LA Times HM Article

[HomeMoviesFan]

Hey, can I get the full text for that Home Movies article in the LA Times...I really don't want to register...

[The Landstander]

March 25, 2004

TELEVISION

A cult-fave 'Home' run

A series too odd for UPN finds a comfortable home on the Cartoon Network.

By Adam Bregman, Special to The Times


Brendon Small isn't an 8-year-old auteur. But he plays one on TV.

Small, co-creator of the Cartoon Network series "Home Movies," has shared his name and his voice with the lead character of his show for five years.

Brendon, the protagonist of "Home Movies," is a precocious grade schooler who directs a regular cast of his best friends: Melissa, who's levelheaded and intelligent but easily grossed out, and Jason, a paunchy, rebellious kid who's maybe a bit slow, but a spirited actor.

"Home Movies," which was too surreal even for lowly UPN during its first five episodes, found a flotation device in the big pool of the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block. School nights, from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m., the network becomes safe for those who never need to see Scooby-Doo again. And that's where "Home Movies" has found its rabid cult following.

"It's kind of a cool, underground garage band of a show," Small says.

As a kid himself, he had little in common with his gregarious and bossy namesake. Small was very shy — though he did make his own home movies with his parents' video camera.

"They were like long-form improvisational movies with no end, and the story would change somewhere in the middle, not like on 'Home Movies,' where they are more polished," Small says. "I had my brother and sister and neighborhood friends acting in them, and I cast myself. We were indoor kids. The outdoor kids would go out and play, but we were indoor kids making home movies."

But they hardly resembled the bizarre, ingenious productions that his character creates. Among them is Brendon's science fiction masterpiece, in which Starboy and his sidekick Captain of Outer Space battle an axis of evil: George Washington, Annie Oakley and Pablo Picasso (who is missing an ear). The triumvirate's plan to destroy Earth is thwarted when their secret weapon, Washington's break-dancing kitty Mr. Pants, falls for Starboy after some cheap flattery.

In another over-the-top episode, longhaired rocker Dwayne, who usually scores Brendon's films, writes a rock opera version of Franz Kafka's "The Metamorphosis." Melissa and Jason are excited about Dwayne's opus, but Brendon won't have it. He tries to convince them that his project — "Louis Louis," with a rapping Louis Pasteur and Louis Braille — is a better idea.

While the kids sit in a sandbox and discuss their film projects, the adult characters on the show are dysfunctional and out of control. Brendon's mom (voiced by comedian Paula Poundstone for the first five episodes of the show) is a single mother who can't stop herself from swearing during parent-teacher conferences. The absentee dad appears sporadically to attempt to win over his son with ice cream and trips to the zoo.

Brendon's main source of birds-and-bees advice is his often drunk, always irresponsible soccer coach, McGuirk. Not the best of influences, the coach tells him Richard Nixon wrote the Gettysburg Address and that it begins, "I am not a crook." The irrepressibly randy McGuirk has made a play for Brendon's mom and every other woman character on the show, and he's the one who gets "Home Movies" its TV-PG rating.

"In the cartoon world, 'Home Movies' sticks out like a sore thumb in that it's low-key and is really about the characters," Small says. "We're not about the amount of jokes, but about how these characters intermingle with each other."

Fans latched on to the show with a particular obsessiveness. It has inspired a wide range of websites that may list every single garden-gnome appearance or have multiple reviewers weigh in on each episode.

Small, who created the series with Loren Bouchard, once a producer for "Dr. Katz Professional Therapist," says the theme of the show is role reversal.

"I think a lot of times when parents are divorced, the kids kind of have to step up and become mature beyond their years," he says. "But my parents are still together, and so are the parents of everyone else who works on the show. Yet the show is about single parents, so a lot of that is made up."

While it doesn't have "The Simpsons' " broad social or political critique, the humor in "Home Movies" is more off the wall — and in that sense perhaps truer to the experience of unusually smart grade schoolers with unlimited imaginations.

The series also leans on its imaginative cast: Much of the dialogue is improvised by Small, Bouchard, writer Bill Braudis and voice actor H. Jon Benjamin.

