Season Review: Momma Named Me Sheriff Season One fka Mr. Pickles Season Four

For some reason, 2019 turned into the year of in-season reboots of popular animated series. Notable franchises like South Park, The Simpsons, and more all took turns in imagining shows within shows, but only one really had the balls to go ALL-IN on rebooting a well-known franchise. That’s right you sick son of a bitch, I’m looking at the producers of Mr. Pickles. Largely considered a top five show on Adult Swim, the producers went ahead and decided to forego all of that in favor of killing their titular character in what was long advertised as the fourth season of Mr. Pickles. What we got, was essentially a series finale, in favor of a new series called Momma Named Me Sheriff. Instead of watching a border collie go on murderous rampages, we get the sloppy seconds that is the Sheriff giving us what is almost an animated take on COPS had that show been produced by the Trailer Park Boys.

There have been numerous efforts to get an animated cop show going to no avail. Examples include Murder Police and The Cops, both of which were canceled before they even came to fruition, and of course the 20-episode backordered Paradise PD for Netflix. And while Paradise PD’s sole mission is to go as nuts as possible for fans of say Family Guy, Momma Named Me Sheriff continues to attune to your Mr. Pickles fans, even if this go-round pulls back on the delicious Satanic pathos of its predecessor, Momma Named Me Sheriff still gives us the solid trademarks of an animated series from Will Carsola and Dave Stewart, the duo closest to being as important as Matt Stone and Trey Parker in terms of pushing boundaries that haven’t been pushed before, just in different ways.

Being an Adult Swim series, especially one that aired its episodes after brand-new Rick and Morty, Momma Named Me Sheriff continues Adult Swim’s tradition of experimentation in late-night in a time when adult animation is getting more expansion than ever before. The experiment works, essentially Chief Wiggum in the eyes of Will and Dave. I don’t come away entirely convinced about some form of the Pickles canines not coming back, especially when you consider the show’s finale episode and the way THAT ended. And that could be what this is, just a bunch of strewn together Mr. Pickles B-plots to get them out of the way so that the producers could potentially produce for us a more grandiose send-off for Pickles. Yet, while this makes for a solid new entry for Adult Swim, the execution is nowhere near the flawless victory that was Mr. Pickles’ third season. I want to continue watching original efforts from HotHouse’s more important producers until the day I die, and the idea of silly cops going nuts every week is a funny premise…but it’s not Mr. Pickles.