I love The Tick

I love The Tick. Ever since I first saw the cartoon on Fox oh so many years ago, I couldn’t get enough of the near-invulnerable blue numbskull. Now, thanks to DVR and Toon Disney, I get to relive those memorable days of my youth. Of course, there’s one big thing that separates The Tick from Thundercats, He-Man, Silverhawks and all the other cartoons I remember from the good old days: The Tick stands the test of time, and is enjoyable as much more than mere nostalgia.

For example, take the last episode I watched: The Tick vs. The Mother of Invention. In the episode, a villain kidnaps history’s greatest inventors by plucking them out of their own time and trapping them in a giant glass box. Along with standards like Ben Franklin and Leonardo Da Vinci, the hostages include George Washington Carver, the man who came up with a hundred different uses for peanuts. At the end of the story, GWC ends up saving the day with a peanut machine gun. Seriously.

At another part of the story, The Tick has to travel back in time to defuse a bomb that’s be sent back to the Renaissance. When he gets there, the art critics of the time assume the bomb is a work of art and discuss what the artist was trying to convey. When The Tick defuses the bomb with a conveniently placed On/Off switch, the critics complain that they never “get” performance art. Wait a minute…this was originally a Saturday morning cartoon aimed at kids, right?

My favorite part throughout the entire series has got to be the complete indifference the residents of The City feel towards the super villiany going on in their town every single day. When a maniacal baker calls to let a shop owner a loaf of bread is about to go off, the owner ignores him and continues to fill Arthur’s grocery order. When a pharmacist is asked to make a 20-pound aspirin to stunt the growth of a dinosaur/paleontologist, he simply replies “Yep, that’s pretty big,” because as it turns out, it’s only the second biggest aspirin he’s ever made.

And now, according to The Tick: Days of Drama #5, the TV series longest over-due for a DVD release is getting one. Only one word can truly sum up my joy at the news: SPOON!