The End of Regular Show

NOTE: If you're reading this and are from a different country, this news may or may not apply to you. If you have already watched the ending, this might be old news to you. And if you haven't, don't worry there won't be spoilers.

Aside from 'Adventure Time' there was another modern animated show from Cartoon Network that I would follow, a regular one to be exact, that being J.G Quintel's Regular Show. Make no mistake, despite the title this show was far from regular.

This cartoon would centre on a blue jay named Mordecai and a raccoon Rigby who work at a park with a cast of other strange and colourful characters. Each episode would have these two slackers get into a predicament, only for it to get blown out of proportion, leading to many bizarre adventures and mishaps. Now, this isn't going to be an analytical review of the show, but a brief ramble in which I offer my thoughts on it. So here I go. When Regular Show first aired; I wasn't really into it, as I thought it wouldn't be as funny as the cartoons from my youth. But the more episodes I watched, the more it started to grow on me. There was just something about it that got me intrigued to see what it had to offer. It's a strange show, and I don't mean it in a bad way. It may seem like a slice of life show; but as each episode goes on, you can see that the world of Regular Show is a lot more exaggerated. As you become accustomed to the talking animals and objects, you'll find that everything works in a surreal fashion. It understands that there's an art to writing weird comedy, it's a dead art but it's an art form nonetheless. What made Regular Show special is that it was littered with references to 80s culture; it also had plenty of crude jokes that would go over younger viewer's heads (much like the cartoons I watched in my childhood). It's like this cross between 'The Amazing World of Gumball' and 'BoJack Horseman', in that it knows it's a cartoon where anything can happen, but the situations feel realistic. And the characters go through similar scenarios that we go through; and because of that, we understand their trials and tribulations. The characters may look like talking animals and objects, but they're like people we know in our lives.

It's a good show and I do enjoy it, but I did have problems with it. As good as the stories and characters were, they had room for improvement. Part of that comes from the fact that it would lack a sense of "lamp-shading" that would've made the show a lot more self-aware. That and the world wasn't always internally consistent, there were times where it would break my suspension of disbelief. But when it hit bull's eye, it could be a comedic, inspired series that can also be emotionally heartfelt. As the show would later take place in space; I don't know whether the people behind it wanted to expand on its world-building and give it a deeper lore. Or it was an attempt to boost the ratings. Either way, it caught your attention...right? Regular Show was one of the contributing factors that got me to like current animation again, after a period where I lost interest in it. It would have been this average TV show with nonsensical plots, but it turned out there was a lot more to it.

But now that Regular Show comes to an end, I can say that it was fun while it lasted. Maybe it's for the best that we bid farewell to the bros of the park, and remember it for what it was. Otherwise, it'll suffer the same fate as Spongebob or Family Guy (or Ren and Stimpy to an extent), in which it would keep making episodes till it becomes a shadow of what it used to be. But the fact that it lasted 8 seasons is impressive as far as this type of cartoon goes, whereas some TV shows don't even get half. If you didn't like the show because it went too far, or not far enough, I can understand. As it's not for everyone. It might've tickled your funny bone, or maybe you found its nostalgic novelties amusing. Regular Show is the equivalent to this laid back student who would rather slack off and would normally get Bs and Cs. But when he applied himself and put his all into it, he would get an A- or a B+. Like I said, I still thought it was a good show, a jolly good show indeed!