Rent Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law: Vol.1 (2003)

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law: Vol.1 review by Mark McPherson - Cinema Paradiso

As one of the premier titles of Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block, Harvey Birdman was perfectly in tune with continuing to cultivate the audience that had cropped up in the 1990s for Space Ghost Coast to Coast. The concept was very much the same idea: Take a familiar HB property that has remained dormant for decades and revive it with an absurd new profession. With Space Ghost, he was turned into a late-night talk show host. For the hero Birdman, it was becoming an attorney for other HB characters.

The first episode was animated by J. J. Sedelmaier Productions, better known for their animated segments of TV Funhouse on Saturday Night Live. This pilot was incredibly expensive given the case of trying to blend Birdman with the detailed designs of Johnny Quest. The premise is also quite brilliant, with Birdman being called into settling a custody battle between Race and Doctor Quest for the rights to the children of Johnny and Hadji. There are some easy jokes about Race and Quest being a romantic couple but also a lot of fast-paced and detailed humor going on in the background. Much like TV Funhouse, it’s an astute parody that draws on a lot of elements that cartoon geeks will highly appreciate.

The episodes that followed weren’t done by Sedelmaier but they still were quite detailed episodes considering the varying styles amid ink-and-paint animation. You have episodes where Apache Chief of the Superfriends can no longer grow like a giant after spilling coffee on his lap. The Mystery Machine Gang is arrested (after a fantastic live-action filmed police stop) on suspicion of drug possession. One of the most committed episode parodies is the Flintstone mafia case, perfectly replicating The Sopranos from the opening to the elaborate scheme of corrupt cartoon crime.

Hilarious supporting characters are thrown into the mix and given their own unique personalities. Falcon Seven, the eye-patched herald of the Birdman show, now acts as Phil Ken Sebben, head of Harvey’s law firm, Seben & Seben. Aside from his altered depth perception, Phil’s notable gag is his eccentric laughing over situations (“Haha, dangly parts”). Harvey later acquires a protege by the name of Peanut, one of the most chaotic characters in the series for his unexpected, greedy, and sensual nature. The judges are also a hoot with the Judge Mitor being unable to remember or pronounce names in his courtroom and Judge Mentok, an over-the-top mind-reader who boasts about his abilities any chance he gets. Naturally, Harvey’s former enemies now play competing lawyers with the likes of Vulturo, Reducto, Freazoid, and Spyro. The only villain who remains a villain to Harvey is X the Eliminator and his obsession is treated more as a phase he hasn’t quite grown out of yet, like a man in his upper 30s still living at his parents’ place.

The first season came out at a snail’s pace. Only two episodes aired when Adult Swim first started and it was nearly a year before about four more episodes came about. Soon after, however, the show made the transition to Flash animation and while the details and frames are lowered, the jokes became tighter, faster, and surprisingly funnier. You can see the transition on this very set and it’s remarkable how the shift doesn’t seem too drastic, although a clip show reveals the more obvious differences.

Harvey Birdman finds its groove pretty early on and that’s in no small part to the hilarious writing, visual gags, and robust voice cast that includes Gary Cole, Stephen Colbert, Maurice LaMarche, John Michael Higgins, and Peter MacNicol among others. As one of the first Adult Swim shows and perhaps the last gaps of Cartoon Network’s satirical appeal to older cartoon-loving adults, the series still stands the test of times as one of the funniest and most clever uses Cartoon Network ever brought about with their acquired properties.