YMMV / The PJs

• Awesome Music: The theme song, courtesy of none other than George Clinton. "Low-rent high-rise, y'all!"
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Smokey the crackhead.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Sanchez's electrolarynx is a lot less funny when a series of extremely depressing anti-smoking ads appeared in the mid-2000s featuring an actual Hispanic man using one.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • At one point during "Hangin' with Mr. Super", Thurgood changes the TV channel, finding a bunch of static, and remarks, "Looks like that frog network finally ran out of money." The PJs would end up airing its third season on that frog network. And even more funny, said network did eventually run out of money, becoming The CW.
  • When a Voodoo doll of himself is about to be sucked into Haiti Lady's toilet, Thurgood shouts "Hang on, little me!" Even better, years after the show ended, the studio that made it would eventually become the studio that made Coraline.
• Mexicans Love Speedy Gonzales: The show was a huge hit with black audiences, despite Moral Guardians and most TV critics claiming it was racist and demeaning. Ironically, the heat died down when the animated version of The Boondocks aired years later and those same naysayers now find the humor of this show not so bad in comparison.
• Once Original, Now Common: At the time of the series' premiere, the idea of a weekly animated series animated entirely with stop-motion was a novel concept (Eddie Murphy insisted that the series be animated with stop-motion to make it stand out from most prime-time animated series of the era), to the point where art director Nelson Lowry won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2000. With the advent of series such as Robot Chicken (which would reference The PJs in a segment parodying fictional series finales) it doesn't looks as impressive.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • "Scarthroat", which features the power in the Hilton-Jacobs Projects going out, in a parody of the Y2K bug. The episode was produced for season 2 but did not air until season 3, at which point all the Y2K buzz had faded from public consciousness.
  • "Survival: In tha Hood", as the title implies, is a parody of Survivor. While Survivor is still running today, it's not as popular as it was when the episode premiered.
  • The series featured a number of references to Star Wars that date the series to the prequel trilogy. "How the Super Stoled Christmas" has Thurgood telling Nula that "Phantom Menace is the best Star Wars yet!", and "Home School Dazed" opens with Calvin and Juicy re-enacting Darth Vader's "I am your father" quote.
  • "Clip Show", a parody of Inside the Actors Studio, has host James T. Bagger telling Thurgood that their show is "on the Bravo network", referencing when Inside the Actors Studio was on the Bravo network before they became a reality TV network (Inside the Actors Studio would movie to Ovation in 2019).
  • "A Race to His Credit" opens with Thurgood getting a thumb sprain from changing the channels too much, landing on BTV. Thurgood then prays that they're not showing an Amen marathon, referencing how BET would air the series in marathons (Amen would leave the network in 2001).
  • "Ghetto Superstars" has Calvin and Juicy attempting to become rap superstars under Infamous QT (voiced by Snoop Dogg). The episode ends with Thurgood unintentionally causing a riot, with Calvin pointing out that "The riot of 2000 has started!".

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