Review: Universal Basic Guys “Bird Cage”

Overview
Mark buys himself a Superbowl ring and leverages it to get special treatment at the Eagles game; Hank has an adventure with cutting-edge mascot technology.

As if FOX hasn’t already shown how to exactly target this series to its target audience, sports fans, they line this week’s return episode of Universal Basic Guys directly after the afternoon NFL games are over and quite frankly I think FOX should do this every week they have an afternoon game once the World Series is over. Episodes like “Bird Cage” is a perfect encapsulation of the audience you want to stay tuned in after the games end.

Bird Cage refers to the jail that disorderly fans at Lincoln Financial Field have to stay in and that’s what happens this week to both David and Adam and with it comes a whole new cast of hilarious characters we get to contend with…cell mates both past and present. By the way, I 100% believe that the Philadelphia Eagles would try a coaching change like the one we see in this week’s episode, it’s a totally on-brand football move and it makes perfect sense that it happens with the equally as disgraceful NY Giants. This is actually where I think the lone misstep this week happens and I’m willing to bet this is someone at Bento Box that doesn’t watch football or have paid close attention to Fred Armisen’s (David) career because if it was me, I would’ve dressed Fred up in THIS jacket as opposed to the Patagonia-looking vest he was wearing. Is this a slight overreaction on my part? Sure, but those are the little things that take TV episodes into the stratosphere of the high nines for us.

Even with that one bit not coming to pass, “Bird Cage” might be a top five funniest episode of animated comedy that I’ve seen in 2024, and is definitely the funniest episode of the show’s freshman season thus far. If you’re a football fan and you like stupid sports movies and series like I do such as Celtic Pride, Big Fan, The League and others, this episode should be required watching because it’s rather out-of-control from the opening to even during the end credits. Between the bridge trolls, Hank’s “I feel bad about eating the babies”, and guest stars like Greg Olsen and Jon Glaser checking in, this is about as good of instance of football pizza animation that we’ve had all season. If you’re a sports fan and you haven’t checked out Universal Basic Guys, start with this episode.