Fish Hooks

Fish Hooks
Disney, can you see... fish? - The Fat Controller from Thomas & Friends
Genre: Slice of life Animated sitcom Running Time: 22 minutes Country: United States Release Date: September 3, 2010 – April 4, 2014 Network(s): Disney Channel Created by: Noah Z. Jones Distributed by: Disney Television Animation Starring: Kyle Massey Justin Roiland Chelsea Kane John DiMaggio Jerry Stiller Seasons: 3 Episodes: 59 (110 segments)

Fish Hooks is an American animated sitcom created by Noah Z. Jones, who later went on to create the more infamous shows Almost Naked Animals and Pickle and Peanut. It aired on Disney Channel on September 3, 2010, and ended on April 4, 2014, and starred That's So Raven's Kyle Massey, Justin Roiland and Jonas' Chelsea Kane.

Plot

A trio of fish - brothers Milo and Oscar, along with dramatic goldfish Bea - attend school in an aquarium in a pet store. They cope with the usual trials of teens, like dating, friendship, sports, and school issues, along with some more unusual things, like giant lobster attacks and field trips to hamster cages.

Bad Qualities

1. Unappealing character designs for the fish characters, as they look more like colorful ghosts with big lips and hair rather than fish.
2. Almost all the characters are fish-like stereotypes:
   • Milo is a party animal stereotype.
   • Oscar is a shy/introvert nerd stereotype (though he's tolerable).
   • Bea is a perfect/smart girl stereotype (though she's tolerable too).
   • Jocktopus is a quarterback jock/bully stereotype.
   • Albert Glass is a precocious child/nerd stereotype (But he's still tolerable).
   • Bleak Molly, Razor, Scabbo, and Goth Squid are goth/emo/punk stereotypes.
   • Shellsea is a fashion-diva stereotype.
   • Steve Jackson is a cool dude stereotype (but like Oscar, Bea, and Albert, he's tolerable).
3. Moreover, Milo himself isn’t a good character and sometimes an unfunny comic relief and annoying at times.
   • There are other unlikable, annoying, or mean-spirited characters besides Milo himself like Clamantha, Jocktopus, Piranhica, Mr. Nibbles, and Shellsea.
4. Annoying voice acting for the most part. The characters tend to speak in obnoxious and high-pitched tones, with Clamantha being the biggest offender (who is voiced by Alex Hirsch).
5. It's nothing but a generic school sitcom, except with fish. You could replace the main characters with humans and it would make no difference.
6. The non-fish characters are stock images, such as Bud, Snake, and Mouse (while likable), Wilford the Cat, Pamela Hamster, etc.
7. The show makes frequent use of various school clichés.
8. Lazy plot, which is heavily derivative of other teen shows and sometimes copies and steal ideas from another sea-related cartoon, SpongeBob SquarePants.
9. Overuse of gross-out and toilet humor in the majority of episodes.

Good Qualities

1. The animation itself is usually good (even Mercury Filmworks (the same animation studio behind The 2013 Mickey Mouse reboot, Atomic Puppet, Hilda, and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, among others) did a decent job).
2. While the designs look out of place for fish, the art style is decent, and better than Almost Naked Animals and Pickle and Peanut.
3. The voice acting is passable, especially from Justin Roiland (who would later co-create Rick and Morty) as Oscar.
4. The theme song is awesome.
5. The show improved in Seasons 2 and 3, as the gross-out and toilet humor was toned down a bit, the plots are less cliched, and Milo becomes more tolerable, but that isn't saying much.
6. The stock photo backgrounds do blend in well with the environment/scene at times since fish tanks in real-life use stock photos of environments for backgrounds.
7. There's are some jokes that can be funny at times.
8. Plenty of great/decent characters such as Oscar, Snake, Mouse, Bea, Dr. Frog, Steve Jackson, Jumbo Shrimp, Albert Glass, Ninja Fish, etc.
   • As mentioned in GQ#5, Milo gets a bit better in seasons 2 and 3.
9. The final episode truly feels like one.
   • There's also a variety of good episodes like pool party panic (even though some episodes are the rehash), like Parasite Fright.
   • To be fair, it's not as bad as the other two shows by Noah Z. Jones, Almost Naked Animals and Pickle and Peanut.

Reception

Fish Hooks received a generally mixed reception from critics and audiences alike. It currently holds a 4.9/10 on IMDb.

Surprisingly, the show has done well with Google users as it holds a 89%.

In The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows, David Perlmutter wrote, "While this program started well, given the veteran talent involved, it quickly faltered, becoming so obsessed with plotting the minutiae of its self-created fishbowl universe that it abruptly lost its creative touch." He criticized the voice acting as "incredibly shrill; loud; and, above all, hammy," and said that the show "was a shotgun wedding between the typically hyperspace-paced narrative approaches of Cartoon Network... and the more measured and balanced style typical of Disney."

Trivia

• Jerry Stiller (who portrayed Principal Stickler) died on May 11, 2020.
• Kyle Massey and Chelsea Kane departed fellow Disney series That's So Raven/Cory in the House, and Jonas, respectively.
• This show was aired on Disney Channel on September 3, 2010, right after Disney Channel's original movie such as the Camp Rock sequel, Camp Rock 2: The Final Jam.

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