12 oz. Mouse is the single greatest television series that ever was or very likely ever will be. That's an extremely bold statement to make, and I stand by it 100%. It's indescribably unique and fiercely underrated, with an endless potential for intrigue and engagement.
If you've never seen the show before (which you probably haven't), and if you can enjoy an intriguing animated serial series of the utmost surrealist variety of humor, with an ongoing sense of continuity and a sense of engraved mystery, then I cannot recommend this show enough. I would urge you NOT to look it up on Wikipedia or any other such site, because really, learning anything about the plot of the show beforehand would lessen the intriguing aspect of watching it. Part of the magic of this show is discovering it as it goes along. There's this mouse. He does what he wants, loves beer and guns, dalways has a calm and cool demeanor about him, drives around in a big yellow wingless jet with wheels, experiences every situation as it comes to him, and lives without rules or logic. His best buddy is Skillet, a little black-and-white chinchilla that follows him everywhere who speaks in a hyper screeching which only Mouse seems to understand. They're living in this blank-like town, with enigmatic characters all around and a very off-kilter vibe. You (the viewer) don't know anything about what's going on yet because Mouse doesn't. To know any more about the plot of this show than that very basic description would be a criminal dampering of the viewing experience. You're just supposed to sit down with an open mind, take in all of the story developments and characters as they come, ponder over it all in your mind, and be eager to theorize and figure things out as you go along. Oh, and pay attention to ALL of the details. This is a very conspiratorial and intricately woven story, and clues to later happenings are scattered about from the very beginning. It's all just so delicious.
This show is very hard to describe, especially without spoiling anything about the plot, but let me try to paint a better picture of it for you. Continuity is tightly woven with this series. Each episode begins by picking up where the one before it left off, often with a continuation of the scene which closed the previous episode. It is a comedy show, of course, but the intrigue of the story and how it develops are just as important with this show as the humor. And the style of humor is very surrealist. The titular Mouse character could be described as an existentialist by his general attitude and sense of humor. The interactions of the characters are what make this show funny, with situational dialogue, pregnant pauses, and trippy wording abound. Surrealism applies to this show's humor greatly. To give an example, when the show's episodes were listed on Adult Swim's website, they took episode descriptions from the show
Good Times, replaced the names with the
12 oz. Mouse character names accordingly, and then used them as the episode descriptions for the show on their website. Anybody could read those and go "What the..." and that's exactly the kind of humor that the show itself executes so excellently. This show was created by Matt Maiellaro, who created
Aqua Teen Hunger Force, so if you know of that show then you know of his style of humor.
12 oz. Mouse is more organized and less random, but even more out there in content. Imagine if you were to take conspiratorial mystery type serial shows like
Twin Peaks,
Lost, and
Big O, mash them with the character-driven humor flavored somewhat like Jerry Seinfeld, and make it all work together seamlessly, and that will give you a vague idea of what this series is like.
To try to get a bit less vague of an idea, watch this 30-second TV promo spot:
www.youtube.com/v/GI_37ayzeW0Note: "Street zombies", as Mouse calls them in that promo, never actually appear in the series. Scenes like that were made just for the promos.
This show's pilot aired on Adult Swim on Cartoon Network in the summer of 2005, with six more episodes following that fall, the last of which aired on New Year's Eve night to conclude a marathon of all the episodes up to that point. The second season began in September 2006, concluding with the series' 20th and final episode airing in December of that year. The show was cancelled ahead of time by the Cartoon Network executives, but the show's makers were told of the cancellation while making the second season. So rather than the story being cut off prematurely and left unfinished, Matt Maiellaro and the crew knew exactly how they were writing it to fit it into 20 episodes. The result was a completed series which, viewed as a collective whole, makes for a seamless, cohesive story.
The show was cancelled because of low ratings. Adult Swim's viewers gave it a chance and many of them were put off by it, and understandably so. There are many things about this show which make it admittedly not for everybody. If a surreal style of humor isn't your thing, you're obviously not going to like this show, as that was the way it was for a lot of the Adult Swim viewers. They just didn't get it. The animation of the show is extremely basic. Though edited and animated with Final Cut Pro, the art is extremely crude and the animation very primitive in style. This was intentional by Maiellaro and the show's crew, as it does add to the show's surreal nature, but a great many people were obviously put off by it, as it looks cheap even by Adult Swim's standards. The continuity of the show was another factor that contributed to its failure to launch with most viewers. With new episodes airing on a weekly basis, if you missed one episode you would be lost the following week. You can't just watch the episodes in any order or start with any random episode. It has to be watched from the beginning and in sequence in order to get it. Many viewers who gave the show a chance didn't even realize what an ongoing story arc it had, believing it to be episodic like most other Adult Swim shows. Again, they just didn't get it. The combination of all of these factors caused the majority of Adult Swim viewers to damn the show, and the network did the same.
However, like all great and underrated things, the show is not without its fans. There is a small but
very loyal cult fan base for
12 oz. Mouse. For those who get it, you totally get it. It's a show with a limitless level of intrigue and entertainment for people who can appreciate it. The array of characters and the intricacies of the plot offer a fascinating sense of escapism. There's always something refreshing to find about this show, even with just 20 episodes each 12 minutes in length. I'm sure you guys understand what I'm talking about. You know how it is when you get into something (a show, a movie, or whatever) which nobody else seems to like, but for you it just clicks so well, and you wish that everybody could enjoy what you like as much as you do? That's how it is if you're a fan of this series, but like, 222 times as much. For that reason, everybody should give this series a chance, even if you're so sure that you won't like it. This show is absolutely unpredictable, and if you go into it with an open mind and a willingness to accept whatever you're about to experience, it just might click with you too.
So how can you check this show out now that it's long since canceled with no reruns? There are two ways. The most immediate way is to download it. The BitTorrent tracker website
www.myspleen.net has all 20 episodes available for download, in good quality. The site can only be accessed by members, and the only way to join is to be invited by an existing member. If any of you are interested, PM me with your e-mail address and I can invite you.
The other, more legal way of experiencing
12 oz. Mouse will be available very soon: DVD. Adult Swim have produced a 2-disc DVD set of all 20 episodes of the series, but with a very nifty feature. They've been combined together to form one seamless movie. There are no opening or closing credits between the episodes, just a beginning and ending. For this series, this format of viewing is absolutely ideal. You can stop the feature at any time and take it in chunks, or you experience it all for the first time as the seamless whole it makes, four hours in length. The DVD will only be available through Adult Swim's online shop:
www.williamsstreet.com/cat/12-oz-Mouse/DVD-12-oz-Mouse---Volume-One.htmlThey will begin shipping it out this Friday, February 29th. They're taking pre-orders right now and you can buy it for just $12. If ever there was a DVD that was worth a blind buy, I can assure you that this is it.
Unfortunately, their online shop will not ship outside the United States, so that makes it harder for you European Loyal Dwellers to obtain it. If any of you would seriously like to get it, I'd be willing to be a go-between for you. Just send me your shipping information and $12 plus shipping costs via PayPal and I'd be happy to send that DVD your way. The word of Mouse must spread all over the world!
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