Home Movies (TV series)
Encyclopedia : H : HO : HOM : Home Movies (TV series)
Home Movies is a dialogue-driven American animated television series about 8-year-old Brendon Small (voiced by the creator, head writer, and lead musician of Home Movies, Brendon Small), who makes films with his friends, Melissa and Jason, in his spare time. He lives with his divorced mother, Paula, and his adopted baby sister, Josie. He is also friends with his alcoholic, temper driven soccer coach, John McGuirk.
Broadcast history
Home Movies premiered on UPN on April 26, 1999 but was pulled from that network after five episodes. The completed episodes were picked up by Canadian broadcaster YTV for their short-lived Limbo block, and aired for a short period of time. It returned to American TV two years later on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim late-night lineup due to a fanbase within Cartoon Network's executive branch, including Khaki Jones. It became one of Adult Swim's most popular shows.The brain trust behind this show is Soup2Nuts (formerly Tom Snyder Productions), the same people who created Comedy Central's defunct animated series Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist. Many members of the cast and crew of Dr. Katz were involved with Home Movies, such as stars Jonathan Katz and H. Jon Benjamin, then assistant/talent co-ordinator Melissa Bardin Galsky, writer Bill Braudis, and producer/audio editor Loren Bouchard.
It aired on CN as part of its Adult Swim block in the United States and in Canada on Teletoon as part of The Detour block. The show was cancelled by CN in April 2004. In the DVD commentary for the show's 4th season, Brendon Small and Loren Bouchard say outright that there will be no further seasons of Home Movies.
Style
In its first season, Home Movies utilized Soup2Nuts's patented Squigglevision technology to animate the show but later abandoned that for the cheaper, more malleable Macromedia Flash animation. The switch was initiated for several reasons: scattered negative response to Squigglevision (from both critics and potential fans), limitations in regard to movement (fluid motion is rare in Squigglevision), and the view that Squigglevision was inherent to Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist and that Home Movies should develop its own unique style.Another quality of Home Movies' carried over from Dr. Katz was its initial use of "retroscripting." Retroscripting is a process in which an episode's scripts are purposely left vague, and instead of exact dialogue, the plot of a particular scene is merely outlined - the rest of the dialogue is then created through improv by the actors. The use of retroscripting in Home Movies gives the show very casual, realistic dialogue with an often dry, sarcastic wit. This technique is also used in other shows such as Curb Your Enthusiasm, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Trailer Park Boys, and Reno 911! Although retroscripting was only used officially in the first season (the entire first episode was improvised from start to finish), the dialogue in the following three seasons remained heavily improvised, with the written script serving mainly as a guide or something to fall back on for jokes if needed.
Another prominent feature of the show was its use of completely original music written and performed by the series creator Brendon Small, a graduate of the Berklee College of Music, a self-proclaimed Shredder.
A recurring visual theme within the show are lawn gnomes, which tend to make random but subtle appearances in the background of many scenes (even a gnome-shaped guitar appears in a music shop in the episode "Guitarmageddon").
Characters
Major characters
- Brendon Small (Brendon Small) - The star of the show and writer/director/lead actor in most of the movies.
- Jason Penopolis (H. Jon Benjamin) - Brendon's friend who is noticeably more immature.
- Melissa Robbins (Melissa Bardin Galsky) - Brendon's friend, who is often more sensible than Brendon or Jason. She is also the daughter of a single father.
- Coach John McGuirk (Benjamin) - Brendon and Melissa's soccer coach, an overweight, alcoholic, incompetent coach of an incompetent team, who constantly gives Brendon bad advice.
- Paula Small (Paula Poundstone, eps 1 - 5, Janine Ditullio, eps 6+) - Brendon's single mother, a (temporarily unemployed) creative writing teacher and author.
- Josie Small (Loren Bouchard) - Brendon's adopted baby sister.
Recurring characters
- Erik Robbins (Jonathan Katz) - Melissa's father, a real estate agent.
