Country of origin United States Original network Cartoon Network | No. of episodes 12 | |
Original release September 6 – November 22, 2010 | ||
The first season of American animated television series Regular Show originally aired on Cartoon Network in the United States. Many of the characters are loosely based on those developed for J.G. Quintel's student films at California Institute of the Arts: The Naïve Man From Lolliland and 2 in the AM PM. Quintel pitched Regular Show for Cartoon Network's Cartoonstitute project, in which the network allowed young artists to create pilots with no notes to possibly be optioned as a show. After being green-lit, Quintel recruited several indie comic book artists, plus some of the crew members he had worked with on The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack, to compose the staff of the show, as their style matched close to what he desired for the series. Regular Show was picked up by Cartoon Network, who decided to create a twelve-episode first season.
Contents
The first episode of Regular Show's first season is "The Power", ending with the season finale "Mordecai and the Rigbys". The season was storyboarded and written by J. G. Quintel, Sean Szeles, Shion Takeuchi, Mike Roth, Jake Armstrong, Benton Connor, Kat Morris, Paul Scarlata, and Kent Osborne, while being produced by Cartoon Network Studios. The show is rated TV-PG for rude language, mild sexual innuendo, and suggestive humor/themes, and occasionally TV-PG-V for mild to moderate violence, including comic slapstick, fantasy violence, scenes of peril and threat, nonlethal use of explosives, weapons, and firearms, and visual and verbal references to death and dying. Despite not airing on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim line-up, it is considered more of a traditional adult's animated comedy than a children's cartoon.
Concept
Two 23-year-old friends, a blue jay named Mordecai and a raccoon named Rigby, are employed as groundskeepers at a park and spend their days trying to slack off and entertain themselves by any means. This is much to the chagrin of their boss Benson and their coworker, Skips, but to the delight of Pops. Their other coworkers, Muscle Man (an overweight green man) and High Five Ghost (a ghost with a hand extending from the top of his head), serve as rivals to Mordecai and Rigby. The show usually revolves around Mordecai and Rigby's attempts to avoid work and enjoy themselves. However, they often, at times, have to pay for their irresponsible actions, as they always get into more trouble than they thought. This typically results in Mordecai and Rigby going through bizarre and surrealistic misadventures, many of which nearly kill them or others around them.
Production
Many of the characters are loosely based on those developed for Quintel's student films at California Institute of the Arts: The Naive Man From Lolliland and 2 in the AM PM. Quintel pitched Regular Show for Cartoon Network's Cartoonstitute project, in which the network allowed young artists to create pilots with no notes to possibly be optioned as a show. After being green-lit, Quintel recruited several indie comic book artists to compose the staff of the show, as their style matched close to what he desired for the series. The season was storyboarded and written by J. G. Quintel, Sean Szeles, Shion Takeuchi, Mike Roth, Jake Armstrong, Benton Connor, Kat Morris, Paul Scarlata and Kent Osborne, while being produced by Cartoon Network Studios. Roth is Creative Director and Janet Dimon is producer. The show is rated TV-PG for rude language, mild sexual innuendo, and suggestive humor/themes, and occasionally TV-PG-V for mild to moderate violence, including comic slapstick, fantasy violence, scenes of peril and threat, nonlethal use of explosives, weapons, and firearms, and visual and verbal references to death and dying. Despite not airing on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim line-up, it is considered more of a traditional adult's animated comedy than a children's cartoon.
The first season of Regular Show was produced with heavy use of double entendres and mildly offensive language. Quintel stated that, although the network wanted to step up from the more child-oriented fare, there were some restrictions that came along with this switch.
Cast
The voice actors include Quintel himself (who portrays Mordecai) and William Salyers (as Rigby). Quintel states that the writing crew tries to "come up with dialogue that sounds conversational and not too cartoony so that the characters are more relatable." In addition, Sam Marin portrays the voice of Benson, Pops, and Muscle Man, and Mark Hamill provides the voice of Skips, a yeti groundskeeper.
The character of Mordecai embodies Quintel during his college years, specifically at CalArts: "That's that time when you're hanging out with your friends and getting into stupid situations, but you're also taking it seriously enough." The character of Rigby developed randomly when Quintel drew a raccoon hula-hooping on a Post-It. He liked the design and developed the character of Rigby to be a jerk character who is far more irresponsible than his companion.
Reception
The season received generally positive reviews from most critics, gaining a Metascore—a weighted average based on the impression of critical reviews—of 76 percent. Critics enjoyed the risque and adult innuendos and humor, the animation style, and the voice acting.