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The Tick to be Cancelled
mr.buddylee writes "This is a short write up, but evidently The Tick is going to be cancelled. " There
really isn't much there to read except the notice. I'll keep watching until
the last episode airs on Jan 24. I enjoyed it even if it was put in
a terrifying time slot guaranteeing that nobody saw it. I think if it
had a full season to find a footing it would have been a real winner.
Ah well, good luck to Ben and his future projects.
I didn't like it at all anyways :P
Karma: Bad (but who really cares anyway?)
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Oh, well, I watched it on ReplayTV and skipped the commercials anyway, so I'm sure I made them no money.
John
The Tick can NEVER be cancelled because the Tick is INDESTRUCTABLE!
all I can say is: grip too tight. Must... Break... Free...
I am a leaf on the wind
I'm a big fan of the Tick - the comic book is one of the few I can stand and the cartoon series is pure magic. But the live action show just didn't get its groove going after the pilot. One thing that was missing was the EVIL - most of the episodes spent more time on antics involving dates, sexual misunderstandings, etc, which are fine in their place but not really the best medium for The Tick's histrionics. To really show what the Tick can do, he needs to be yelling "Spoooon!" whilst crushing evil. If he has to overcome some sexual innuendo to do that, so much the better. But as a Seinfeld-like sitcom, the Tick was so lacklustre I actually forgot to watch a couple of episodes.
Everyone knows that damage is done to the soul by bad motion pictures. -Pope Pius XI
Sorry, I was brought up on the Tick Cartoon, not the comic book. Missing all m favorite villians was one strike. The loss of Tick's yperKinetic movements was a 2nd strike. There really was no third strike, but I didn't see the show getting a hit anyway. It was a good try though...
Blar.
Will always be David Putty in my heart of hearts.
(Before this gets modded down, Warburton portrayed the Tick. Not completely random.)
I suspected this would happen. The thing is about The Tick is that your average Fox viewer isn't intelligent enough to get any of the jokes.
Now, I'm not saying everyone who watches Fox is cranially deficient, but think about the kind of shows the network survives on. Ally McBeal. Melrose Place. Temptation freakin' Island! The network is built on running low-brow shows that copy from other successful shows. When The Tick delivers one of his trademark metaphors, most of the audience is wondering why they aren't seeing any car chases or strippers.
Now I'll admit that Fox's early reason for surviving was the Simpsons, but that's an exception in a sea of low-quality knock-offs.
I'll miss ya, Tick.
Any idea what the history of the Simpsons ratings were? I'm just wondering if back in the day they were as quick to axe as they are now.
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How is it possible that we saw SO much advertising for this show during the World Series (A secret message.... from my TEETH!), but I never saw commercial one for the show while it was on the air?Honestly if they would have advertised it a *little* more, perhaps I could tell you what time the show was on. Heck, I don't even know what day it was on. Just like Family Guy.Yet, I am pretty sure we're all sick of 'A Very Special Boston Public' and 'That Goddamned 80's Show' commercials.
A winner is you!
...was cool, though the time slot was awful. What I REALLY want to see is a live action Johnny Bravo.
-- Minds are like parachutes... they work best when open.
I never thought the current show was all that great. The cartoon had a twisted bent to it that was enjoyable from time to time. Course, I never watch cartoons - its for the kids, yeah - that's it. he kids.
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Having gotten started with the cartoon, then buying a bunch of comics on EBay, the TV show seems to be more of the comic-book-style Tick, which was pretty good. Too bad they didn't bring in Samuri Paul(? it's been a while..) or the ninjas. That would have been a great episode.
"Jeez. I thought Ninjas just got sucked up into jet engines.."
Given Fox's recent fare of programming, I didn't expect it to last. The only thing left is the Simpsons, since I can only get the last 15 minutes of Futurama because football runs over. C'mon guys, if the game goes too long EVERY WEEK, don't you think you can schedule around it?
