Home Movies
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Broadcast history
Home Movies premiered on UPN on April 26, 1999 but was pulled from that network after five episodes. The completed episodes were picked up by Canadian broadcaster YTV for their short-lived Limbo block, and aired for a short period of time. It returned to American television two years later on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim late night lineup. It soon became one of Adult Swim's most popular shows. The brain trust behind this show is Soup2Nuts (formerly Tom Snyder Productions), the same people who created Comedy Central's defunct animated series Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.
In its first season, Home Movies utilized Soup2Nuts's patented Squigglevision technology to animate the show, but later abandoned that for cheaper Macromedia Flash animation, somewhat similar in style to that of South Park's animation production.
Home Movies' chief gimmick (aside from the early Squigglevision animation) was its use of "retroscripting." Retroscripting is a process in which an episode's scripts are purposely left vague, and instead of exact dialogue, the plot of a particular scene is merely outlined, the rest of the dialogue is then created through improv by the actors. The use of retroscripting in Home Movies gives the show very casual, realistic dialogue with an often dry, sarcastic wit.
It aired on Cartoon Network as part of its Adult Swim block in the United States, and in Canada on Teletoon as part of The Detour block. The show was cancelled by Cartoon Network in March of 2004.
Characters
Major recurring characters
- Brendon Small (Small) - The star of the show and writer/director/lead actor in most of the movies.
- Jason Penopolis (H. Jon Benjamin) - Brendon's best friend who is noticeably more immature.
- Melissa Robbins (Melissa Bardin Galsky) - Brendon's other best friend, who is often more sensible than Brendon or Jason.
- Paula Small (Paula Poundstone, eps 1 - 5, Janine Ditullio, eps 6+) - Brendon's mother.
- Coach John McGuirk (Benjamin) - Brendon's soccer coach, an overweight incompetent coach of an incompetent team, who is constantly giving Brendon bad advice.
- Erik Robbins (Jonathan Katz) - Melissa's father, a real estate agent.
- Mr. Ronald Lynch (Ron Lynch) - Brendon's teacher.
Notable minor characters
- Duane (Small) - A metalhead of few words, who writes and performs the music for most of Brendon's movies.
- Walter and Perry (Benjamin, Small) - Two hyper best friends who are a little too close for comfort.
- Shannon (Emo Philips) - A bully who beats up, and later befriends, Brendon.
- Fenton Mewly (Sam Seder) - A spoiled, annoying character with the tendency to call Brendon "Bren-Bren."
- Andrew Small (Louis C.K.) - Brendon's estranged father.
- Linda Small (Laura Silverman) - Brendon's attractive, snippy step-mother.
Home Releases
Shout! Factory, through Sony BMG Music Entertainment, releases DVD box-sets of Home Movies episodes.
The first season was released as a three-disc boxset on November 16, 2004
The second season was released as a three-disc boxset on May 31, 2005.
Just before the release of the second season, Soup2Nuts "leaked" information that the third season boxset was in production. No target date was given, but most outlets seem to agree that it's shooting for a November timeframe.
Related Topics
External links
- Home Movies' Official Site (http://www.adultswim.com/shows/homemovies/index.html)
- The Home Movies Super Site (http://homemovies.toonzone.net/)
- Soup2nuts (http://www.soup2nuts.tv/) The creators' website.
- Home Movies at TvTome.com (http://www.tvtome.com/HomeMovies/)