Big Mouth, Bigger Laughs
Netflix’s new animated adult sitcom
isn’t just funny - it’s relatable
by Jenna Lennon
I’ve never been a big fan of cartoons. Even in what should have been my prime cartoon-loving years, shows like Spongebob Squarepants and The Fairly Odd Parents never really appealed to me.
Cartoons weren’t always my first choice, but that’s not to say I didn’t watch them at all. Shows like The Simpsons and South Park held a certain air of sophistication - or at least as sophisticated as you can get with catchphrases like “D’oh!” And “They killed Kenny!”- that intrigued me. I appreciated the dark adult humor masked by bright colors and two dimensional figures that almost made me forget the content I was watching was wildly inappropriate for an eight year old.
The Simpsons and South Park made ironic comedy accessible. They were parodies, and people often disliked or didn’t understand them because they took them for face value. But these shows weren’t about the message. They were always about the delivery.
Imagine South Park and The Simpsons with a dash of timelessness. That’s Netflix’s new animated adult-comedy Big Mouth. It’s reminiscent of all the things I loved about South Park and The Simpsons, but in Big Mouth, the message is just as important as the delivery.
Created by Nick Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin, and Jennifer Flackett, Big Mouth is an outlandish animated sitcom about puberty and every experience that comes along with it. In the series premiere, we’re introduced to tweenagers Nick Birch (Nick Kroll), Andrew Glouberman (John Mulaney), and Jessi Glaser (Jessi Klein) battling their first school dance, first kisses, and, of course, puberty. The Hormone Monster (Nick Kroll) frequently makes an appearance - anywhere from the middle of the night to the school dance - and personifies practically every thought a pubescent teenager could have.
The first episode follows Nick’s obsession with his own lack of changes in his body after a towel mishap leaves him wondering why Andrew’s body looks different than his own. Nick’s parents, Diane and Elliot Birch (Maya Rudolph and Fred Armisen), try to reassure him that everyone experiences changes at different times, and there’s nothing to worry about. But, like any twelve year old speaking to their parents about sex and puberty, Nick is immediately grossed out. But his parents are so incredibly comfortable having this conversation with him that it’s almost satirical, almost as if the message to parents everywhere is, “See, it’s easy. Now, you try.”
Kroll is funny. Based on his own experiences growing up in New York, he brings a certain authenticity to the character that makes you forget he’s not actually in middle school. And Mulaney’s subtle voice-breaks brings you right back to those days spent in health class with your eyes half closed from discomfort sitting next to someone who thought “fallopian tubes” was a scandalous thing to say. Because of that, we can laugh with the characters when the Hormone Monster appears during a lecture about the human body in Biology class.
As much as I appreciate South Park and The Simpsons, they’ve never felt real. I’m aware of the jokes being made, and I understand why they’re funny, but I’m also aware of the separation between the audience and the characters, and sometimes all of that thinking gets tiring. But Big Mouth is timeless. It puts us back in middle school and makes us relive the days of braces and acne and first crushes. It’s a show where the punchline doesn’t make you think about where our country is headed in this new Trump-era, which seems to be the premise of every joke these days, nor do you have to follow popular culture trends in order to get why it’s funny. The jokes aren’t funny just because they’re culturally relevant; they’re funny because they will always be relevant.