2003 was a very different time, an era that hosted the late night cartoon wars, a magical time period when more than one or two channels were interested in adult animation. Freshman Spike TV threw its hat in the ring with a block of adult cartoons called "The Strip," featuring Ren and Stimpy's Adult Party Cartoon, Stripperella, and Gary the Rat. Ren and Stimpy unhinged and uncensored, Pamela Anderson as a superhero stripper, and Kelsey Grammer as... a six foot man rat thing? It's not a surprise that Gary the Rat got lost by the wayside considering what it was paired up with. I admit I didn't give this show a chance back then (and I probably wasn't old enough to get most of the humor anyway), which is a shame because it is far and away the best thing to come out of that disaster... and boy, what a tragedy Ren and Stimpy was!
Gary the Rat is about infamous Wall Street attorney Gary "The Rat" Andrews, who has given up so much of his humanity in pursuit of his career that, one night, he spontaneously transforms into an anthropomorphic rat. Naturally, this is a source for much of the humor in the series as Gary learns to navigate a world that either wants to kill him or hire him for being the biggest rat in the room - and oh, are there rat puns to go around. Gary the Rat chose not to chase the schizophrenic pacing and humor of its contemporaries like Family Guy and was criticized for it. It instead likes to indulge in pattern humor: Gary/Grammer monologues where he contemplates how much his life/situation sucks; increasingly cruel and bizarre phone calls with Gary's mom; the cast's universal hate for Bud; Johnny Bugz's failed assassination attempts on Gary (and the poor schmucks he kills instead).
One of the things I liked the most about the show is how it subverted my expectations. When I heard the premise, I figured this would be a redemption story through and through - if Gary wants to become human again, he'll have to learn how to be human again. But by the second episode he's fully embraced being the awful rat b****** that he is. It's fun watching him occasionally do the right thing for all the wrong reasons and doing downright awful stuff for his own personal gain. This show never follows the folly of the Simpsons by trying to convince the audience that its sociopathic cast of human waste are genuinely good people by rewarding them. Gary and friends are awful, and you won't find any heartwarming endings here.
The one drawback though - limited animation. That's not unusual for comedy animation, as they tend to focus more on laughs than looking good. Gary the Rat was a webtoon in 2000 (wow, remember those?) before Spike picked it up as a series; the series looks and animates better than the webisodes, but its roots can still be felt. This was made on a budget.
