Search - The Tick - The Entire Series on DVD

Don't listen to Cobalt - You get what the box says

dostatochno | 01/12/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This show is great, as others have eloquated well enough already. I'm writing this review to tell people not to listen to an earlier reviewer, Cobalt. First, when you start an episode with a commentary track (from the menu) a prompt comes up for whether or not you want to listen to the commentary.Second, the ROM-Link that Cobalt said didn't exist DOES exist. There's a program that opens a browser to a web-site with an interview between Barry Josephson and Patrick Warburton. I wish the interview had been on the DVD -- there was plenty of room. I also wish that every episode had had a commentary track, but about 4 or 5 out of 9 episodes isn't too bad.I don't know where Cobalt got his pirate DVDs, but when you BUY the product, you get what's advertised. More bonus materials would have been great, but that's almost always the case.Buy this DVD. Barry Josephson and Barry Sonnenfeld have both stated that if sales are sufficient they'll try to get a Tick movie made, and with the success of the MIB films and several other projects, Barry Sonnenfeld is enough of a Hollywood power-house to keep his word."

The Wild Blue Yonder

E. A Solinas | MD USA | 10/12/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"He has melted viewers' hearts, and from this day forth, he will spread his buttery justice over their DVD players' every nook and cranny. He is the Tick, the mysterious and insane crime fighter who will teach the forces of evil the Lesson... of Metcalfe. (Don't ask, it's a series in-joke)Mild-mannered accountant Arthur (David Burke) quits his job in order to don a spandex moth suit and fight crime. When he's attacked by inept Communist agents, he's suddenly rescued by... the Tick (Patrick Warburton), a dimwitted innocent who lives in a world of his own. Reluctantly recruited by the Tick as a sidekick, Arthur accompanies his bizarre, superhuman friend through a strange array of crime-fighting scenariosWith the wannabe Latin lover Batmanuel (Nestor Carbonell) and patriotic amazon Captain Liberty (Liz Vassey), the Tick attacks the eccentric evil of the world: fire-spewing Apocalypse Cow, 112-year-old supervillain The Terror, formerly pudgy ballerina Destroyo, Arthur's relatives, and robots who are trying to kill Jimmy Carter. In the meantime, Our Heroes have to deal with dogs, mixed dating (superhero/ordinary person), porn shoots, Captain Liberty accidently killing the poorly-named celebrity-superhero Immortal (in the sack, no less!), the snobby League of Heroes, and the Tick's search for his true identity. It doesn't get much goofier than "Tick," which spoofs the sort of comic book heroes like Superman and Batman. The villains are over-the-top (check out Destroyo's tanklike exoskeleton), the heroes are more often insane than not, and sidekicks form little clubs to complain about how their heroes treat them. The writing is full of tortured metaphors and strange scenarios (the scene where Captain Liberty and Batmanuel try to explain the Facts of Life to the Tick is priceless -- "blah blah blah").He's the tiny diamond in a sea of rhinestones, a peach in a barrel of bad apples; Patrick Warburton is outrageously funny as he rolls off the corniest and dumbest dialogue imaginable ("A secret message... from my teeth!") without cracking the tiniest smile. Burke serves as the hapless brain Arthur; Carbonell is quite entertaining as the womanizing Batmanuel, who only fights crime once in the whole series. And Vassey is fantastic as a frustrated 21st-century Wonder Woman who sometimes seems to be the only really sane one there.All too short and all too sweet, "The Tick" wasn't given the long life on television that it deserved. However, fans can now enjoy the nine hysterical episodes of madness, mayhem, Metcalfe, and steaming hot cups of justice. Long live the Big Blue Lug."