Come on, you all saw it coming. The Tick was never gonna succeed with all the crap the Fox nimrods edited into it. I remember when the creator of the Tick was interviewed about the live action show...he said alot of the stupid dialogue wasn't his idea and he seemed kinda pissed that some knucklehead edited it to be that way.
Networks are great at shooting themselves in the foot when it comes to innovation. Remember the Clerks animated cartoon? It only lived long enough to spawn 6 episodes but was hilarious and had the trademark Clerks humor out the wazzoo. The episodes built the plot successively, so if you didn't see episode one before 2 you could be slightly lost.
Guess what. NBC (or was it CBS) aired the 4th episode as the pilot! People were lost and wondering what the hell was going on when they saw it. After 4 was 5 and 6 but that was it. It got canned. I suggest everyone go grab it on DVD. A true jewel.
It strikes again!
For those who don't know, Patrick Warburton (The Tick) had a part on Seinfeld as David Puddy.
Like all the ex-Seinfeld cast members before him, Warburton's show seemed doomed from the start. This makes the 3rd flop.
Hmm. I wonder if Julia Louis-Dreyfus' show will be cancelled before it starts. Good luck.
-twb
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
It's certainly in their price range. How much did they spend on production values? $1.98?
Without the epic grandeur that was the Tick comic book and animated series, the live-action series became smaller than life, becoming more of an ironic statement than a big, steaming cup o' hommage to the glorious yesteryear of comic book superheroes!
Ahem, but I degress. Where were the villains? The villains with villany so insane they could be called mad! Where was Charles, the evil brain-child? Where was Chairface Chippendale? Without these larger than life adventures for the Tick to rail against with his child-like enthusiasm for Justice, I just don't see the point. I mean, where's that call to the Heroe's Quest, chum? Where's the kind of adventure that makes you want to cry, "SPOOOOON!!!"
Ahem. Sorry, I don't know what came over me. I haven't been the same since I found moth suite at a garage sale the other day.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
No, surely, our beloved City is unprepared for gigantic blue justice striding upon the rooftops of their daily lives. The forces of truth and justice fall silent this day, but they shall rise again like the head to the top of a cold one, if you know what I mean, chum. Yes, evildoers and television programming execs, you have won this round, but as sure as the sun will rise over the dark jungles of Tibet, your day in that sun will be over, and then you shall again face... The Tick.
Maybe if they had actually showed episodes, instead of pre-empting it with other crap, it'd have worked better. Or they could've started showing the episodes at the start of the season, when people haven't figured out viewing schedules yet.
The series was pretty lyme if you ask me.
Seriously, though, I think the two biggest problems were 1) flimsy plots (i.e. crimefighters not really fighting much crime and 2) FOX.
It is unfair to say things like, "How did the Simpsons do in its first season?" as I've seen a few people do, since the series, as everybody knows, spawned from the Christmas special, which came from the Tracy Ulmann show short pieces, so it had at least a little exposure before its first true season. Also, the expectations of new shows are different now than they were in the late 1980s. It used to be that networks would be willing to give shows more of a chance to build a fan base. Nowadays, if a show isn't a serious hit by midseason, it gets swept away. Sad, but true.
This is the NFL, which stands for "Not For Long" if you keep making those bulls*** calls.
Family Guy Back to Back... wasnt the Tick supposed to be on Thursdays?
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
It seems that over and over again networks put good, or at least promising, shows in awful spots or against established leaders. Hello? Put a good show in a dead spot (Thursday at 8 maybe, c'mon Survivor?!), let it build up an audience, then move it to a stronger slot.
Futurama at 7 on Sundays?! This show is as good, if not better than, the Simpsons, yet it flounders...
Vote monkeys into Congress. They are cheaper and more trustworthy.
I think anyone who didn't see this coming was fooling themselves simply because they liked the cartoon.
The live action show was not funny at all. The closest I got to a chuckle was when they did a closeup on his face and the antennas would wiggle depending on his emotion. But then that just got creepy.
