The Tick

Couldn't find a discussion page for this awesome show, so I decided to make one.

IIRC, before they created The Venture Bros., Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer wrote for The Tick.

So sound off your thoughts about this classic show of the Nigh-Invulnerable arachnid-based superhero.

I think it is about time it gets a good, full release in the United States of A.

Gonna have that theme song stuck in my head all day...

Not that I'm complaining.

I love The Tick! I used to watch it on Jetix when I was a kid; got the two season sets they made when they came out...! I suddenly feel like there needs to be a Freakazoid thread now. XD

edited 18th Jun '14 11:43:32 AM by RabidSonicFan

Anybody ever wonder why "The City" is called that way?

Or why Arthur never took off his mask in the cartoon?

Well, The City is a city. Obviously. XD And as for Arthur never taking off his mask... well, none of the other superheroes ever took off their costumes either, so I never really thought about it.

It's a personality trait animators use for their characters. Similar to how we never see the kids in Mucha Lucha without their masks.

It was one of my favorites when I was a kid too.

That was different. That's a thing with lucha, they don't take their masks off in public, and exposing a luchador's face is one of the worst things you can do. That's why you don't see a lot of Rey Mysterio's late WCW run anymore.

But back to the Tick. My favorite hero? Bi-Polar Bear.

I still quote The Tick in all of his incarnations way too much. The problem comes when I start quoting the comic book version and nobody gets it. "We are a hedge; please move along."

I really need to get the DVD releases. Are those still in print?

Bump.

I haven't the faintest idea.

But hey! Important Tick-related news, everyone!

Amazon.com is planning to revive The Tick! But it's not exactly the version you'll probably think of.

It's the live-action series that was on FOX. With Patrick Warburton.

The fact that they're reviving the live-action version instead of the cartoon doesn't bother me. Each incarnation of The Tick (whether it be the live-action version, the cartoon, or even Karma Tornado and Big Blue Destiny) has taken on a couple elements of what made the original so great... but yet, I end up enjoying them all.

Karma Tornado and Big Blue Destiny?

Never heard of either one. What are they?

Also, is the live-action show really as bad as what I think everyone is saying about it?

Chairface Chippendale is my favorite comic book villain.

Sometimes, I look up at the moon, looking for a face , sometimes, I look for a big crater , and the rest of the time....

I'm looking for "CHA" .

Wouldn't it just be "HA" now since Omnipotus took a big bit out of the part with the "C" in it?

@13 The Tick: Karma Tornado was the second comic book, which was also done by Ben Edlund. It was much closer stylistically to the cartoon than the original The Tick comic, and a few of its storylines (most notably, Omnipotus's appearance) were adapted for the animated series. The Tick: Big Blue Destiny was the third comic book - it was also the first post-cartoon comic as well as the first that Edlund wasn't directly involved in.

The live-action show took some time to really get into its own groove, but it was getting there by the time it was canceled. They did leap on the Ho Yay gags a bit thick, but to be fair, those are present in the original comic too (although The Tick himself was a bit more aware of such things and actively wanted to avoid such things). I've noted in the past that exposure to the original comics tends to result in having a more sanguine view of the live-action version. Though sadly, no adaptation of The Tick has ever had the guts to do what was probably the best sequence in the original - when Oedipus gets stabbed, and you see that The Tick is insane... and not just Cloud Cuckoo Lander insane.

@14 Officially, that's Charo's fault.

Reposting from the "The Tick returns" Live Action forums:

Now that the Tick is coming back, I wonder if Disney will get the tapes of the 90s cartoon out of their vault and release the series in full?

OK, so it's wishful thinking...

It's not a guaranteed pickup, since it was one of three pilots offered. One's "I love Dick" a meta comedy from the Transparent creator starring Kevin Bacon, and the other is "Jean Claude Van Johnson" a spy parody with Jean Claude Van Damme. "I love Dick" is definitely getting picked up, but honestly, I see Jean Claude getting the order before The Tick.

