The Tick to Return as Amazon Pilot

[MovieBob]

The Tick to Return as Amazon Pilot

Patrick Warburton plans to revive his cult-hit giant blue superhero on Amazon

Ben Edlund's 1986 indie comic book hero live-action adaptation [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tick_(comics)] in 2001 failed to find an audience - producing only nine episodes.

But the live-action Tick has since become a cult classic, and one of it's most ardent fans remains its star, The Wrap, [http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0911320/] he has helped work out a deal with Sony to bring the show back as a pilot for Amazon.com; which would then be made available for online viewing to gauge interest in a full order for the series.

First created by Edlund in 1986 as the mascot for New England Comics, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_England_Comics] The Tick is a parody of superhero tropes. The titular main character is an musclebound "nigh indestructible" superhuman who wears a blue costume and has no connection to ticks whatsoever save for a pair of antennae. His sidekick, Arthur, wears a moth costume that allows him to fly. In the live-action series they typically adventured with Batmanuel (a Latino Batman-parody) and Captain Liberty - both revised versions of heroes from the cartoon (Die Fledermaus and American Maid, respectively.) No word if any of the other original actors will reprise their roles.


Source: The Wrap [http://www.thewrap.com/patrick-warburton-set-to-reboot-the-tick-as-an-amazon-pilot/]


[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/movies-and-tv/]

Permalink

 

[ZeoAssassin]

.....spoooooooooon!!!

 

[Endocrom]

Not sure how well it would do, but it's got my support.

 

[SeeDarkly_Xero]

"Failed to find an audience?"
People who complained about the opening season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for its abundance of breaks in scheduling should have seen the idiocy of how Fox scheduled the Tick!
No, it found an audience. What it never had was a network that understood how to market it to get a greater audience... and constantly interrupting its schedule with that awful reality show Temptation Island wasn't helping.

Fox has often failed most shows of this nature.
I'm glad to hear Warburton was such a fan of the show himself to be working to bring it back. He really got the character so right. And those antennae!
Now I'm gonna re-watch them all again in celebration of this news!

 

[Saulkar]

.....spoooooooooon!!!

A battle cry to end all battle cries! A catchphrase that sends fear into the hearts of enemies, swoons the ladies, and sends all foes fleeing back to the abyss! Jerry Lewis!

Wait! Wrong show.

Anyways, I am not going to support the idea of each and every single company with its own website creating a subscription based streaming service, I fear it will spread things too thinly and make it a much more expensive option than cable. For these reasons I will probably not be able to see it as I am sticking to netflix until something discernibly better comes around.

 

[ChristopherT]

The Tick, that was a really fun show. Glad to hear the actor had a fun time in the role, 'cause he looked like it in the show. Damn it, now I want to watch it again.

 

[FalloutJack]

Vee shall see vhwere zis goes, jah? Zat is ze best zat I can say on ze matter.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

This time around can we have Chairface? El Seed? The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight? "And then I says, 'Tell me I'm wrong!' And he says, 'I can't baby, cuz you're not!!'"
Tell me the Evil Midnight Bomber is not instant classic TV?
Also Patrick Warburton is easily becoming my new favorite go-to guy for awesomeness. I wanted his original Tick series to take off but it wasn't up to my standards even back then. I mean you can't go from awesome cartoon to TV unless you can pull it off in live action without making it look cheesy... this time period is so much better for comics as live action.

 

[Scarim Coral]

For those who haven't watched it, please for the love of Tick watch it when it on Amazon!!! It's one of the most underrated shows out there!

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

I cannot even begin to state how excited I'd be if this show got picked up again. It was so criminally underrated and I was so sad it only had one season.

 

[Lyvric]

I loved the cartoon very much, but felt the live action fell short in so many ways. I especially missed the original, shoe throwing American maid who took care of herself.

Only The tick and Arthur felt original. Maybe it's just me, but if they bring anything back, I'd love the cartoon or a whole new re-adaption altogether.

