Regular Show
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 It's anything but…
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Regular Show (known as Regular Show in Space during its eighth and final season) is an American animated urban fantasy buddy comedy series created by J.G. Quintel on Cartoon Network. It ran from 2010 to 2017.
On June 12, 2024, Warner Bros. Discovery announced that a new Regular Show series was greenlit, with Quintel returning as showrunner.
Plot
Mordecai, a blue jay, and Rigby, a raccoon, are groundskeepers at a park. But these best friends are lazy and don’t let their jobs interfere with their ability to have fun. While Mordecai tries to be reasonable and do a good job, he’s frequently led astray by his immature pal, who is totally without fear or shame and has no boundaries at all. The friends often end up having to pay for their irresponsible actions as they usually get into more trouble than they anticipated. Their slacking off at work causes much chagrin for their hot-tempered Gumball machine boss, Benson.
Why It Makes You Want To Say "OOOOOHHHH!"
- The title of the show is ironic. The title describes this cartoon as a regular show but the vast majority of, if not all, episodes in the show feature crazy surreal events.
- Great animation by Saerom Animation.
- Likable and hilarious characters such as:
- Mordecai
- Rigby
- Benson
- Muscle Man
- Hi-Five Ghost
- Skips
- Pops
- Margaret
- C.J.
- Starla
- Eileen
- Roxy
- Low Five Ghost
- Mr. Maellard
- Hilarious, intelligent, and delightfully controversial jokes that all add an adult-like tone to the show.
- The episodes have surreal and creative plots. The idea of turning boring everyday jobs into exciting adventures gives a lot of opportunities for imagination.
- The show massively redeemed itself during seasons 7-8 after its slight downfall during seasons 5 and 6.
- Tends to blend both relatable situations (like the pains of having a patronizing boss) and nostalgia of the 80s and 90s into one episode.
- Memorable and intense fight scenes.
- Memorable and iconic quotes and catchphrases, such as "OOOOOHHHH!", "Free cake! Free cake!", "Or you’re FIRED!", "MY MOM", "STOP TALKING!!!" And "You pissed me off."
- The morals are delivered in the craziest and most outrageous ways.
- Good characterization. Despite his lazy ways, Mordecai is a good role model. He is a kind, respectful blue jay who'll take on any responsibility just to have fun with others. Rigby is the complete opposite, but he still comes through for Mordecai in the end. Mordecai and Rigby are possibly the only two similar characters. Every other character is given an individual, original personality of their own.
- Similarly, Rigby demonstrated great character development and maturation throughout the series. In the earliest episodes, he was fairly abrasive, and childish, and was once shown to be a high school dropout. In later seasons, he makes a conscious effort to turn his life around, even making it a point to go back to high school and complete his remaining classes. His development is especially apparent when comparing his interactions with Eileen; he's a lot nicer to her in later seasons.
- The background design is simple but well-illustrated.
- It spawned a film called Regular Show: The Movie, which was pretty good.
- Hilariously weird choice of character species. Mordecai is a blue jay, Rigby is a raccoon, Benson is a gumball machine, Skips is a yeti, and Hi-Five Ghost is just what his name suggests: a ghost.
- Among the most bizarre of things, Pops was revealed to be a super-powered, constantly reincarnated alien being destined to fight his evil twin in a battle that resets the universe. His noble sacrifice is rather tear-jerking.
- Adding to the humor is the fact that human beings interact with them with no particular problem. Not to mention that they rarely ever reference their species' traits, such as Benson's gumballs and Rigby's tail.
- The final episode A Regular Epic Final Battle was a strong and emotional end to the series.
- Tons of intimidating and hilarious antagonists.
- Benson's yelling against Mordecai and Rigby is fairly hilarious by par by Mrs. Wicket from Mr. Bean: The Animated Series.
- Many episodes of the show involve Mordecai and Rigby playing games, most of them being known classic games such as Excitebike, Adventure Island, Donkey Kong, etc. thus catering to video game fans.
- It was a cartoon along with Adventure Time, that helped save Cartoon Network from seeing a decline in ratings.
- Along with The Ren & Stimpy Show and seasons 1-7 of Family Guy, this shows that censorship can have benefits to the creativity of the show as back then, Cartoon Network not only controlled the adult content, yet it allows the writers to be more creative with their comedic gags and story executions.
"YOU'RE FIRED!" Qualities
- Some material is not appropriate for younger and family viewers at the time, such as on-screen death, guns, and sexual innuendoes, and before Cartoon Network redubbed most of it, mild swearing back in season 1.
- Season 6, while not bad, is considered the weakest by fans due to being the start of Mordecai's infamous love triangle story, the slight flanderization of some characters, and having barely any impact on the series as a whole, leading to the series to go slightly downhill. Despite all of this, this seasons are still considered decent to some people (especially Regular Show fans).
- Speaking of the infamous Mordecai love triangle story episodes, Mordecai seems to be having a good time with C.J. until each time they encounter Margaret, C.J.'s jealousy erupts and causes her to hurt both herself, Mordecai, and others. She nearly even killed Margaret over being close to her boyfriend. This puts Mordecai not only in a tight but a torturous situation as he is stuck with two girls to love. These moments made them feel sorry for Mordecai.
