Tag: Christopher Fitzgerald

Easter Special / Netflix Mini-Review – Happy! (Season 2): Make Easter Great Again

One of the most unique dark comedies on television takes on a new holiday.

SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free)

Nick Sax (Christopher “My talent is without bounds” Meloni) managed to kill the Very Bad Santa (Joseph D. Reitman) and rescue his daughter Hailey (Bryce Lorenzo) with help from her imaginary friend Happy the horse (Patton Oswalt). Happy then disappears from Hailey’s life… only to reappear as Nick’s imaginary friend. Now, it’s 3 months later and Easter approaches. A series of Easter Bunny related terrorist attacks lead Sonny Shine (Christopher Fitzgerald), the entertainer who had Hailey kidnapped to use as a gift, to propose a mega-Easter special to try and “Make Easter Great Again.” Nick, meanwhile, has tried to clean up his act so his ex-wife Amanda (Medina Senghore) will let him spend time with Hailey. He gets slowly dragged into another round of holiday-themed metaphysical mayhem involving his ex-partner Merry (Lili Mirojnick), his ex-boss Blue (Ritchie Coster), and his former enemy Smoothie (Patrick Fischler). 

Happy2 - 1Cast
The best buddy comedy the ratings say you’ve never seen.

END SUMMARY

Happy! was one of the weirdest shows on television when it debuted. The premise of having a hard-drinking and self-destructive detective partner with his daughter’s imaginary friend was bizarre, but it somehow worked pretty well. Happy started out as a being of pure innocence, whereas Nick was a man living for his vices after having lost everything after he witnessed a horrible event as a police officer that led him to give up on humanity. As Happy starts to mature and lose his innocence in order to help Nick save Hailey, Nick regains a little bit of his faith, giving both a solid arc. 

Happy! - Season 2
He also sees Nick naked a lot.

It’s tough for me to figure out how best to praise this show. For one, I find it hilarious, with the show giving Christopher Meloni free rein to unleash his massive comedy potential while still allowing him to draw on his decade and a half of playing a hard-line detective. His character being a near-psychotic and depressed drunk for much of the series justifies his ability to go from quipster to deadpan snarker to crazy slapstick artist. At one point Meloni pulls a Tyler Perry and plays his own mother in drag, and it’s hilarious to watch. Few people could pull off all of those levels of comedy while still being a badass when the scene demands it, and Ryan Reynolds already had another franchise.  Similarly, Patton Oswalt brings a level of underlying sadness to his originally upbeat character, something that is perfectly suited to his comedic style.

Happy! - Season 2
Who else can look this satisfied while carrying a bunch of loose organs and a passed-out hooker?

The action sequences in the show were also among the best on television, often ridiculous and over-the-top, with Sax having a strange level of near-invincibility when it comes to killing people. Most of the sequences are accompanied by upbeat or contrasting songs, which is a trope I’m not yet tired of. It adds to the darkly comic nature of the series. The show also escalates the metaphysical aspects at a reasonable pace so as not to upset the audience’s suspension of disbelief. 

Happy2 - 2Wishees
Couldn’t have done the “evil Teletubby” right off of the bat.

Overall, the show’s not going to be for everyone, but I am extremely sad that they cancelled it after this season. I’m hoping that if more people celebrate the Easter holiday by watching this Easter-themed season, perhaps Netflix will revive it for the presumably Halloween-related Season 3.

If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

If you enjoy these, please, like, share, tell your friends, like the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JokerOnTheSofa/), follow on Twitter @JokerOnTheSofa, and just generally give me a little bump. I’m not getting paid, but I like to get feedback.

Netflix Review – Happy!: The Trippiest Thing on TV (Spoiler-Free)

Patton Oswalt plays a blue flying unicorn and Christopher Meloni plays an alcoholic hitman. This is truly the Golden Age of television.

SUMMARY (Spoiler-Free)

Nick Sax (Christopher Meloni) is a former police officer who is now a hitman trying to drink himself into the grave. After killing a number of members of a mob family and learning a secret that puts him in danger, he’s approached by a small, blue, winged unicorn named Happy (Patton Oswalt) who tells him that he’s an imaginary friend to a girl named Hailey (Bryce Lorenzo) who was kidnapped by a man dressed as a Very Bad Santa (Joseph D. Reitman). Together, Nick and Happy deal with the mob, child abductors, and a psychotic Santa in order to rescue the little girl.

Happy! - Season 1
Yes, these are our heroes. Jackie Chan and Christ Tucker are nothing to them.

END SUMMARY

This show is so bananas is every way and it works perfectly.

Meloni may be best known for playing the angry, aggressive Det. Stabler on Law and Order: SVU, something he draws on at points for Nick Sax’s character, but he also has done a ton of solid comedy work when given the right script. He plays Gene in Wet Hot American Summer and Freak Show in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle, for example. This show perfectly blends his talents together by having his character be angry and cynical, but also just a little insane at all times. Unlike many other series, his character really does change from episode to episode, either growing or regressing, but still maintains all of the traits that make him so interesting.

happy! - 2sax
He has the stare of a man who gave up on life an episode ago.

Happy, similarly, changes quite a bit over the series, mostly because he starts as a completely innocent creature thrown into one of the darkest corners of the world. Patton Oswalt was, therefore, one of the best casting choices you could make. Oswalt’s voice constantly seems to be slightly inherently upbeat, but can also deliver a tone of being beaten down or overwhelmed when he needs to. In contrast to the cynical Sax, Happy is a perpetual optimist that is slowly tortured by reality (and occasionally actually tortured). He’s constantly being dragged down by Sax, because that’s the only way he can get Sax to help Hailey, the girl he loves.

Happy! - 3Happy.png
I refuse to hear anything by Pharrell Williams right now.

The show involves a lot of interesting hidden worlds which are contained within the secret rooms of the normal world, ranging from the obscure to the supernatural. A lot of the humor in the series comes from characters from each area being forced to interact and watching how they respond to each other. The portrayals of the supporting characters are pretty great all around. 

happy! - 4santa
This guy will terrify you.

The writing is superb and it really needs to be to successfully maintain such an oddball premise. It was written by Grant Morrison, the comic book author famous for doing a lot of very imaginative adaptations such as All-Star Superman and a lot of meta-writing where he appears in the work such as Seven Soldiers. He’s also slightly off-kilter, believing that he once died and saw the fifth dimension and learned the true creation of the universe. Basically, he’s perfect for this series.

This is a dark comedy, about as dark as it gets and about as funny as it gets. I’m not going to pretend that it’s for everyone, but if you like the first 20 minutes, it only gets better from there. The first season is over and now available on Netflix, but there’s a second season on the way soon, so check it out!

If you want to check out some more by the Joker on the Sofa, check out the 100 Greatest TV Episodes of All Time, Collection of TV Episodes, Collection of Movie Reviews, or the Joker on the Sofa Reviews.

If you enjoy these, please, like, share, tell your friends, like the Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/JokerOnTheSofa/), follow on Twitter @JokerOnTheSofa, and just generally give me a little bump. I’m not getting paid, but I like to get feedback.