"Cumming of Age: On ‘Big Mouth’ and The Comedy of Puberty"
The animated series Big Mouth, which previewed on Netflix in September, is one of the best “cumming of age” comedies I’ve ever seen about young teens dealing with the questions and issues that arise during puberty. Co-created by writer-directors Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett, alongside Nick Kroll and his childhood friend, Family Guy writer Andrew Goldberg. Using Kroll and Goldberg’s own puberty stories as source material, the hilarious cartoon is told from various perspectives that includes my animated spirit adolescent Andrew (voiced by John Mulaney), a character that Vulture television critic Jen Chaney described as a “compulsive masturbator whose body is speeding toward manhood while his brain clumsily races to keep pace.” He also has to cope with his constant companion The Hormone Monster, who is continuously encouraging him to jerk-off.
1. "terrible pun, great show" In response to Reply # 0
Big Mouth has a lot of heart. Watching this along Bojack is interesting, because Bojack is obviously meant to be emotionally devastating, but using big emotional reveals as plot points cheapens what they do and how deeply they resonate. It's pretty much written into the episode arc of each season (with that second to last episode containing some big reveal), and after the first two seasons it loses its emotional resonance.
Big Mouth can do an entire episode on a kid fucking his pillow and have that feel way more real than all the forced "silliness" in Bojack.