Country of origin United States Original network Cartoon Network | No. of episodes 40 | |
Original release October 1, 2012 (2012-10-01) – August 12, 2013 (2013-08-12) | ||
The fourth season of American animated comedy television series Regular Show, created by J.G. Quintel, originally aired on Cartoon Network in the United States. The season ran from October 1, 2012 to August 12, 2013. Quintel originally created the series' pilot using characters from his comedy shorts for the cancelled anthology series The Cartoonstitute. He developed Regular Show from his own experiences in college, while several of its main characters originated from his animated shorts 2 in the AM PM and The Naïve Man from Lolliland. Following the success of its first season, Regular Show was renewed for a fourth season on October 26, 2011.
Contents
Regular Show's fourth season was storyboarded and written by Calvin Wong, Toby Jones, Andres Salaff, Madeline Queripel, Benton Connor, Hilary Florido, Sean Szeles (who was promoted to supervising director halfway through the season), Kat Morris (who left to become a storyboard supervisor on Steven Universe), Sarah Oleksyk, Hellen Jo, James Kim, and Owen Dennis, while it was produced by Cartoon Network Studios. The season began on October 1, 2012, with a special 30-minute (two-part) season premiere, "Exit 9B". Regular Show is rated TV-PG for suggestive humor – certain episodes are rated TV-PG-V for mild to moderate violence, including peril and non-fatal use of weapons and firearms. Other specials that aired within the season include the Halloween special "Terror Tales of the Park II", a Christmas special, and the 100th episode of the series. The character Thomas was introduced in the season premiere, working as an intern for the park in which the series primarily takes place.
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. In Season 4, Thomas was introduced and Mordecai & Rigby usually help for adaptation. 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 Season 4, 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 Calvin Wong, Toby Jones, Andres Salaff, Madeline Queripel, Benton Connor, Hilary Florido, Sean Szeles (who was promoted to supervising director halfway through the season), Kat Morris (who left to become a storyboard supervisor on Steven Universe), Sarah Oleksyk, Hellen Jo, James Kim, and Owen Dennis, while being produced by Cartoon Network Studios. The show is rated TV-PG and occasionally TV-PG-V. 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 fourth season of Regular Show was produced over October 2011 – September 2012, with heavy use of double entendres and mild 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.