 

[Quiotu]

"Failed to find an audience?"
People who complained about the opening season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for its abundance of breaks in scheduling should have seen the idiocy of how Fox scheduled the Tick!
No, it found an audience. What it never had was a network that understood how to market it to get a greater audience... and constantly interrupting its schedule with that awful reality show Temptation Island wasn't helping.

Fox has often failed most shows of this nature.

Fox just kind of failed shows in general during that time. Remember a few years after this, Fox tossed Family Guy off its line-up and failed miserably to find a replacement. Failed so hard that the first 2 minutes of the new season took a jab at Fox by naming every show that took the time slot during the two year gap.

The best example of Fox's ineptitude at the time was Father of the Pride in 2004, which I still find hilarious. Fox didn't even air the first two episodes, then ran the show out of order. The order shown was 4, 5, 3, 9, 6, then 10 two weeks later, 8 two weeks later, then 12 after TWO MONTHS. Finally 2, 7, and 11 were all shown a week later on the same day, throwing them out between Christmas and New Year's when no one was watching. Then for some reason they showed 13 and 14 in late May of the next year, probably just to fill a time slot for another show they trashed.

I get it was a really expensive show to make, and Roy's recent mauling didn't help. But Fox literally saturated their channel with ad for the show until people were sick of it, then kept switching time slots so no one could find it. I've only seen Cartoon Network screw up time slot changes worse.

 

[SeeDarkly_Xero]

Fox just kind of failed shows in general during that time. Remember a few years after this, Fox tossed Family Guy off its line-up and failed miserably to find a replacement. Failed so hard that the first 2 minutes of the new season took a jab at Fox by naming every show that took the time slot during the two year gap.

The best example of Fox's ineptitude at the time was Father of the Pride in 2004, which I still find hilarious. Fox didn't even air the first two episodes, then ran the show out of order. ...

Fox seems to have problems with marketing sci-fi genre stuff specifically. Outside of the X-files, they've really had no other sci-fi show [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_programs_broadcast_by_Fox#Science_fiction_and_action] succeed past two seasons. (Technically Fringe made it to 5, but they failed that in a number of ways too.)

Also... Father of the Pride was on NBC. So to be fair, inept as they are in this matter, Fox can't really be blamed for that. -_-

 

[TitanAura]

I revisited this series recently. To be honest, it didn't hold up very well minus a couple notable episodes. In particular, the 3rd episode about Arthur's family having him institutionalized because they view his "life choice" of being a super hero as "a disease" *insert obvious LGBT struggle for acceptance metaphor here* along with the "League of Superheroes" episode about a ritzy club of all white, male superheroes and the conflict revolves around Captain Liberty, the token chick of the group, trying to expose the obvious discrimination the league has against women and minorities.

Most of the episodes focused less on their battles as superheroes fighting villains (often lampshaded by the characters themselves when a commercial break cuts an entire encounter out of the episode), but instead on their lives off the clock, and I think that's what made it unique. I still love the original series but it had some very substantial flaws most of which probably stemmed from its budgeting problems.

Regardless, I'm hyped for it's return, even if it's streaming-service only.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

Yes. Patrick Wartburton is the man! I can only hope Amazon doesn't put the pilot up against some garbage that caters to the greatest common denominator. I'd love for this to become big, just so everyone can rub it in Fox's faces while yelling, "Spooooonnn!"

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

My body is ready for this to become a reality. Come on Tick, we want you back!

 

[EXos]

There is only one reply:

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Normally I'd be all for this, but I'm kind of anti-Amazon. I was willing to reluctantly support them from time to time back when I simply annoyed at their over-exposure, but then I started hearing about some of their shoddy business practices. Now I'm just done with them. It's good that The Tick is back, but I just can't justify watching it knowing that it'll support what is basically the Gamestop of online retail.

 

[hermes]

On one hand, the Tick was genuinely great, and it was a shame it only got 9 episodes.

On the other hand, amazon.com locks content by IP and doesn't support my country, which means I will never get to watch it (by legitimate means), so...