Al Jean, Jon Lovitz Attached To “The Critic” Revival

Add Al Jean to the growing choir of producers like Jon Lovitz and Mike Reiss who want to revive the classic primetime animated sitcom The Critic. With series like King of the Hill and Futurama both getting revivals in the last couple of years, why not a show like The Critic that still gets memed quite a bit on socials especially whenever a movie truly “stinks”.

The difference between this series and the aforementioned ones is that this series’ rights are held by Sony so a network or streamer has to be okay with splitting the series’ profits and costs which can sometimes throw a wrench into things.

The Critic also has a sordid history. By the mid-90s, James L Brooks’ Gracie Films had put into development a brand-new animated series in conjunction with producers from the Harvard Lampoon comedy troupe and had even tapped David Silverman to produce the character designs and Rich Moore to direct the premiere episode. Shit, the show even had Nancy Cartwright voice one of the children (“Margo Sherman”)! If you thought I was talking about The Simpsons…you’d be wrong, though not completely as it were as the main character was actually introduced in an episode of The Simpsons entitled “A Star Is Burns”, made famous for two reasons. Thanks to a half a year dispute with James L. Brooks, it would be the first episode of The Simpsons to not feature a Matt Groening credit. Secondly, this episode was used as the platform from which James L. Brooks would help introduce the world to one, Jay Sherman (voiced by Jon Lovitz”). As the episode would conclude, Jay would walk his fat ass off of a FOX broadcast, and into a cushy, Wednesday Night time slot for his own series called The Critic, an animated comedy that followed Jay, host a television show that critiques movies, celebrities, and pop culture of the time. way in cult favorite status for the years to come.

Similar to The Simpsons’ Homer, Jay is a chubby oaf that loves his food, but that’s really where the similarities end. Unlike Homer with his Duff beer, Jay preferred more of an upscale martini that is more in-tune with an urban lifestyle prevalent in NYC, and unlike Homer, Jay is a divorced father who is presented as a bit more dickish which is usually a bit of a turnoff to women, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. In stark contrast to his animated brethren, Jay was adopted and his adoptive parents are still very much a part of his life, as is his teenage sister. As a result of Jay’s divorce, he only gets to see his son Marty (voiced by Christine Cavanaugh) on occasion due to the fact he lives with his mother and Jay’s ex, the sometimes cruel Ardeth, all dynamics that broke away from the “happy family” paradox that most of television also adhered to. And whereas both Homer and Fred Flintstone are still trying to “make it” in life and can be seen as success stories, Jay is a multi-award winning personality and something of a celebrity.

The voice pitches couldn’t be any more different between the voice actors either, in that Jon Lovitz’s elevated pitch delivered with chauvinistic intricacies that offer a nice deviation from the more mundane Fred Flintstone of yesteryear. It’s this pitch that helps showcase a range of emotions in a lead character that needs to have the show on his back at all times, unlike The Simpsons where we can see full episodes about Moe or Grampa or Ned and not worry every single one of the principal family characters. This range exasperates itself especially in the show’s first season when we see Jay deal with a sort of multiple personality disorder that takes its form in “Ethel”, a transexual personal conflict that was very taboo at the time, along with the weekly teases that Jay may be a closeted homosexual.

Concepts like these were ahead of their time, and in a fully entrenched Disney-ABC partnership, probably not conducive to an audience that on Sunday Nights checks in with the “Wonderful World of Disney”. As a result, The Critic would be cancelled after one season on ABC, then be picked up for an additional season over at FOX where we would be introduced to Jay’s new love interest Alice (voiced by Park Overall) of whom was also a single mother and shared some personality traits that would exhibit a more tender relationship than what was clearly on display with Ardeth and Jay.

After the cancellation of The Critic, show producer Al Jean would return to work on The Simpsons, eventually taking over as the showrunner and executive producer by the franchise’s 13th season while Reiss would continue to enjoy a solid career in producing internet cartoons and to the box office smash Ice Age as well as help write The Simpsons Movie which would draw over a half a billion dollars at the box office. The Critic would return as an internet series in 2000 for a series of shorts and Jay would show up as a gag time-to-time on The Simpsons, but alas the franchise would toil but alas the franchise would toil away in cult favorite status for the years to come.