4 out of 5

Created By: Doug TenNapel

Kid’s cartoons generally have a whole dose of weird that little brains just accept, so a show about an earthworm granted superpowers (and, apparently, the name Jim) by a supersuit that falls from space ain’t too out of the ordinary… but let’s also toss in a badguy crow morphed by some of the same cosmic stuff (Psycrow), a sidekick puppy (Peter) who morphs into a monster when injured, a blob of snot that lives in the supersuit (…Snot), a megalomaniac talking goldfish from another planet (Bob), and an evil professor with a monkey for head (again, inventively named in the true TenNapel style ‘Professor Monkey-For-a-Head’) just to make sure we stay on the right side of twisted.  But still, on the surface, Earthworm Jim fit in well enough with the 90s animated realm, limbered up by the surreality of Ren and Stimpy but without too much of the uber-awareness that modern cartoons fling around.  It was a good time for some multi-layered gems.  What was interesting about Jim, though, was that it never really tried too hard to follow cartoon rules.  I mention Ren and Stimpy, and that (under Kricfalusi’s tenure) had a similar vibe: that it just wanted to exist to exist and was having a good time doing it… and hopefully the viewers did too.  Trade the R and S scatalogical themes for something goofier and you start to approach the template for Jim.  Now blend that with cosmic superhero pap, and you’re in the mindset for a Doug TenNapel project… a vibe main show writer Doug Langdale not only fully got, but expanded on in his own unique fashion, branching out from Jim’s video game roots.

The animation is pretty standard, but there’s a sense of consistency to Jim’s world that you don’t often experience in animation of any era: the main locations have a sense of space and familiarity – Jim’s house, the hometown hub of ‘Terlawk’, ‘Heck’ (home of Evil the Cat) – and the various gadgets that flutter through the series feel like thought out gags that can be – and often are – reused and re-purposed and not just accessories to add to a toy line.  This also extends to the humor.  Repeated gags which start as normal silliness – a cow falling on things at the end of each episode, Peter’s hatred of haggis – that grow and twist when Langdale and crew realized repetition only works as a joke for so long.  When we’ve crossed into season 2 and minor characters are recognized as part of the world and not just plot points and Jim’s ‘By the Great Worm Spirit…!’ exclamations grow to ridiculous length, you really get a sense of a labor of love going on.

Season 2 is certainly superior to 1 in a couple different ways.  Season 1 sticks mostly to a bad guy dilemma format for each episode and is notably louder than season 2, the narrator and Jim and Psycrow all saying everything with as many exclamation points as possible.  Fourth wall breaking starts here, but it’s in smaller doses.  But season 2 fully allows for the viewer and narrator to become characters and for the tone to quiet down some since it already has our attention.  The episodes also take some risks with structure and references, going ahead and tossing in media and culture nods that won’t make sense to kids until they’re at least past high school and have been forced through some required reading.  This is, of course, not mentioning each episode’s completely random midway interlude – an evening at home with a badguy, lessons offered on how to be a villain – before the narrator tells us it’s time to get back to the show.

Sure, it’s uneven and somewhat annoying when its shouting at full volume, but the pun and gag ratio in Earthworm Jim is off the charts, keeping the ball rolling on the surface of TenNapel’s always inventive character designs and ideas.