Stroker and Hoop is, at first glance, yet another parody of the once-popular 'buddy cop' genre, which pits two disparate personalities against each other in serious situations, to provide either comic or dramatic results. As if you didn't know what a buddy cop film was. However, Stroker and Hoop goes beyond that, mixing a clever use of pop culture references, satire, and dark humor with a unique, independent animation design, professional-rate voice acting, and wit that stands independent of pop culture and satire. Stroker and Hoop's episodic quality contains some discontinuity, though not to an annoying degree -- such as in Family Guy. With a coherent plot and creative dialog, Stroker and Hoop provided viewers of adult swim's adult animation bloc with a clever, amusing, fresh series that would have been a much better choice to continue with.
Characters such as 'Coroner Rick' and 'Double Wide' provide usually-competent assistance to the two bumbling, titular protagonists. Though giving a terrible face to the two, self-styled private detectives, they have redeeming qualities that round out their characters. The use of gore slapstick is not overdone, and often seems reminiscent of over-hyped action movies from the '80s. Dark humor rounds out a silly premise, with Coroner Rick often providing insensitive, yet witty, comments at the worst of situations. And let's not forget C.A.R.R., another example of pop culture parody, who is yet another character who goes deeper than his counterpart (K.I.T.T.) Though often generally unlikeable, all the characters who appear as static persons are sympathetic in some manner.
It's a shame it was canceled.