Now if someone told me they were going to cancel The Family Guy, then I'd be shocked and start talking about bad time slots. But in The Tick's case, it just wasn't funny, sorry.
FiGZ.COM - A waste of perfectly good web space
On, of all places, Nickelodeon, has much the same twisted sensibility as The Tick cartoon (I love them both, truly I do.)
Also the brainchild of a independent comic...uh...guy, the fellow who did Johnny the Homicidal Manic.
Doom Dooom Doom Dooom Doom Dooom De Doom Dooom....
What were you expecting?
here is an interview with the tick himself on npr's freshair. talks about the show among other things... interview is pre-cancelation however
That sort of nonsense is not, actually, why I don't watch TV. The simple fact of the matter is that television is finely crafted to be as appealing as possible. As such, it s deuced difficult not to be attracted to it. And if one's not careful, one might spend all one's time in front of the tube. So I play on the computer, which is slightly less bad, or read books, which is much better. More of the former than the latter, I'm afraid:-)
Oh, I know that. What I meant was why couldn't they create new villains who were larger than life. I mean, they could at least have done Tommy the Evil Boy Genius. The problem is they backed away from creating really epic villains to doing a Seinfeldesque sitcom about the main characters dealing with anemic villains that couldn't scare Police Chief O'Hara from the old Batman series.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
Time slot? Who cares? I almost never watch a show "live" these days. Who has the time to schedule their lives around network broadcasts? I have two VCRs and they are both programmed to the hilt. (Why do VCRs only have 8 program slots? A salescritter I asked said "most people don't use them at all." He's probably right.) I watch shows when *I* want to. And I fast forward through the commercials. Phthbppppt!
I await the day television executives aren't 40, and aren't appealing to 40 year olds.
The day that business executives are mostly slashdot readers, and the "working man" watches cartoons. The day is coming, my friends. Cartoon network has "adult swim" now - with comics specifically for adults.
It is only a matter of time. Quantum computing may or may not be a reality, but the Tick will rise again. And so will Shaft.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
So they decide to cancel it just as Survivor ends?
I think that was drawing a lot of people away. Perhaps it will pick up a bit, but it sounds like it wouldn't be soon enough to save the show.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
I went to hear Ben Edlund speak a few years ago, and after he had fielded a couple dozen questions about minutiae from Tick cartoon episodes, I asked "What are you working on besides The Tick?" And he smiled and said, "You know, I'm really glad you asked me that."
So, while I'm sorry to see The Tick go, I got the impression that Ben's ready to move on. Personally, I'm looking forward to seeing what's next. Ben, you made the world a little weirder - thanks.
Well, The Simpsons had better (read: some) exposure to its target audience (WRT timeslot. Tickheads followed it, but, obviously, the network wasn't in it for a few thousand hardcore fans). The transition from Saturday morning to Thursday night isn't exactly ideal, especially when spaced by a handful of years. I won't count the brief stint on Comedy Central, since being on cable in the wee hours of a Monday (what was it? 1am?) can't be considered exposure.
If a corporation is a personhood, is owning stock slavery?
So long, live action Tick. I hardly knew thee, and now I won't have to.
Mr. Ska
Kind of like the topless donut shops that pop up in California: an incredibly stupid idea, but you're pretty much guaranteed that NOW will show up and protest, getting you press coverage, and the thing works for a few months (before succumbing to the "incredibly stupid idea" thing).
hawk
hawk
I disagree that the timeslot had anything to do with the demise of the show. Timeslots become popular because of the shows, not the other way around. NBC has 0wn3d Thursday evenings ever since the cosby show, but before the cosby show it was fair game. After that, they put their best crap their to maintain their thursday night audience. Of course now they are losing to survivor but that is besides the point. Thursday night is the biggest TV night for no reason other than the popularity of the cosby show. My basic point being that, aside from like the 2am-7am time slots, the quality of the show dictates it's popularity far more than the timeslot.
