Season Review: Universal Basic Guys Season One

KRAPOPOLIS, Grimsburg, Housebroken, FOX Animation has had a lot of attempts to try and build out those next big franchises to carry on the Animation Domination mantle for years to come with middling success. Housebroken was canceled after two seasons, Krapopolis saw more success when embracing the Blockchain gold rush but has since whimpered on to mixed to low critical acclaim, and although the series’ first season was mid an incoming second season with Martin Short joining the cast could be exactly what the doctor has ordered before sticking Grimsburg in the morgue.

There’s a lot of blame that can go all around (for my money Housebroken could’ve worked if airings were a bit more consistent and maybe put on another night of the week with other female-skewing programming), but really it was a matter of FOX forgetting who their audiences are mostly comprised of on Sunday nights….men. That’s right. Good ol’ fashioned dudes that smoke cigars, drive trucks, and most importantly…watch football. Krapopolis creator Dan Harmon doesn’t even know what a football is, but the largely New England Patriots-skewing producers of Family Guy sure could. So, how do you grab the Family Guy audience, remove the Disney element, and make sure that fans of football stay watching on Sunday Night? Well, you make a show about guys from NJ who love football, like doing dumb shit, and get paid $3000 bucks a month to do it. That’s Universal Basic Guys. 

Co-created by long-time Bleacher Report producers Adam and Craig Malamut, Universal Basic Guys is by far the FOX network’s first new successful menu item since the Disney sale in just about every metric available. The series is nearly beating The Simpsons in the overnight ratings and FOX doesn’t have to split any of the shares in revenue because they own 100% of the series. THAT’S what they are looking for. The just-linked TV Line article kind of alludes to it, but they also don’t point out the different stakes involved across their AniDom lineup and if I’m FOX I’m thrilled that my freshman series is having the start that it’s having.

Universal Basic Guys’ overnight ratings grow over time over the course of the show’s season, though I’m sure fans were probably annoyed about the constant musical chairs the lineup was having up front with The Simpsons. But, for the series to have worked as much as it did, credit has to go to the producers for putting together an animated comedy for guys and zeroing in on exactly what they wanna see.

For those that don’t know, Universal Basic Guys follows the Hoagie Bros. in Mark and Hank, two guys who used to work at a hot dog factory until their jobs were replaced by robots which gives the duo $3000 a month to fuck around with to do whatever they want. While Hank saves his money, Mark isn’t as frugal and will spend his money on all sorts of crazy crap including a crossbow, high-end tools, and occasional investments in businesses that almost never work. Joining Mark (voiced by Adam Malamut) and Hank (voiced by Craig Malamut) is Mark’s loving family, though other than his loving wife Nancy (voiced by Talia Genevieve) we don’t get to spend TOO much time with other members of the family other than the occasional cameo of Nancy’s son Darren (voiced by Brandon Wardell).

Even in the show’s first season, Universal Basic Guys methodically builds out Glantontown NJ in a very Springfieldian way with a cavalcade of silly neighbors and townsfolk. Chief among them is husband-wife duo David (Fred Armisen) and Andrea (Ally Maki) but we also get to spend a bunch of time with the likes of Murph (voiced by Craig Malamut) who seems to have a sordid past though is usually a homeruns in the comedy department whenever he comes through.

The combination of all of these factors help Universal Basic Guys become the solid football pizza that FOX needed on Sunday nights after NFL Overtime. The series is silly, not to be taken seriously, good ol-fashioned guy stuff that should do well in the coming years ahead. Having already been renewed for a second season with Rob Rosell replacing Dave Lagana as the showrunner and executive producer when the show returns in Fall 2025, FOX suddenly has a strong quarterback for its Sunday AniDom lineup for the future.