Returning to MTV’s Downtown

While my peers are all talking about ill-fated science fiction series, I thought I would go in a completely different direction by talking about a short lived animated series, which in the past, I had declared myself the patron saint of.

There were a lot of choices, but I think the one that needs the most love right now is a little program from 1999 called MTV’s Downtown.

As a Canadian, I didn’t get a chance to see it until it aired on YTV in a block with Daria after midnight on Friday nights, and even though, until recently, I hadn’t seen the show in about 8 years, it had stuck in my mind since I first laid eyes on it.

The series, created by Chris Prynoski, celebrated and sometimes poked fun at geekdom, and that is what made it so wonderful.

The series followed the lives of the Henson children, Alex and Chaka and their extended group of friends.

Alex is a geek. There is no sugarcoating that. He collects comics and figures, plays role playing games and in general, he exhibits behaviors which I can identify with.He works at a copy place, and because of this, he tends to work a lot of nights. His sister Chaka, is his polar opposite, as she is very outgoing and she loves to go clubbing. She is also in high school, so she brings a different sensibility to everything.

The other characters in this world are as follows:

Jen: Alex’s best friend who he has known since high school. She works in a thrift store and is likely the most sarcastic person in the group.

Mecca: Chaka’s best friend, and she is a real romantic at heart.

Matt: Chaka and Mecca’s friend. He works in the comic book store that Alex always goes to.

Fruity: Matt’s friend. He tries to be a player, but he is often less than successful.

Serena: Gothy girl who works at the same comic book store as Matt.Alex has a major crush on her.

And last, but certainly not least, there is Goat, who is a sleazy biker-type gentleman who gets Alex into some weird adventures (and he is based on a real guy, who voices the character).

The series begins with Alex moving out of his parents house and into an apartment he has rented sight unseen. Suffice it to say, it is not one of those wondrous Friends-type apartments.

As his best friend Jen classically said: “There are 8 million hovels in the naked city, and you just got yourself one of them”.

It is a very New York-oriented kind of show, as I can’t really think of anywhere else it could have been set based on the atmosphere created and presented on the series. In many ways, it reminds me of Spaced because of the frequent fantastic digressions and the makers’ clear love for geekish subjects, especially during the opening and credit sequences of each episode. But the plots were based on the kinds of events that could really happen, so nothing seemed too outlandish.

Another thing which I particularly enjoyed was the fact that all the voice talent on the show hasn’t really appeared on any other shows, so the characters they are playing really stand out. The delivery of lines is very natural, so there is an air of reality to everything, which is a tall order for an animated series. I’ve heard that the actors involved were allowed and sometimes encouraged to improvise their lines, which likely added to this effect.

And the art style, with its seemingly rough ink lines and muted and blended backgrounds also made it stand out from most of its contemporaries.

MTV had a reputation when it came to animated shows, as they seemed to cancel them as soon as they were close to the end of their first season. The casualties of this kind of programming logic are legion, but it is generally the few long-lasting shows on the network like Beavis and Butthead and Daria which people base their opinions of MTV animation on. And it was cancelled despite the fact that it was nominated for an Emmy for Best Animated Series in 2000.

And while it hasn’t been officially released, the series is still available in a DVD quality boxset if you know where to look.

I am glad that Chris Prynoski had successes after this series, as I was a huge fan of Metalocalypse. I hope he has something new in the works too.