I want to sick The Tick on all those evil doing TV execs

Robert Moore | Chicago, IL USA | 02/28/2004

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I have argued to friends that TV is a medium with vaster potential than cinema. TV has an extraordinary advantage: more time, time to develop characters, story lines, long story arcs (a 500 minute story will beat a 100 minute story if you have a good script writer involved), and anything else you care to produce. But unfortunately TV as we have known it is largely a dismal affair: television executives. Show me a new show with creative brilliance, great writing, wonderful characters, and intelligence, and I will show you a series that is probably not going to be long in this world. TV execs want series that you can grasp and completely understand while eating a sandwich and drinking a beer, chatting the whole time with friends on the phone. THE TICK is one of these unfortunate shows that made the mistake of trying to do something original and different, and to do this with tremendous wit and intelligence. I have to be honest: THE TICK never became a great show, but it is obvious that it had the potential for greatness. Shows always take some time to find their feet. BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER didn't become truly great until the second season, and most series follow this pattern. They get better as they go along, and unfortunately THE TICK didn't get to fulfill its potential.The genius behind THE TICK is Ben Edlund, who followed the cancellation of THE TICK with some utterly brilliant scripts for FIREFLY and ANGEL. Edlund breaks many standard conventions with THE TICK. For one thing, we never really learn all that much about The Tick. Most super hero shows deal at length with back story, but despite having appeared in comics, in an animated series, and a live action series, we know little more about The Tick at end than we did at the beginning. We know that he is a bit of a well meaning dimwit, given to extravagantly complex and high flown sentences, good hearted, virtually indestructible, and apparently about as strong as Superman. He might, in fact, be less vulnerable than Superman, since he apparently doesn't have his own version of Kryptonite. Apart from vulnerability and super strength, however, it isn't clear that he has any other powers. He lives in a city filled with super heroes, but amazingly few if any of them possess their own super abilities. Most achieve their trademarks stunts through gimmicks, like The Tick's sidekick Arthur, who can only fly when opening his moth wings out of a backpack. But The Tick truly is blessed with almost godlike abilities.Although we only had the show for nine episodes, it was clear that it was going to be a superbly written, well-conceived series. The four performers making up the heart of the show were all great, especially Patrick Warburton in the title role. David Burke was great as Arthur, a nebbish accountant who had Walter Mitty fantasies of becoming a crime fighting super hero, which he largely fulfills by becoming The Tick's sidekick. Liz Vassey plays Janet aka Captain Liberty, who although a very effective hero (in fact, after The Tick, she seems to be the only one of the four who actually does any crime fighting), is beset by a host of personal problems, mostly having to do with men and her willingness to giver herself to them. Nestor Carbonell often steals the show as the would be Romeo and super hero chick magnet Batmanuel. Although apparently bereft of any crime fighting abilities, Batmanuel seems to have become a superhero for the same reason that some guys join bands: the chicks. The quality of the guest stars was consistently superb, with name performers like Ron Perlman (almost unrecognizable under the worst hair do one could ever hope to see on a super hero), Christopher Lloyd as Arthur's boss in the pilot, and Armin Shimerman (who is best known in make up as Quark from DEEP SPACE NINE and out of make up as Principal Snyder from BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER), who is truly unrecognizable as the elderly super villain Destroyo.The DVD set isn't great, I'll admit, but I think many reviewers exaggerate how bad they are. As far as special features go, I find that I rarely access them. I'll listen to a commentary once, but the actual film or series several times. I do wish they had included more information, and I also agree with some reviewers who wish they would bring out the cartoon series. Nonetheless, I'm grateful that we have the nine existing episodes of what might have become a classic television show."

Closer to the comic book

Salena Roper | USA | 10/04/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I've read the reviews from the cartoon fans, but I don't think very many of them have read the comic book on which the shows were based. I absolutely loved the cartoon--there has never been anything so unbelievably hysterical on Saturday mornings (tho "Freakazoid" was a close second). However, I appreciated the live action show for it's more adult-oriented humor and dead-on casting. Although the budget was too low to do great superhero action sequences, the writing was sharp and the actors seemed to enjoy playing these exaggerated dumb (Tick), meek (Arthur), bitter (Captain Liberty) and vain/cowardly (Batmanuel) characters. We all knew the show would be short-lived since it was filmed years before it actually aired in 2001 against "Friends" (guaranteed death slot). It's a shame, but at least it's now on DVD so the laughter can continue at home. Plus, there's the added bonus of getting to see the final un-aired episode with Armin Shimerman as The Terror.Enjoy this DVD, read the comic books and then find a petition to get the animated series on DVD as well. IMO, you can never have too much Tick!Oh, and Read a book!"