Furthermore, as TiVo and similar technology popularizes, hopefully the networks will realize that they can run more series in the 2am-7am timeslots, because suddenly timeslots are irrelevant because people will watch the show whenever they want to. It'd be nice if they would run entire seasons of the simpsons, etc. marathon style during the off hours for the convinience of tivo viewers.
She used to sing on Saturday Night Live (which was about the only camera time she got on the show), and wasn't bad. THey had her doing mostly Gilbert-and-Sullivan parodies, IIRC.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
Generally agree about Fox. Simpsons has had ups and downs, but is in an up (and the downs were still better than friends) Futurama is great, Malcolm is Great, Family Guy is pretty good, if a little overboard, The Tick was shaping up quite well, 24 isn't perfect, but it's good... but it isn't a comedy, it's a drama, so... drama's are fair game? Then you slight NBC. They have the Law and Order franchise (and the original and SVU are actually really a damn sight better than 24, frankly) and some of the best miniseries on broadcast. West Wing, Crossing Jordan, and ER are too good to dismiss out of hand, especially if you're willing to put 24 on your list. I'm not all that impressed with CBS on Dramas. I mean, "The Agency"? But they had the wisdom to take the free agent CSI, which is really one of the five best dramas in broadcast and syndication right now, as far as I'm concerned. ABC is just plain bad, and UPN, well, I can't even watch Enterprise (and lest you peg me, I have cable entirely because I missed Farscape too much, in spite of my "who has time for TV" attitude.) I really don't watch anything but the first two Law and Order shows (but not CI), CSI, Farscape, Titus, The Tick, Futurama, 24, and Smallville (sorry, I don't know why, but I like it. Probably because of Michael Rosenbaum, who manages to do a weirdly believable road to hell character), and all of those I approach with a tape-it-and-catch-it-later attitude. I'm two months behind on some of them, and that's taking reruns into account. So my habits result in... NBC (2 hours), CBS (1 hour), Fox (2.5 hours), WB (1 hour), and SF (1 hour) Admittedly, my rare extras include Simpsons, Malcolm, and Family Guy. So Fox gets more than the rest. Followed by NBC. ABC gets none of my eyeball time.
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement
Now, I was a fan from the start when I first happened across issue number 3 of The Tick (in the hands of a friend who let me read it) and ended up buying the graphic novel as soon as it saw daylight. I love the humor of the comic, and found the show far more true than the cartoon.
I've also never seen Invader Zim. Is that what happened to Vasquez after the second issue of "I Feel Sick!"? There was mention of a cartoon, but...
But there is a world of difference between The Tick and JTHM. The first time I walked into my favorite indie-friendly comic shop (and I still patronize that sort even if it means going 40 minutes out of my way and spending a lot more than I would on subscriptions, because I value their existance, damnit!) and laid eyes on the grotesque and fascinating work that was Johnny, I was blown away. Twisted. Sick. Perverse. Strangely compelling. His world is the polar opposite of The Tick. With the same innocent disconnectedness, but nothing else in common, Johnny sees himself as artist and equalizer, striking out against the "righteous" and popular, the petty and mostly harmless bullies and bureaucrats of his world, sometimes with a spork. And while he terrifies poor Squee (see Squee's own title), he never considers harming the victim of the condescending, the contemptuous, the too-perfect. And somehow, you're never quite sure if Johnen himself is sane, or even safe.
Now, a show (cartoon, of course) based on JTHM would be... frightening. It would never sell. But... the kid brother of a friend, who I had introduced to JTHM, actually contacted Johnen and got his permission to adapt a play from that same series... and managed to produce and run it at a rather uptight and proper elite high school. And it went over well. Remarkable...
So, your thoughts... whither bound the properties of The Tick? Will we ever see another show, animated or otherwise? Perhaps a new patron could be found, one willing to give it a real chance?
For now, I must actually record myself some episodes of this "Invader Zim"... it will be some consolation, at least.
-- Still waiting for the Nike endorsement