"I love Dick" is definitely getting picked up

Why? Because it's from the guy behind "Transparent" and that's still hotter than hotcakes or because it("I Love Dick")'s genuinely good in your personal opinion?

The former but the critical reviews also seem to be pretty good.

I'd feel a little blue myself if this pilot doesn't end up being picked. Especially since from what I heard, the concept is brilliant in my opinion. I love the idea of a gritty Netflix Daredevil-esque show starring The Tick (who, as I hear, is relatively the same in the pilot as he's always been). There's so many gags and surreal jokes you can make about a city that's secretly run by a King-Pin style supervillain.

I'd watch the pilot but I don't have an amazon prime account. Can anyone tell me if they do a whole lot of surreal gags and jokes in the pilot?

From what I remember (beware spoilers):

• It starts in space as Tick narrates about the beginning of the rise of superheroes ("Don't worry, I'm not in space. I'm not even here yet!") in the 1900's. A giant space thing falls from space into a snowy landscape as two traveling folks are seeing it and the shockwave it makes. ("Your reindeer are on fire." "Shit!")
• The City is still called The City.
• Arthur has a much more dramatic backstory than just "ex-accountant who got fired because his costume kept spooking his co-workers." (More on the costume later.) Actually, it hinges on Dramatic Irony because 20 years before the events of the pilot, he told his dad about how he wanted to join a superhero team called the Fan Five, while playing with a toy version of their ship. Just as his dad is refilling the parking meter they're using across the street, the real Fan Five ship crashes on him. Plus, Arthur became a witness to the fall of the Fan Five after their deaths at the hands of The Terror...who proceeds to have a Kick the Dog moment with Arthur by taunting him and guzzling his ice cream on what was already the worse day of his life. Because of this, Arthur has become a Conspiracy Theorist determined to find The Terror, who has seemingly perished after Superian (the first superhero) "killed" him.
• Arthur's sister Dot is in this, albeit this time, she's a paramedic.
• Yeah, The Tick is still pretty much The Tick, thinking several goons is "neat" and keeps saying cheesy good one-liners. ("Evil wears many a mitten." "You've got the brains, I got the everything else!") He also shows his signature "nigh-invulnerability" and is still ditzy enough to think Arthur's apartment is an HQ in disguise (and breaks stuff trying to find a trigger).
• Actually, there are some absurd moments, such as the fact that Superian's cape is connected from his crotch and a bulletproof suit is dismissed for looking like "a bunny suit."

So on the whole, there are some gags, but they not as all over the place as it was in the cartoon. It looks like a lot of the absurdity stems from irony, dialogue, and the Tick himself.

edited 26th Aug '16 10:34:25 AM by TargetmasterJoe

I've seen the pilot. It's... quite dark. Like, even though he does stuff on his own, the pilot convincingly sets up the idea that Tick could be a delusion of Arthur (who is a very messed up individual, albeit for good reason, with very real-life mental and family problems) before revealing that he's not, and is probably setting up a thing where people he cares about think he's crazy while he fails to show them that Tick actually exists Snuffleupagus-style.

The Big Bad makes his intro by murdering a bunch of people execution style in public, which is played totally serious by the people reacting to it. Their main threat at the moment is real-life organized crime and gangs (which are woefully outmatched by the Tick, so that's clearly going to change). In terms of tone and how the show's themes, it really does feel like if you dumped Tick into the first season of Daredevil, changing nothing about either. It feels a bit unbalanced as a result, especially since Tick himself is barely in the pilot and the plot takes a hard turn in camp superhero tropes right at the end with far less of it for the rest of its runtime.

But it's a pilot, so that's probably going to improve and be quite different should the show actually be picked up.

edited 26th Aug '16 11:01:19 AM by KnownUnknown

Oh my god. You guys know how some shows make you realize stuff after you saw them like an hour or so ago? I was thinking about exactly this after I saw the pilot.

Also, "Snuffleupagus"? You mean Snuffy from Sesame Street? Why do I keep forgetting that Snuffy was Big Bird's imaginary friend for a while?

edited 26th Aug '16 11:21:22 AM by TargetmasterJoe