"The Critic"

The Critic
“It stinks!” This seems to possibly be a critics two favorite words that come up all the time. John Lovitz plays a failing, strung-out 36 year-old movie critic by the name of Jay Sherman. Lovitz made his start in then great SNL show with crazy obnoxious characters. This show first came out in 1994 on ABC and ended its’ short lived series career on Fox in 1995. The show only aired 23 episodes and 10 episodes on the web in 2000. The show was created by Al Jean and Mike Reiss who also wrote for the well known The Simpsons show. The show revolves around Jay’s life and his TV-cable show “Coming Attractions,” which pokes fun at poor and crazy possible movie sequels and spinoffs.
Sherman a barley known critic, even in his own town of New York, knows that it’s only a matter of time till he gets canned for someone more attractive and smarter than him, so he must change up his show and soon. His boss, Duke Phillips (voice by Charles Napier), which seems to be a crazed workout junkie, lets him know that he has already started interviewing others for his job. His ratings are hitting bottom and Jay knows he must do something to spice up his show and bring a new feel to it. On his way to figuring-out this dilemma, he meets a young mother, Alice Tompkins (voice by Park Overall), of one that moved from the country in search of any type of career. In helping Alice, he gets her a job as his assistant and she helps add excitement to his show. In the end he wins her feelings and helps her reject her former husband, who cheated on her, and she falls for Jay.
The show is quick-witted and makes fun of other hit shows and movies around it’s time like, “A Few More Good Men,” or Al Pacino in, “Scent of A Wolfman”. Minute after minute “The Critic” jokes about other movies, which can be dawdling and point-less. Someone could almost say “The Critic” was ahead of its time which caused it to not succeed. It was unique and brilliant, especially when it had its movie parodies that made me laugh every time. Sherman seems to be a group of critics rolled into one like Roger and Ebert that also played themselves in a different episode. You won’t be left down and will root for Jay in every scene that kicks him to the curb.