Thursday, August 15, 2019

Celebrity Toons: The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley (1988)

The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley has its roots in the debut of Grimley (Martin Short), first on SCTV, then on Saturday Night Live. Short doubles as co-executive producer for this short-lived Hanna-Barbera entry for NBC.

I could never really get into the Grimley act, largely because there's too much expository dialogue from Ed all by himself. His fandom of Wheel of Fortune host Pat Sajak could be construed by first-time viewers as being derivative of Raymond Babbitt (Dustin Hoffman) similarly obsessing over The People's Court (under Judge Joseph Wapner) in "Rain Man", which came out the same year that Grimley hit the air. However, Short had developed Grimley into an evolving act while with the Second City troupe, bringing it fully formed to SNL a couple of years later.

It's easy to forget that Short had flopped in a pair of live-action sitcoms for ABC (The Associates & I'm a Big Girl Now) before joining Second City. After Grimley was cancelled after 1 season, Short didn't do another animated series until PBS' The Cat in The Hat Knows a Lot About That, and that was much more successful.

Here's the series opener:



The Count Floyd backup feature was recycled by Cartoon Network a few years later for Cartoon Planet.

Rating: C.

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