By the time Black Dynamite season two airs, it will be over two years since season one celebrated its first season finale. Back then, EVERYONE was talking about this show the same way people are talking about Rick and Morty now, and with good reason. The series is one of the few on Adult Swim that get 30-minute run-times, and similar to Venture Bros. is one of the few TV shows on the air that employs a hand-drawn process that definitely gives the series tones and depth that you simply can’t get on Flash-toons. That’s why the majority of Japanese anime is done this way and that’s a big reason why Black Dynamite really is one of the best shows on TV. From it’s over-the-top racial overtones, to the stellar number of guest stars, this show is a well-oiled machine.

The Blu-Ray release does a great job of exhibiting how much Black Dynamite had to go through in order to be our best new show of the year for 2012. For starters, producer Carl Jones had to adapt a feature film for animated television, which is no easy task. Then they had to skip past Six Point Harness and figure out who the hell is going to produce this series, with the winners being Titmouse whom at the time could not lose for Adult Swim as they were producing just about all of their shows. Now it’s a bit more varied, but there was definitely an era on Adult Swim where you had only a few options for animation production houses and Titmouse was certainly one of them and with good reason.

Included in this release are episode commentaries for a couple of the Black Dynamite season one episodes, as well as a really well-done behind-the-scenes look at how the series is produced. Unfortunately, I don’t think the documentary piece did the series justice in showing how many layers are truly needed to make this show what it is. What I would have liked to have seen is maybe some footage of Korean animators painstakingly crafting each episode, and maybe a bit more in the writer’s room. While we got glimpses into the daily lives of production crew on hand, I would have enjoyed a more detailed doc with excerpts about how the character designs were adapted from live-action, and even better, maybe more insight from the voice actors to get their takes on the respected characters that they play.

Despite the special features that need some beefing up, I usually recommend getting the first-release of any animated series that comes out on home release. This way you can see a show’s humble beginnings and really appreciate how good of a series we have on hand here.

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