This year they finished up the 52nd episode, which means the network contract is finished. The last new episode will air April 4, though "Home Movies" will continue to run indefinitely. It's not a "cancellation" per se, says Mike Lazzo, the Cartoon Network's senior vice president of programming, who is in charge of Adult Swim. "We usually cease productions once we reach 52 episodes. We're very happy with the series, and we would have never made 52 if we weren't."

Small hopes to put out the series on DVD, as well as put together a CD of "Home Movies" music, which he wrote and recorded himself. He's currently touring the country with a live "Home Movies"-related comedy act that includes several cast members.

"We all love the show," Small says. "We are all very passionate about it. We would like to do it forever, for 20 seasons. It's amazing that it went this far. Ultimately, I would think if you have an audience that's getting stronger you would want to continue with new episodes.... Those are going to get more viewers than reruns."

Clearly, Small is reluctant to let go of his spiky-haired alter ego.

"If anyone is going to start a letter-writing campaign, now is the time."
[snip]
EXCUSE ME WHILE I STROKE MY OWN EGO =)

[HomeMoviesFan]

Thanks.

By the way...cancellation my ass. They're worse than Disney (who lets in 65 episodes more)...

[~square~]

go Landstander, go Landstander.

Underground garage band show? I think thats best Home Movies description so far.

[Delthayre]

EXCUSE ME WHILE I STROKE MY OWN EGO =)
Let's all help Landster stroke his big, throbbing man-ego until... if you haven't caught the modestly disgusting homoerotic intent of this message, **** you, you don't deserve it.

[Artimus Gigan]

What about a Home Movies Movie?

I mean a roadshow is a just a step below a broadway play...

and they made Broadway plays into movies and vice versa...

It could be the greatest Cinama Spoof of all time

yes it could beat out History of The World Pts 1 and 2 and Spaceballs

[randomguy]

I have absolutely no idea why CN foolishly clings to this 52-episode rule. It makes absolutely no sense. I wonder if Soup2Nuts could have found a way around it, like Justice League did. Hopefully, we'll at least get a trickle of new specials, or a movie, or something.

Congrats on the mention, Joe.

[Delthayre]

I have absolutely no idea why CN foolishly clings to this 52-episode rule. It makes absolutely no sense. I wonder if Soup2Nuts could have found a way around it, like Justice League did. Hopefully, we'll at least get a trickle of new specials, or a movie, or something.

Congrats on the mention, Joe.
Home Movies Unlimited!

Silly rule, silly silly rule.

You know, I think I will try to get some letters of protest written and then some letters trying to save Home Movies.

[William C. Maune]

I have absolutely no idea why CN foolishly clings to this 52-episode rule.

For what it's worth, 52 episodes is the number necessary to have a show not repeat more than 5 times a year while running 5 days a week.

[HomeMoviesFan]

Home Movies Unlimited!

Silly rule, silly silly rule.

You know, I think I will try to get some letters of protest written and then some letters trying to save Home Movies.
See sig for link to de petition. Anyways, I actually did write a Home Movies movie musical...like...half of it. (I'm setting a future career of screenwriting, so I thought I might just go "what the hell")...but...nah...I would like to at least see a Xmas special, so when AS gets their own network (fantasy!) and they have their Christmas block, this would be in here, and all the kids would go..."What's Home Movies?", and I, the old wise man, would tell them to sit down and listen to the tale of September 2nd, 2001...I was late up at night surfing the net on a lone Labor Day...when on Cartoon Network (drawn by those good ol' "Are you getting too old for the average toons?" sound promos)...came on the greatest show in the history of history...(besides "The Simpsons" 1989-1997)...

[MovieGuy]

"We all love the show," Small says. "We are all very passionate about it. We would like to do it forever, for 20 seasons. It's amazing that it went this far. Ultimately, I would think if you have an audience that's getting stronger you would want to continue with new episodes.... Those are going to get more viewers than reruns."

Clearly, Small is reluctant to let go of his spiky-haired alter ego.
This is very sad. I will miss Home Movies. I also am reluctant to let go of his spikey-haired alter ego.

[Mysteryinfoman]

It seems HM is getting more publicity as it nears the end. Anyway, it's good to hear that AS does not want to stop making episodes but instead it's the 52-rule, why can't it be 65.