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his compilation captures the first 13 episodes of the Cartoon Network's Adult Swim feature. The disc lacks any commentary track, but does offer these extras: the original pilot episode, plus deleted and alternate scenes from three episodes.
In episode one, "I, Robot," the crew of the underwater research station (where not an ounce of actual scientific activity ever occurs) becomes fixated on a news broadcast detailing the possibility of human-robot brain transplants. They argue and speculate endlessly and inanely, even while the station is undergoing cacophonous emergency procedures. The disastrous situation looks to be saved by the only rational character, Dr. Quinn, who eventually reveals himself as a robot—until the station implodes, killing everyone onboard in the kind of continuity-smashing ending that will become typical of the series. "Happycake" finds the crew prodded by their loony commander, Capt. Murphy, into a search for his lost toy bake set. A giant squid has absconded with it. In the third installment, Murphy, suffering from massive boredom, converts the lab into a pirate radio station, drawing down the wrath of a homicidal FCC enforcer. "Chickmate" finds one of the lab's female members, White Debbie (as opposed to the African-American Black Debbie) hungering to satisfy her biological clock with a baby. But none of her male comrades proves fit to father the child she longs for, to replace the dolphin baby she carries around.
The crewmember known as Stormy Waters is notoriously feeble-minded, a perfect foil for the brainy (IQ 260) Dr. Quinn. Imagine, then, what happens when both men are multiplied by a rift in space-time, filling the lab with their doppelgangers in "Lost in Time." Do murderous alien killing machines just need love? That's the premise of "Predator," which finds the invading slaughter-minded creature lulled into calmness by Dolphin Boy (not Debbie's dolphin, but a fat little human tyke who chatters like Flipper). At least until certain offensive remarks spoil the peace. Can the Sealab crew respond in good spirits to a visit from a terminally ill child? "Little Orphan Angry" supplies the answer, and it's much as you would expect. The poor boy is mangled by Capt. Murphy and ultimately eaten by a shark. Stormy and Quinn tangle again in "Waking Quinn," when the former accidentally electrocutes the latter, sending the doctor on a psychedelic trip—three times over. Thus ends disc one.
Episode nine, "All That Jazz," revolves almost entirely around Capt. Murphy as he lies for a year trapped under a soda-vending machine. His rescue eventually comes not from others, but from a certain personal transformation involving green skin and overpowering rage. The driving impetus behind "Murphy Murph and the Feng Shui Bunch" is again Capt. Murphy's boredom, as he invites in a swindler posing as an interior designer, who ends up turning the Sealab into something out of Metropolitan Homes. The minimalist settings of most Sealab action sequences are reduced to a single venue when the entire cast becomes trapped in a broom closet. The tight quarters would not be quite so uncomfortable if not for Capt. Murphy's habit of sucker-punching anyone who objects to his romance with a pail on a stick. "Stimutacs" finds Sparks, the often malevolent communications guy, functioning as a drug dealer who converts his comrades into a bunch of raving addicts—with super powers. Finally, "Swimming in Oblivion" deconstructs the whole enterprise even further by showing a behind-the-scenes look at the "filming" of a typical Sealab 2021 episode, complete with bickering actors and pretentious director. All the extras reside on disc two.
Woody Allen would be proud
Modern cartoon sensibilities owe a lot to Woody Allen, not the least of which was Allen's notion, in What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966), of hijacking campy visual material, overlaying it with ridiculous and/or incongruous dialogue and producing satirical, ironic, hipster japes. This strategy can clearly be seen in the pilot episode for Sealab 2021 included in this set. Reed and Thompson simply took existing footage from the clunky original cartoon Sealab 2020 (a Hanna-Barbera production that ran in 1972-73), placed new, surreal, zany dialogue into the poorly drawn mouths of the characters and achieved a humorous little farce. This homemade tape was sent unsolicited to the Cartoon Network, resulting in the series we have before us today. Luckily for the viewer, Reed and Thompson soon realized that a lot more plotting ingenuity and comedic inventiveness would be needed to sustain the premise. And for the most part, they've delivered.
The first thing they did was to endow the existing main characters—Capt. Murphy, Sparks, Stormy, Debbie, Dr. Quinn—with distinct personalities. Sure, the crew are a collection of tics and stereotypes, but they're entertaining cliches who work well against and with each other. Bringing these characters to life with talented voice actors was the next masterstroke. Brett Butler's Quinn is constantly wondering why no one appreciates his brains. Goz's Murphy is both tyrannical and helpless. Estrada's Marco is all machismo overlaid with weepiness. Henican's Stormy is Gomer Pyle with a lobotomy. Lobley's Sparks is Radar O'Reilly crossed with Dr. Evil. And Miller's Debbie is a feminist conniver who wants to be one of the boys. (I would have to say that Debbie is perhaps the most underutilized character, though, in season one.) Together, they approach a Seinfeld-level ensemble.
The plotting features a pleasant ratio of anything-for-a-laugh wackiness with satirical jabs. The writers make the best use possible of the ridiculous venue, with plenty of underwater silliness and claustrophobic environments. The new animation, deliberately kept as crude as the original, is endearing in its expressive primitiveness. And there are plenty of quotable lines and trademark bits. (Marco's boast "Time for some Vitamin M!" primary among them.)
The show, at least in the first season, never does rise from merely amusing to the genius of, say, Futurama. It's just a bit too repetitive and limited in scope. But as far as the deconstruction of the tropes of its genre goes, it manages to nail every target in the bullseye. Woody would be proud.
One of the best attractions of this first season was the voice work by Goz, who made Capt. Murphy the best maniacal commander since Futurama's Zap Brannigan. But Goz unfortunately passed away at age 71, and I'm anxious to check out his replacement, Michael Goz. — Paul
Also in this issue: Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera and Darkness
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