- Mr. Ronald (or Donald) Lynch (Ron Lynch) - Brendon and Melissa's teacher who, later in the show, also becomes their interim principal. A subtle, visual running gag in the last season is that he is secretly a cat themed superhero, usually relayed in the form of a newspaper headline in the background. He is referred to by different first names at different points in the series.
- Duane (Small) - A metalhead of few words, whose band Scäb writes and performs the music for most of Brendon's movies. His physical appearance is similar to that of Joey Ramone.
- Walter and Perry (Benjamin, Small) - Two hyper best friends with high pitched voices and matching attire. (Small commented that they were often unsure of which person portrayed which character.)
- Andrew Small (Louis C.K.) - Brendon's estranged father, a lawyer.
- Linda Small (Laura Silverman) - Brendon's attractive, snippy step-mother.
- Fenton Mewley (Sam Seder) - A spoiled, annoying classmate with the tendency to call Brendon "Bren-Bren."
- Cynthia (Jennifer Kirkman) - Choreographer for Duane's band on whom Brendon has a crush.
- Arnold Lindenson (Andy Kindler) - Paula's expressive boss. In the second season, he often mistook Brendon for a "young lady."
- Shannon (Emo Philips) - A bully who initially beats up, but later befriends, Brendon.
- Stephanie (Kelly Kimball) - Paula's attractive but flaky friend who twice tries to seduce McGuirk.
- Clarice (Valerie Kappa) - "Li'l mama" and coffee-house employee.
Guest appearances
- Todd Barry — as "The Clerk" in "Psycho-Delicate"
- David Cross — as "Guy in Grocery Store" in "Brendon's Choice"
- John Flansburgh — as "Mike" in "Camp"
- Mitch Hedberg — as "The Pet Eulogist" in "Brendon Gets Rabies", "Mitch" in "Yoko", "Cop" in "Law and Boarders", and "Anger Management Counselor" in "Brendon's Choice"
- Tom Kenny — as "Doctor" in "Coffins and Cradles"
- John Linnell — as "Miguel" in "Camp"
- Eugene Mirman — as "Eugene" in numerous episodes
- Patton Oswalt — as "Helmet" in "Renaissance"
- Ian Roberts — as "Tom Wilsonberg" in "Stow-A-Way"
DVD releases
Shout! Factory, through Sony BMG Music Entertainment, releases DVD of Home Movies seasons, each on three-disc box sets. Each DVD has numerous special features and easter eggs.Season releases
| DVD Name | Release Date | Ep # | Additional Information |
|---|---|---|---|
| Season 1 | November 16 2004 | 13 | Special features include 10 commentary tracks, animatics, interviews with cast and creators, animation galleries, and short films by Brendon Small and Jon Benjamin. |
| Season 2 | May 31 2005 | 13 | Special features include commentaries and interviews with Brendon Small, Melissa Galsky and executive producer Loren Bouchard, Winner of the "Small Shorts" film contest, Animatics songs from the series, Landstander Decide Your Doom Adventure Inter-active Video Game. |
| Season 3 | November 15 2005 | 13 | Special features include commentaries, animatics and a featurette for "People who don't necessarily like Home Movies." |
| Season 4 | May 16, 2006 | 13 | Special features include commentaries, animatics, and featurettes. Also included is a CD with 52 tracks composed and performed by Small for the show. |
See also
External links
- [Home Movies' Official Site]
- [The Home Movies Super Site]
- [Soup2nuts] The production company's website.
- [The Slapstick Barbarian Project]
- [Home Movies at TV.com]
- [IGN's 10 Questions: Brendon Small]
- [MP3 audio interview] with creator Brendon Small from public radio show The Sound of Young America.
- [Precious Roy Studios] Website of the film company that won the Small Shorts Film Contest as seen on the Second Season DVD of Home Movies.
- [An interview with Small in regard to the release of season 3 of Home Movies on DVD and his new cartoon, Dethklok]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.