On January 16th, 2017, Regular Show aired its final three episodes, ending the show's broadcast run. Given that I can comfortably call Regular Show one of my all-timers, and really one of my favourite pieces of media ever, I feel it's important that I give it a eulogy here on IMU. I originally meant for this post to be much more timely, so that it would better reflect my initial emotional response to the finale, but here we are.
When J.G. Quintel announced that Regular Show's 8th season would be its last, I actually felt relief. The show hadn't settled into the repetitious routine that many cartoons do, but it did seem like it was on a fast track to that point. Instead, they decided to end the show and turned the central conceit, two slackers working in a park, on its head by sending everyone to space. I loved this, because I would much rather see my favourite evolve and go out in a crazy way than lose interest.
I discovered Regular Show by watching Adventure Time, as the two shows form a sort of almost-prime time partnership on Cartoon Network. At first, I thought it was a nifty partner to AT that was broadcast in the same timeslot, but soon realized that Regular Show was much closer to many of my main interests (re: buddy comedies, rom-coms, lowbrow humour, constant references to 80's pop culture).
Though ostensibly a kids' cartoon, Regular Show is rife with references to more mature things. I mean, if they just switched the pop cans and wings enjoyed by the characters to beer, which the audience clearly understands them to be, it would have been shown on Adult Swim instead of weeknights. I feel like the show tried a lot harder to appeal to kids in its first season, but soon afterwards settled into its "Okay, we're just making a 'kids show' for adults" tone and I LOVED that tone.
Almost right away, I recognized the series' two protagonists, lovelorn slacker and art school grad Mordecai and slacker shit-disturber Rigby, as mirrors of myself. The way I can best explain it is that Rigby is the person I am around my friends, while Mordecai is the person I am while I'm alone. I recognized every exchange the two had as one I had had with my own friends. That was what made me love it immediately. I saw myself in what was happening. That is how a show makes you feel real feelings. Mordecai doing things he doesn't want to, just to please Margaret, hits home because I've been in that situation myself.
A quick aside because typing that up made me feel things: The romantic comedy episodes of Regular Show are so so so underrated. Nobody ever talks about them while discussing the show and I never understood that. It's something that I've never seen a cartoon do before and it's done so well. They perfectly capture the awkward nervousness of dating in your early 20's. Amazing TV.
I was not in a very good headspace when I started watching the show. I had just graduated university and was at a loss in terms of finding out what I was going to do. I felt very alone, very stupid, and very bad. Mordecai's life hit pretty close to home. The mundanity of Modecai and Rigby's life, supernatural phenomena aside, and the fact that their friendship with each other was usually the only thing that saved them from their minds melting out of their ears, was right on the nose. That was exactly where I was at in my life and what I was doing. Though I stumbled upon Regular Show and Adventure Time at the same time, the former quickly eclipsed the latter in my own hierarchy.
One of the great things about Regular Show is that the story grew and the characters developed a lot, which I find is pretty uncommon for surreal comedies featuring lactating coffee bean. What solidified my bond with the show was that I found myself growing with it. As the show went on, and Mordo and Rigbone learned lessons about being responsible and becoming adults, I found myself doing the same. I made it through university just fine, but came out on the other end with no idea about being an adult and being a man. To be clear, I do not mean that as a slight against my parents at all, these were lessons I had to experience and learn myself, and that happened in a hurry when I was thrust out of my comfortable university bubble and into the real world. Through all of that, it was nice to have an accompaniment in Regular Show.
The show stayed with me while I moved from a bad place to good place and that made me feel a sense of ownership over it. There were plenty of episodes that I didn't think were great, but even when the show wasn't at its best (which was pretty rare), it still achieved a huge importance just by being there in my life. Regular Show was something very solid for me.
Leading up to the finale, I was expecting that I would have a strong reaction to it. The show always delivered with a strong episode to end a season, and I was confident that they would make sure to continue that into the finale. TV finales can be an intensely emotional thing, depending on how much you have invested in the show and Regular Show figured to be something I would remember.
Given the amount of reviews that already exist on the internet, there's no need for me to recap Regular Show's finale a month after the fact (can't compete with the AV Club, can I?), but it's probably enough to say that the last few episodes consisted of a classic Regular Show blow-off battle blown up to accommodate the significance of the episode. I was enjoying the show, but then a few characters started to die, which really took me by surprise. While Regular Show has certainly ramped up the emotional gravity of events in the past, nothing close to this had happened before. A break in action brought the show back exactly where it started, leading to some amazing meta-commentary on the reception of the show since its inception.
I was really happy with how things are going, but I guess it would be fair to say I expected it because of the high opinion I have of the show. Then a closing montage started with "Heroes" by David Bowie playing over it and I was immediately a wreck. The song, coupled with visuals showing you the fate of the characters immediately brought up all of the emotions that I had tied up in the show and reminded me that, even though I'll still be able to watch Regular Show as long as I like and it will still mean the same thing, it's also kind of done now and the chapter of my life in which the show served as an accompaniment to me sorting out my priorities and moving and being a goof with no responsibility and being sad and meeting a really nice girl and growing up a lot is now closed.
Thanks Regular Show.
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