmas Episode: "Deck The Malls."Inverted in the end, because according to Glenn, the episode's events took place pretty much right after Thanksgiving.
    • Also, "A Merry Martin Christmas," which is more clearly a Christmas episode than the previous.
  • Circus Episode: In "The Grossest Show on Earth", the family visits the circus to cheer up Conor, who feels overshadowed by Courtney's accomplishments. Glenn becomes the circus's dentist; meanwhile, Conor discovers his secret talent when he survives getting his head stuck inside an elephant's rectum.
  • Class Reunion: Episode seven deals with the family going to Glenn and Jackie's old college for their homecoming/school reunion.
  • A Degree in Useless: Jackie majored in art history and art criticism, but never did anything with either degree. When she gets a job at an art store at the mall, her ability to analyze paintings is useless because the potential customers are just looking for something that looks nice. She eventually resorts to using sex appeal to sell the paintings.
  • Depraved Dentist: Unlike Glenn, who despite his bumbling as a parent and husband, proves himself to be competent and ethical in his work, the Amish dentist is this trope. His "office" looks to be a converted horse stable and is filled with rusted, primitive, severely outdated instruments. Glenn is disgusted and traumatized when he sees the doctor yank a patient's tooth by tying it to a doorknob on a string.
  • The Ditz: Conor Martin, who is proven to be dumber than a chicken in one episode.
  • A Dog Named "Dog": The family dog, named Canine.
  • Dressed in Layers: Eleven-year-old Courtney is an aspiring business mogul who normally wears business attire, but she wears a big pink dress when Jackie tries to make her act like a little girl. When the Martins have to save a horse from a glue factory, she rips off the dress, revealing her regular clothes underneath.
  • Drives Like Crazy: Glenn's terrible reversing skills is the reason why their house burned down to begin with, not that he, or the rest of the family realize this.
  • Dysfunctional Family: Glenn and his family.
  • Faking the Dead: Wendy faked her own death in order to escape North Korea.
  • Feel No Pain: In "Toothfairy", Glenn can't feel pain because an acupuncture session gone wrong, so he becomes a superhero. But his inability to feel pain doesn't change the fact that he's getting injured. When Jackie sees his injuries, she's horrified.
  • Fiery Redhead: Jackie Martin.
  • Fingore: Glenn has his finger bitten off by a kid he is doing dentist work on. He ends up shoving his arm down the kids throat and into his stomach to get it back out.
  • Freudian Slip: In "Courtney's Pony", Wendy does this after accidentally sending the eponymous pony to a glue factory.
    Jackie: ...isn't that right, Wendy?
    Wendy: That is absolutely glue. I mean true! I really put my foot in my mouth. I mean hoof. I mean foot!
  • Gorn: The show has surprisingly violent brief moments in some of its episodes, such as the mobster episode where the gang boss dips a man into his piranha tank, with the tank filling up completely with a thick blood mist leaving nothing but a skeleton inside it. Considering what other show the co-creator worked on, this is a little bit expected.
  • Greek Chorus: "Skate, Rattle & Roll" has a trio of homeless men, in a Shout-Out to Rocky. At the end of the episode, one of them gets shanked with an ice pick by a Santa Claus lookalike they had mugged earlier.
  • Hollywood Mid-Life Crisis, Jackie joins her favorite 1980s band The Bang Bangs after suffering from one of these.
  • Homeschooled Kids: After Glenn accidentally burned their house down and decided to continue the road trip indefinitely, he and Jackie ultimately started homeschooling their kids (and Wendy), with Jackie as their main teacher. Although in one episode, Glenn and Jackie hire a Private Tutor for the kids (who ends up going crazy in the end).
  • Laugh Track: Used in the original airings of the first few episodes. It was edited out in reruns.
  • The Mafia: Glenn receives help from them in "We've Created a Mobster," though he soon realizes the problem and attempts to get out of it.
  • Magical Queer: Bobby Panache in "Pimp My RV," though it later turns that he's (presumably) straight, because the Martins eventually meet his fiance, who turns out to be an attractive blonde woman.
  • Magical Realism: The show's a goofy yet relatively grounded show about a screwball on a cross-country road trip—but some episodes feature some subtle levels of supernatural or even just outright outlandish plots, like "The Boy Who Cried Werewolf," "Toothfairy" and "Jackie's Get-Witch-Quick Scheme."
  • Multi-Part Episode: Combined with Summer Campy—in the seventh and eighth (production-wise) episodes of Season 2, the Martins go to Glenn's old summer camp (called "Camp Okwaho") for two weeks. It was originally just supposed to be the kids (Courtney and Wendy went there willingly while Conor was forced, but he eventually ends up enjoying it), but Glenn bribes the camp's owner into allowing him and Jackie to stay at the camp as counselors.
  • Naked People Trapped Outside: Actually, naked son hanging outside.
  • Obnoxious In-Laws: Jackie's parents (mainly her father) are this to Glenn while Glenn's mom used to be this to Jackie.
  • Parental Substitute: Glenn and Jackie sometimes treat Wendy, who has no real parents, as their third child.
  • Spot the Imposter/No One Else Is That Dumb: When Gary Ross (Jackie's ex-boyfriend who's a millionaire plastic surgeon based in Los Angeles) gets cosmetic surgery done to make himself look identical to Glenn, Conor's ultimately able to tell them apart when he asks them when Jackie's birthday is (it's May 2nd). Gary knows this while Glenn doesn't, which is how the family is able to out Gary as the impostor—when Courtney expresses confusion at this, Conor points out to his sister that Glenn can never remember Jackie's birthday. Jackie herself confirms this, claiming that Glenn always confuses her birthday with the expiration date on his credit card.
  • Stalker Shrine: Jackie's old boyfriend Gary never got over her and has a room full of photographs and other mementos of Jackie. There's even a wedding photo with Gary's face taped over Glenn's face.
  • Superhero Episode: Glenn becomes a superhero called "Toothfairy" after he loses the ability to feel pain in the episode of the same name.
  • Take a Third Option: In one episode, Jackie's led to believe that her ancestor, Goody Price, was a woman accused of being a witch and then unjustly executed, only to find out that she was actually a prostitute. In the end, Jackie discovers that not only was Goody Price both a witch and a prostitute, she's also (somehow) still alive..
  • Toilet Humor: We swear, the dog shows its abnormally large anus almost every episode.
  • Town with a Dark Secret: The titular planned community in "Funshine, USA."
  • Unique Pilot Title Sequence: "Save the Tooth" did not have the Opening Narration.
  • Unreliable Voiceover: When giving her backstory, Wendy states that she was told that her mother gave her up for adoption. While this is said, the truth (unbeknownst to Wendy herself) is shown onscreen; the North Korean government forcibly took Wendy away from her birth mother (who was protesting against the government), who was blindbagged and presumably killed.
  • Vulgar Humor: Not as bad as anything you'd see on [adult swim], but still has its fair share of sexual references and adult humor, as well as some surprisingly violent moments.
  • Yes-Man: Wendy constantly admires and praises Courtney and usually does whatever she asks her to, though she does have her limits.
  • You Can't Go Home Again: The road trip that Glenn makes his family go on was originally just supposed to be for the summer (so maybe only around two or three months at the absolute most). But when Glenn accidentally burns the house down, he decided to continue the road trip indefinitely.

 
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Jackie Shrine

Jackie is shocked (and happy for the wrong reasons) to find out her ex Gary still holds a candle for her in the creepiest way possible.

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