October is finally upon us, and if you’re like me, the only thing on your mind is the heavily anticipated return of Netflix’s Stranger Things on the 27th. But what is there to watch until then? Of course, there are eerie shows like Twin Peaks or Bates Motel that might satisfy your need for a spook, but I recommend something much more frightening.
Netflix’s new animated series Big Mouth is brought to life by the bona fide minds of sketch comedy luminaries Nick Kroll and John Mulaney. The show is an unfortunately immersive trip back to that one time that we all agreed to never speak of again: puberty. The story follows middle school best friends Andrew (Mulaney), Nick (Kroll), and Jessi (Jessi Klein) as they attempt to navigate the strangest, most uncomfortable period of their lives.
Please take a second and think realistically about how miserable your thirteen-year-old existence (probably) was. Though you don’t know it at the time, your entire life is changing before your eyes, all at once. Your body starts changing day to day, hormones assume control of your every thought, your skin is constantly painted with sweat and/or acne, and the last thing on earth you want is to even be seen by another human. Then it’s time for school, which is filled with swarms of other debilitated children. Pre-teens are going through so many changes all at once, they begin to look physically ill. Have you seen a thirteen-year-old recently? They do not look well. And rightfully so; their very existence is pain.
(Well, this is just unfortunate.)
Big Mouth’s depiction of this miserable environment is best described as honest. Where most other shows might only dip their toe in some of the more uncomfortable aspects of coming of age, Big Mouth dives in head first. Not only do we watch our three protagonists suffer through the hellish landscape that is Junior High, but all the while they are constantly harassed by sadistic, cruel hormone monsters. Untapped sexual frustration. Insane, unsolicited rage. The terror of your first period. Unrelenting boners. Any attempt to escape the hormone monsters, voiced by Kroll and SNL veteran Maya Rudolph, is futile. Interestingly, a majority of Big Mouth’s honesty and charm comes from the reassurance that there is immeasurable humor within the suffering. The reality is that everybody goes through the same thing, at least to some degree. And almost every experience, whether it be theirs or yours, is objectively funny.
This show is yet another embodiment of Kroll and Mulaney’s comedic genius. With each episode covering a new misadventure within their pubescent processes, Big Mouth exercises its writers’ clever-but-crude humor through sharp dialogue, hilarious callbacks, well-established recurring jokes, and thoroughly developed, lovable characters. Some of the writing is playfully strange, like the ghost of Duke Ellington (voiced by Jordan Peele) claiming that Stevie Wonder has been lying about being blind his whole life. However, some of the jokes and references are just wildly absurd, like the Hormone Monster fellating himself with the decapitated head of A Prairie Home Companion host Garrison Keillor. Even for a show based around puberty, it can be pretty obscene.
Though this may appear to be just another Family Guy-esque, “for adults” cartoon filled with endless boner jokes and fruitless plotlines, it’s much more than that. The show touches on relevant, real-life issues that many kids have to face. Failing marriages, parental abuse, economic disparity in social class, sexual consent; Big Mouth is able to tackle all these issues in just one season, all the while being consistently clever and poignant. This show is full of heart- but don’t worry- the boner jokes are still very much present.
So why would anybody watch a cartoon centered around the changing bodies of pre-teens? Because being taken back to this momentous time in your life is oddly charming. Because Kroll and Mulaney’s vision makes it’s one season enjoyable and excessively binge-able. Because seeing the crowd at a bat mitzvah sing “Life Is a Fucked Up Mess” feels so damn relatable. In short, Big Mouth is inventive, truthful, hilarious, and I highly recommend it.