- The characters (while likable) can be sometimes annoying, especially Mordecai, Rigby, and Pops.
- Benson can be extremely unlikable and unsympathetic, especially when he threatens to fire Mordecai and Rigby over trivial things or even things that weren’t their fault, and suggests he will use ANY excuse to get rid of them. The episode "The Best Burger in the World" is a perfect example of how unlikable Benson can get, he was also very unlikable in episodes like "Fireworks Run", "High Score", "Grilled Cheese Deluxe", "Really Real Wrestling", etc.
- Not to mention, his face turning red, and loud yelling can be obnoxious for some viewers.
- Some may argue that Benson suffers from on-and-off flanderization in seasons 3-6. Though he was eventually redeemed in season 7.
- Rigby can also be unlikable in early seasons, in episodes such as "Do Me a Solid". However, he would eventually undergo character development as the series progressed and, like Benson, redeemed himself in season 7.
- Benson can be extremely unlikable and unsympathetic, especially when he threatens to fire Mordecai and Rigby over trivial things or even things that weren’t their fault, and suggests he will use ANY excuse to get rid of them. The episode "The Best Burger in the World" is a perfect example of how unlikable Benson can get, he was also very unlikable in episodes like "Fireworks Run", "High Score", "Grilled Cheese Deluxe", "Really Real Wrestling", etc.
- Some of the plot lines aren't that well-paced, such as the love triangle between Mordecai, C.J., and Margaret, which is one of the few times where the show got uncomfortable (as mentioned above).
- There are a handful of bad or mediocre episodes especially in seasons 5 and 6, such as:
- The Unicorns Have Got to Go
- The Best Burger in the World
- Do Me a Solid
- Yes Dude Yes
- Quips
- Laundry Woes (not a wise way to start season 5)
- 1000th Chopper Flight Party
- Wall Buddy
- Real Date
- Eileen Flat Screen
- Party Horse
- Play Date
- Merry Christmas Mordecai (a bad Christmas episode)
- Sad Sax
- Video 101
- Paint Job
- Dodge This
- Maxin and Relaxin (a bad way to start season 6)
- Wall Buddy
- Dumped at the Altar (a horrible and depressing way to end season 6)
- Dumptown U.S.A
- Local News Legend
- Return of Party Horse
- The episodes, while great, can sometimes get formulaic; an episode begins on a normal day, then something bizarre happens then at the end, some unexpected or predictable twist happens (like something great happening, only to backfire humorously).
- Sub-par character designs for some of the characters, such as the weirdness of having a green human.
- It can get mean-spirited at times.
- Similarly to Adventure Time, the series suffers from heavy censorship in many countries (especially the UK and Australia), which effectively neuters many of the jokes. Furthermore, many episodes were pulled from those countries for content.
- One particular case is "Go Viral", which was never aired in Australia despite not being any worse than most episodes that did make it on the air.
- It is unknown what happened to the Park workers' supporting allies (Death, The Ducklings, DVD, Blue-Ray, etc.) after the universal glitch in the finale.
- Despite "The Real Thomas" being a good episode, it was considered anti-Russian, pro-American propaganda in Russia and was banned in the country.
- With that said, international releases of "The Real Thomas" (such as the one released in European regions) have alternate versions that would edit out the anti-Russian themes and replace it with a fictional country "Druznia" and the nationality being "Druznic".
- The series sometimes contradicts continuity.
- For example, in the 8th season, Pops is revealed to be an ultra-powerful alien with god-like powers, whereas, in the movie adaptation, the future Pops does not possess these powers and is killed by Ross' forces, which could mean that Anti-Pops would’ve erased everything with his brother dead, but he doesn’t appear. But since Anti-Pops wasn’t conceived yet, hence the plot hole.
- If not creating, Regular Show did popularize the cringe-worthy trend of cartoons appealing to modern kids with their typical "yo", "dude", "cool" & "bro" slang, despite this show's slightly superior approach to that concept.
Reception
Regular Show received critical acclaim from critics and audiences alike. It is considered to be one of the greatest shows Cartoon Network ever made. The series sits at an 8.5/10 on IMDb.
Trivia
- Regular Show originally started as a collage project called "2 in the AM PM" back in 2007. The short featured Mordecai and Benson as coworkers at a gas station.
- William Salyers, the voice actor of Rigby, later went on to focus on his roles as characters in three DC movies such as Batman vs. Two-Face, Batman: Gotham by Gaslight, and Superman: Red Son after the show's cancellation.
- J.G. Quintel, the creator of this series and actor who voiced Mordecai and Hi-Five Ghost, has won a Primetime Emmy Award at the Nickelodeon Film Festival Producers Choice Awards.
- Minty Lewis (who voiced Eileen) worked in 20th Century Studios to become the creator and producer of Fox's The Great North for the Animation Domination block, which premiered on Fox on January 3, 2021.
- Seasons 1-4, 7 & 8 were originally on Best Shows and Episodes Wiki while seasons 5 and 6 were on Terrible Shows & Episodes Wiki on the original Qualitipedia wiki but since seasons 5 and 6 are still considered good by fans, we added the whole show as a good page.
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