Created by
Nick Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin, & Jennifer Flackett
Starring
Nick Kroll, John Mulaney, Jessi Klein, Jason Mantzoukas, Jenny Slate, Fred Armisen, Maya Rudolph & Jordan Peele
Music by Mark Rivers Opening theme “Changes” by Charles Bradley
Executive producer(s)
Nick Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Mark Levin, Jennifer Flackett, Blair Fetter, Jane Wiseman & Kristen Zolner
Producer(s): Nate Funaro & Joe Wengert
Production companies: Danger Goldberg Productions, Good at Bizness, Inc., Fathouse Industries & Titmouse, Inc.
Distributor Netflix Streaming Services, Inc.
After a harrowing journey through “The Pornscape” (with Sylvester Stallone, no less), Andrew is briefly implicated in a serial killer case because he left copious samples of his (ahem) DNA in used socks in a dumpster that subsequently added a dead body. Mortified by the video camera footage that showed he wasn’t the killer, asks his friend Nick, “How will I face the guys at school?”
Maurice The Hormone Monster, sitting next to the two boys, says, “Look, I know this all seems embarrassing now, boys, but one day you’ll look back on this time fondly and perhaps make something beautiful out of it.”
Andrew snaps, “What? Like a show about a bunch of kids masturbating? Nick adds, “Isn’t that just basically child pornography?”
The Hormone Monster slaps his, um, paws to his head and shouts, “Holy Shit! I hope not. I mean, maybe if it’s animated, we could get away with it.”
He smiles. “Right?”
It’s a hilariously self-referential ending to the first ten-part season. If it was actually made with live child actors, it doubtlessly would be considered child pornography. The kids don’t actually do anything out of the ordinary for 12 and 13 year olds. Clumsy kisses in the closets, fixations on other students, that kind of thing.
Their imaginations, aided and abetted by the Hormone Monsters (Jessica has a female one who would scare Diana Rigg in her prime), is another thing entirely. Masturbation is a frequent topic, and in the first episode, Andrew sets up a whack session with the same formality of a conductor of a major symphonic orchestra, but in which the only musical instrument is his baton.
The reason the show works (and it works very well) is because it has a lot of heart, and a deep sense of humanity. The kids are trying to work their way through the most difficult parts of their lives, pubescence, with varying degrees of success and confidence. The adults, mostly parents, have a wider gamut, from the couple who smother Nick with love, compassion and wisdom (yes, it’s possible to do that, as the show demonstrates) to Andrew’s cold and perpetually angry father whose premier life experience is severe intestinal upset brought on by scallops, to Jessica’s divorcing parents and newly self-discovered lesbian mother, to Jay’s utterly appalling family, a nightmare of abuse.
There’s a host of secondary, mostly adult characters, including the ghost of Duke Ellington (voiced by Jordan Peele, and don’t ask, I don’t have room to explain).
Netflix has all of the first season, and the second season, another ten episodes, will be unveiled tonight.