Unfortunately the rest of the material in many of the episodes comes across as filler, sometimes achingly so. Like in Animaniacs, there are many side characters in Freakazoid! that get their own cartoons within the show, and, also like in Animaniacs, many of those are laughless wastes of time. The running joke in the Huntsman cartoons (which all feature the same extra-long opening sequence) is that he never gets to do anything. The Huntsman barges into the city's Police Station ready to be deployed to kick some criminal butt only to find time and time again that he was called to duty on a false alarm. It's a cute idea, but already the second time we see it, especially after his long cartoon introduction, it just becomes bothersome.
Other superheroes who get their own segments during Freakazoid! episodes include: The Lawn Gnomes (a parody of Disney's Gargoyles animated series from in the mid-'90s), Lord Bravery (a snobby British superhero, and one of the few funny secondary superheroes on the show), Toby Danger (a spoof of Johnny Quest that has since been greatly outdone by The Venture Brothers) and the achingly unoriginal and unfunny Fatman and Boy Blubber.
I can only imagine that the entirety of the material Toby Danger spoofed was lost on the kids who initially tuned in to watch Freakazoid! on TV, and in fact it's only a taste of the "outside the target demographic" content referenced in the show. Like Animaniacs, whose segments and references often skewed far older than the supposed audience (such as the "Goodfeathers" parody of the R-rated film Goodfellas), Freakazoid! sports the same propensity to include material that would be better appreciated by mom and dad if only they could stomach the juvenile shenanigans inbetween. References are made to F-Troop, The Andy Griffith Show, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Star Trek II, Jack Valenti, and Paul Harvey.
Conversely, there are references made that are so specific to the time in which the show aired that they would be equally lost on today's kids sitting down to watch the show on DVD. In addition to the parodies of Disney's Gargoyles, there are numerous references to the movie Congo (which, as revealed in the audio commentary on one of the episodes, was something the writers had all gone to see just before scripting some of the episodes), a parody of Quantum Leap, the closing of the Skyway and Motor Boat Cruise at Disneyland, and numerous references to the "new" WB Network and DreamWorks Studio. A caricature of Princess Diana even appears in a few episodes, along with a very primitive vision of what this whole new "Internet" thing looks like, further dating the adventures of Freakazoid.
Article comments
1 - Sterfish
Great review. I'm really enjoying watching this show again (as one of the people who watched this show when it initially came on). One of the things I'm noticing as I watch it is how much this show influenced and anticipated the type of humor we'd later see on Adult Swim and Family Guy. This is probably why it stayed in reruns on Cartoon Network for years after its run ended.
2 - Film-Book dot Com
This show was funny. I always made time for it when it initially aired. The episode with Deadpan was great as was the episode where all the action is censored and they cut to peaceful animal sequences and nature scenes.
Freakazoid! was uneven but it was also smile-inducing.