`The Regular Show': Absurdist Theater Masquerading as a Childrens' Cartoon

Once in a while a cartoon comes along that forces you to confront your perspective about the entire art form. Animation is currently situated at the top of the heap when it comes to theatrical filmmaking. Comedies, drama, science fiction, adventure, action and all the other genres of cinema are nowhere near their peak, but only an idiot would dare suggest that the last two decades have not witnessed animated feature length movies achieve the very greatest that has yet been offered to moviegoers.

"The Regular Show" is not a movie and it would be very difficult to suggest that one day a feature length version will be produced, but who among us ever thought that there would one day be a feature length versions of "Beavis and Butthead"? The direct reference to Mike Judge's debut entry into the world of network animation is not done lightly: "The Regular Show" could be termed the grandchild of "Beavis and Butthead."

If you don't have kids or have taken the Cartoon Network off your cable or satellite provider's round trip of 300 channels that appears more like 50 channels when it comes to programming, you might not be familiar with "The Regular Show." Those with a surrealistic bent or who just simply enjoy the juxtapositional comedy of the bizarre set within very strictly modified conventions cannot help but get a kick out of the adventures of a gangly bluejay named Mordecai, a hot-tempered raccoon named Rigby, the stoic offspring of Tom Servo that is the gumball dispenser and boss of Mordecai and Rigby named Benson, a yeti who is appropriately named Skips because that is his only method of non-motorized locomotion (voiced by the actor who portrayed the whiniest movie hero of all time--Mark Hamill, believe it or don't), a strangely fey and peculiar high-pitched British lollipop named Pops, a green-skinned dwarfish figure with man-boobs named Muscle Man and his constant companion named and described as High-Five Ghost. Then there's my favorite "Regular Show" character: Eileen the mole who harbors a not-so-secret crush on Rigby.

"The Regular Show" landed on Cartoon Network with the tagline that it is anything but. This is one of those rare occasions when truth in advertising isn't just an empty slogan -- like "fair and balanced." Every episode of "The Regular Show" starts off rationally enough with the two slackers at the forefront'"Mordecai and Rigby'"getting into some situation such as finding an abandoned copy of a cassette containing a hit single from several years previous or playing video games or being put in charge of setting up chairs for an event. At some point in every episode, however, rationality takes a hike and the shows takes a left turn for the supremely weird, surrealistic and patently absurd.

Case in point: that cassette episode. The cassette features one of those awful but catchy songs that crawl into your head (although, to be fair, "Summertime Lovin', Love in the Summer (Time) is far more creative and less annoying than antecedents like "Macarena") and that you can't get rid of no matter how hard you try. Everything seems to be proceeding normally as Rigby the raccoon is the one who can't stop singing the song and Mordecai grows increasingly stressed by this turn of events. Attempts are made to get the song out of Rigby's head and here is where this particular episode gets weird. The song actually transforms into a sentient being that lives outside Rigby's head in the form of a large cassette tape with arms and legs and a body that cannot be penetrated. As Mordecai observes, "You can't touch music, but music can touch you." To which Rigby aptly responds, "Oh, barf!" The only way to stop a catchy song from eating the interior of your brain is to fill up your brain with an even catchier song. Perhaps the fact that the song the guys come up with to combat the offensive runaway hit of the sumer is much less catchier than "Summertime Lovin', Love in the Summer (Time)" was a conscious decision on the part of the makers of "The Regular Show" or perhaps it was not. Beauty and catchiness may be in the eye of the beholder or the less catchy song may be a way of commenting on the present state of pop music. Who knows.

And that episode isn't even the weirdest in the series.

What we are talking about here is absurdist humor not far removed from the vein of the Dadaists, Eugene Ionesco or, more aptly, Monty Python. Things happen in "The Regular Show" based on a logic of its own device rather than a logic based on any connection to realistic expectation. Watching an episode of "The Regular Show" is the television animated series equivalent of walking into a painting by Magritte or Dali. Some episodes are even dark and mysterious enough to warrant comparisons to stepping into the universe created by De Chirico. Ever wondered what would happen if you tried to unjinx yourself after simultaneously saying the same thing as someone else by printing your name on a mirror and then chanting your own name three times? No, of course not. That's stupid. But you have followed the rules of the jinx game by keeping quiet until someone else says your name three times, right?

That's the beauty of "The Regular Show." It takes a little slice of the familiar and transfers it freestyle into the realm of the transmundane. Not too shabby for a fifteen minute long kids' cartoon.