I remember the days of my youth when I was a growing adolescent and teenager. I remember the slow diligent process of growing facial hair, noticing more and more women, and the difference from my lovely falsetto voice into a more baritone/bass volume. I remember those days with good moments and I also loathe those days.
I hated my voice cracking, being sweaty, and the changes to my body that I learned in health classes. It is a tough time for young people to start their process of going through puberty and in the show Big Mouth, Nick Kroll and his team encapsulate some of the funny and weird issues that plague many when it happens.
The show features four friends starting puberty and along the way, deal with school drama, puberty monsters and lots of other issues. The show is starting season three pretty soon, so, is the show really worth your time and attention? We’ll review the characters, the story, and the humor of the show of season 1. Is this show up your alley or should it go back behind closed doors in shame. Let’s review season one of Big Mouth.
The show features the four main characters of Nick, Andrew, Jessi, and Jay. Each one of them are quite unique and offer different kind of a character dynamic to the show. Nick (voiced by Nick Kroll) is the short kid who has way too open parents and is a late bloomer when it comes to puberty.
Andrew (voiced by John Mulaney) experiences puberty and is having a hard time controlling his desires and needs. Jessi (voiced by Jessi Klein) is a down to earth female who is is slowly experiencing womanhood but with not many women friends, has to try and figure it out usually by herself. Jason (voiced by Jason Mantzoukas) is a kid who is all over the place with his sexuality, his love of magic and his kinks of couchs and pillows. These characters are all unique and go through puberty and deal with their hormone monsters in different ways. Andrew becomes a chronic masturbator and has the need to express himself sexually and desires sex, even though he hasn’t had it.
Nick is more innocent, a late bloomer whose hormones aren’t taking over and thus remains a blank slate on how hormones and puberty has affected everyone. Jessi really has a 180 with her hormones. She is likable, but with becoming a woman, a growing divorce of her parents and the mom finding a new lover, she becomes a very jaded emo who is just trying to maintain some sense of understanding. Jay just goes further down the rabbit hole on what he can hump and explore.
Besides humping a pillow and couch ottomans, his older brothers are just disgusting and their bad influences have definitely rubbed off on him. All the kids are very likable. You have a good laugh sometimes at their expense mostly because we can relate to them and remember, in our own childhood that we have been there before even if we try to deny it.
The story revolves around the four main characters with learning about puberty and their growing sexual desires and needs, such as finding themselves and Jessi having her time of the month. Without giving away spoilers or specific episodes, the story explores all the adolescent misunderstandings and discoveries of finding out who you are in growing up into a man or woman.
We meet the hormone/puberty monsters and Andrews’ monster is so out there and hilarious because they don’t have subtlety. He turns Andrew, who was a shy nerdy kid, into a young man who is constantly wanting sex and human contact just to relieve himself. The monsters forgo decency and just give their humans the worst advice on how to handle their urges. As the season continues, we delve more and more into the kids learning new lessons and trying to somehow not lose themselves while changing so much with puberty. Showing the need to return to their own innocence and just be good friends before all of the hormones start having their personalities and their attitudes change whether for the good or the bad.
The humor is definitely in your face. It is gut busting as well as cringe worthy. There are some moments when Nick and Andrew talk that are hilarious based on the immaturity, the naivety, and also just smart dialogue. Some of the uncomfortable humor does involve those characters too but mostly involves Jay and Jessi. Jay is just a dog and some of his humor is just absurd and so out there.
It is hard to figure out if it is really funny or are you laughing because you’re uncomfortable. Jessi’s descent into puberty offers some weird humor that made me as a man, feel uneasy, but that can just be me. Some of the comedy has been hit or miss at times. The overall feeling is that it’s in good fun and it does have a lot going on. The immature mind enjoying it a lot and the mature side also finding some of the jokes indeed laughable.
Overall, season one is a lot of fun. The main characters have their quirks and their own sense of humor and comedy. The ensemble characters like coach Steve and the monsters are greatly needed in making the show flow with lots of jokes and face palming expressions. I’m glad I did watch the show and I look forward to seeing season 2 and what craziness will take place.
