Saturday Morning All Star Hits!


Saturday Morning All Star Hits! is an American adult animated sketch television series created by Kyle Mooney and Ben Jones. Produced by Universal Television, the show is a parody of Saturday-morning cartoon programming blocks from the 1980s and early 1990s, including a mix of live-action and animation segments. It was released on Netflix on December 10, 2021.

Plot

The show parodies various programming blocks and cartoons from the 1980s and early 1990s, such as Chip and Pepper's Cartoon Madness, Fox Kids, and The Disney Afternoon, framed by an eponymous show called S.M.A.S.H.! for short. It is hosted by twin brothers Skip and Treybor, both played by Mooney. They introduce various cartoon shows and have brief conversations between shows. The cartoons include:
  • Randy, a show about an anthropomorphic teenage dinosaur who falls into depression and alcoholism following a breakup with his firefighter girlfriend, before heading to music college where he befriends a group of teenagers. Randy is a spoof of Denver, the Last Dinosaur.
  • The Create-A-Crittles, a show about four magical creatures secretly living in the backyard shed of a yuppie graphic designer and his wife. Crittle Glitter, a euphemism for cocaine, is prominently featured throughout the show. Create-A-Crittles parodies such shows as Care Bears, Alvin and the Chipmunks, and Popples.
  • Strongimals, a show loosely parodying ThunderCats, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and other action cartoons of the era. The show is later retitled as Skip and the Strongimals, radically shifting its focus to Skip and his "uh... subs?" catchphrase as a result of Skip's rise to greater fame.
  • Pro Bros, a show created by Ethan Rash who is known as the less prominent brother of controversial movie star/singer Johnny Rash, parodying ProStars and other series where pro athletes play themselves. The show's antagonist, "Ronnie $elfish," and his drug habit are an allegory for Ethan's brother Johnny.
  • Lil' Bruce, an animated comedy about comedian Bruce Chandling's "crazy childhood" similar to Howie Mandel's Bobby's World. The series ends up a failed pilot due to live-action Bruce's excessive narration and a too-heavy plotline about Bruce's father leaving him and his mother when he was young.
  • All Cartoon Stars Say Don't Say Shut Up, a public service announcement in the format of Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue warning against the consequences of saying "shut up" to one's elders. Guest stars include "President of the Country" Barbara Barone and famous pop singer Nuance.
  • Slingers, a toy-based show parodying the animated pilot The Legend of the Hawaiian Slammers.
  • Others include brief clips from The Meeps, Crittle Littles, the character Puppy the Dog, Dr. Von Duck, Egyptian Jazz Cats, Lottie and Intimate Compromise: Casino Nights Seductions an R-rated live-action film parodying such films as Basic Instinct, True Lies and L.A. Confidential and its animated counterpart Intimate Compromise: Casino Nights Seductions: The Animated Series as seen with numerous clips from home movies, news shows and commercials promoting Nextronico's Mega Mitten, Rude Cubes, Sonic Yum gum, diet sodas, sneakers and submarine sandwiches.
Throughout the episodes, Treybor, who grows jealous of Skip, eventually quits S.M.A.S.H.! because he feels overshadowed by Skip. In the season finale, Treybor confronts Skip during a live broadcast to vent his frustrations, before their mother shows up and urges them to reconcile while introducing them to their long-lost triplet brother, Corbee. Skip leaves S.M.A.S.H.!, after which all three triplets become VJs on Monday Early Afternoon Rock Song Hits, which shows sludge rock music videos geared towards older teenagers and young adults.
Starting in episode 4, breaking news interruptions chronicle the disappearance of Lottie co-stars Lottie Wolfe and Sean Benjamin and the subsequent police investigation; Wolfe's boyfriend and fellow teen sensation Johnny Rash is initially arrested and tried for their presumed deaths, during which Benjamin's body is found, but a jury acquits Rash due to matching left-and-right shoe prints being found at the scene, contradicting Rash's fashion statement of always wearing mismatched shoes. Though it proved futile in court, evidence against Rash was found by a 9-year-old S.M.A.S.H.! superfan named Katherine Logan, who spotted a blooper in the Skip and the Strongimals Movie in which an unidentified figure threw an athletic shoe matching the crime scene into the D'ahai Sea.
Running gags include the names of animation studios GIK, Herb Whibley, and Polystar, numerous appearances of sub sandwiches and catchphrases like "zuzzy zazz" and "uh... subs?".

Cast

Production

The show was co-created by Mooney, director Dave McCary, and animator Ben Jones, best known for his work on the Cartoon Network series The Problem Solverz and the FXX animated series Stone Quackers, and the Emmy Award-winning sitcom Bob's Burgers. It is executive produced by Saturday Night Live creator Lorne Michaels under Broadway Video.

Reception

Saturday Morning All Star Hits! has received mostly positive reviews from critics for its "hilariously sharp edge" on 90s nostalgia. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, Saturday Morning All Star Hits! has an approval rating of 89% based on 9 reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10.