Saturday Morning All Star Hits!

It's hard to find a better word (or rather compound word) to describe this then Kyle Mooneyesque. The SNL comedian has cultivated a very specific brand of nostalgia-based parody from the late 80s and early 90s and it's extra meaningful if you grew up on TGIF or Fox's Saturday morning block.

Each of the eight episodes follows a series of cartoons. There's one following the heroics of two professional athletes who live in the shadows of their more famous brother (Robin Lopez or Jarron Collins must finally be seen!) and are unusually violent that has shades of the 90s X-Men cartoons. Another has a dinosaur (based on Denver the Last Dinosaur) who gets suicidally depressed in the first episode.

The show is framed by two twin brothers cosplaying as Saved by the Bell extras who talk like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and even make up their own words like "zwaaz" (likely, a play on the turtles adding "cowabunga" in the vernacular). There are also public service announcements that highlight, well-- the ineffectiveness of 90s public service announcements (think DARE) if nothing else, previews of live action films (extremely softball plugs) and promotional tie-ins that are hilariously obvious but not too different from today's corporate synergy.

Then the show begins to get more serialized in a way that Kyle Mooney's SNL sketches never have the capacity to be. This is why this show exists.

One of the less overtly funny shows (based off Thundercats and He-Man) starts to get a better gimmick when one of the twins, Skip, gets a one-line cameo. Similar to how Jaleel White famously wreaked havoc on the rest of the cast's air time on "Modern Family" through accidentally hitting upon the show's catch phrase "Did I Do That?", Skip instantly gets catapulted as the face of the show and spearheads a live action film. Meanwhile, his brother gets left in the dust. On top of that there's a casually played out murder behind the scenes.

It would be all very dark and complex if it wasn't filtered through the "cowabunga" air-guitar-shredding cheeriness of 90s TV.

As opposed to broad and aggressive (Mike Meyers), random (Lonely Island), or exploring the "what if"s and meandering on tangents (Seth MacFarland), Kyle Mooney's style of parody is an intricately-constructed recreation with glaring holes. It's the juxtaposition that's the joke and while many reviews say he might not be for everyone, there's a lot to appreciate.

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Pros: Some Saturday Morning veterans voicing this series (Maurice LaMarche aka the Brain and Cree Summer aka Suzie Carmichael, little known fact: latter was also on The Care Bears Movie); dinosaur cartoon turned college drama known as Randy, Create-A-Crittles (think Care Bears in the UK), Strongimals; Lil' Bruce (spoof of Howie Mandel's underrated Bobby's World), vaporwave VHS aesthetics Cons: Uuuuuuuuh.. subs? ;)

I'm a huge Kyle Mooney fan and I loved it. The live action scenes remind me of his Good Neighbor videos and the cartoons are hilariously on point as 80s parodies. But, the best part of all is how Kyle Mooney it all is. The awkwardness, insular references, self-deprecation: it's all there. Add in a surreal and intricate backdrop of Saturday morning 80's cartoons and you get SMASH! Here's hoping for a second season.

Saturday Morning All-Star Hits is an adult live-action/animation show that serves as a parody of cartoons from the 80's and 90's. Hosted by Skip and Treybor (who are an obvious parody of NBC's Saturday morning cartoon block having two teens hosting), the show is basically like Comedy Central's version of TV Funhouse, complete with cartoon parodies and fake commercials. However, making this different is that the cartoons are parodies of the ones from the 1980's and 1990's (like Randy, which is a parody of Denver The Last Dinosaur, The Create-A-Crittles, which parodies Care Bears, and the Strongimals, which parodies Thundercats). This is a good adult cartoon series, with some good voice actors (like Kyle Mooney, Cree Summer, Frank Welker, and even Eric Bauza and Kevin Michael Richardson), and the cartoons and fake commercials are well done. If there's one thing I wish they can improve on, it's the Skip and Trybor segments, as they seem to be too generic and out of place among the cartoon carnage (although one episode, DANGER, makes fun of the horribly bad Cartoon All-Stars To The Rescue, especially the messed up moments). And best of all, the cartoons are all tied to one specific plot, as are the live action scenes. This is one show worth giving a try if you are into parodies and want to relive the glory days of childhood (only in adult form).

If you've been a fan of Kyle Mooney since even before his SNL years, you'll love SMASH. Mooney perfectly encapsulates his brand of comedy in this show and you won't be disappointed.