Whenever I watch or listen to an interview with somebody who is promoting their book and they shamelessly plug the book over and over again, my brain always goes to the exact same place. In my head, I hear the insistent, whining voice of Saturday Night Live alumni Jon Lovitz going “Buy my book! Buy my book! Buy my book!” in a way that is both robotic, but also steadily increasing in desperation.
The moment comes from the short-lived 1994 animated series The Critic, where Lovitz plays film critic Jay Sherman. In the episode, Jay has a life-sized cardboard cutout of himself used to promote his book in stores. The display also has a mechanical arm that waves a copy of the book, making it seem even more desperate.
That gag is just one of countless brilliant jokes that live rent free in my head from The Critic, one of my all-time favorite adult animated series.
The Critic was the brainchild of writers Al Jean and Mike Reiss. After a successful, highly impactful run on the first few seasons of The Simpsons, the duo branched off with an original creation of their own. In The Critic, Jay Sherman hosts a show where he reviews movies and interviews stars. Jay’s show-within-the-show also allowed for a steady supply of film clips from fake movies and fake sequels to real movies. The parodies appeared in a rapidfire, cutaway style years before Family Guy made it their signature gag. Some memorable examples of which include Frau Doubtfire, where Arnold Schwarzenegger plays Mrs. Doubtfire, and Field of Dreams 2 where Babe Ruth appears through the cornfield and immediately inquires, “Hey, where can a fella get a hooker around here?”
The show features great characters, like Jay’s son Marty (Christine Cavanaugh), who is basically a mini-me version of Jay. There’s also his eccentric billionaire boss Duke Phillips (Charles Napier), who delights in torturing Jay for ratings; and his chain-smoking makeup lady Doris Grossman (Doris Grau). Various celebrities appear as regular punching bags in the show, including Orson Welles and Clint Eastwood (both performed by Maurice LaMarche).
But really, The Critic is a showcase for one truly excellent character. Jay Sherman is an overweight, obnoxious, self-important glutton who delights in insulting the movies he’s reviewing. He’s also got a hilariously simple catchphrase in “It stinks,” which he employs toward most of the movies he sees. The character is a bit like a cartoon version of Ignatius Reilly from A Confederacy of Dunces, but who makes more pop culture references.
After the first season, ABC cancelled The Critic due to low ratings and it being an all-around bad fit for the more family-friendly network. Fortunately, it was rescued by Fox and put on right after The Simpsons. The time slot was a much better match and the ratings improved, but it still wasn’t enough to rescue the series. After season 2, Fox canceled it a second time. Altogether, just 23 episodes of the series were made.
If you crunch the numbers, 23 episodes of a 22-minute show amounts to just eight-and-a-half hours of viewing, which is the perfect amount to binge during a weekend, with plenty of time leftover for hedonistic, Jay Sherman-like eating and napping. The show is also available for free on Tubi, though if you’ve got a Disney Plus subscription, you’ll want to use that too for the classic season 6 episode of The Simpsons, “A Star Is Burns” where Jay Sherman comes to Springfield for a film festival. While that episode has some overblown notoriety for Matt Groening’s objection to a crossover, it truly is a hilarious showcase for both shows’ characters (and, of course, The Simpsons crossovers have since become commonplace).
However, The Critic’s meager episode count may not remain at just 23 episodes. In a recent Polygon interview, creators Al Jean and Mike Reiss said a reboot of the series has “never been closer to actually happening,” with Jean’s deal already in place and, hopefully, Lovitz’s deal soon forthcoming (Reiss will be serving in a smaller role than he did previously, but he’ll be involved too). While not everything that has gotten a reboot in recent years actually warrants one, The Critic, with its short lifespan and truly hilarious writing, definitely deserves a return.