Per FTC obligations: Warner Bros. Discovery Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVDs I reviewed in this post. The opinions I share are my own.
THE SHOW
Regular Show debuted on the Cartoon Network on September 6, 2010, and ran for eight seasons, finally calling it a day on January 16, 2017. Over that time, Regular Show was nominated for a variety of awards, including seven Annie Awards, six Primetime Emmy Awards, and three British Academy Children’s Awards, winning one Emmy for S3E17 “Eggscellent.” In 2015 Regular Show: The Movie was released as well.
The show follows two 23-year-old slacker friends, the blue jay Mordecai (voiced by series creator J.G. Quintel) and the raccoon Rigby (William Salyers), as they work as groundskeepers at the local park. Other park employees include the immortal Yeti, Skips (Mark Hamill), the frequently shirtless, green-skinned Muscle man (Sam Marin) and his best friend Hi-Five Ghost (Quintel), Pops (also Marin), the innocent lollipop shaped son of the park’s owner, and their boss Benson (once again, Marin), a living and frequently exasperated gumball machine. Mordecai and Rigby’s main goal is to avoid as much work as possible, which usually leads to bizarre, surreal, science-fictiony, supernatural events.
Along the way we also meet love-interests Eileen (Minty Lewis), Margaret (Janie Haddad Tompkins), and CJ (Linda Cardellini), and recurring characters Thomas (Roger Craig Smith) the intern with a secret, Death (Julian Holloway), a bunch of baby ducks, and Party Horse (Adam Pally). While most of the series takes place in and around the Park, the eighth and final season saw the park covered with a dome and launched into outer space and the entire season, retitled Regular Show in Space, was a sci-fi adventure comedy where our heroes have to face the monstrous Anti-Pops (Robert Englund) to save the universe.
With 245 episodes, there’s something for everybody in Regular Show. And since most of the episodes are about 11 minutes long, with some half-hour specials scattered about, there’s literally no reason not to give the show a try. My own personal favorites are the recurring Halloween specials, “Terror Tales from the Park” I-VI. Included in this boxset is the 2015 movie, Regular Show: The Movie, which sees our heroes tasked (by a time-traveling super cool Rigby) to save the future destruction of the universe by traveling to the past to stop Mordecai and Rigby from creating a time tornado as a science project in high school.
If you live in the US, this is your first chance to own the complete series on DVD, as only the first three seasons were ever released (although there are a variety of themed compilation sets).
THE EXTRAS
Throughout the first three seasons, there are several special features, including episode commentaries, interviews, animatics, pencil tests, CG tests, a live episode read, and the unaired original Regular Show pilot. There’s a lot of entertaining stuff here, particularly the behind-the-scenes glimpses. The commentary tracks have a lot of interesting information if you can get used to the fact that JG Quintel’s regular voice is his Mordecai voice.
THE PACKAGING
While the series and the special features are fantastic, the packaging leaves something to be desired. The 20 discs come packaged in an extra-thick clamshell and it is nearly impossible to keep the discs on their pegged page holders as they are double stacked on each peg. It’s not uncommon for discs to be rattling around loose and ready to spill out when the case is cracked open. Be careful that first time you open your collection up.
OVERALL
That said, I enthusiastically recommend Regular Show: The Complete Series. It’s one of those Cartoon Network shows that really nailed its assignment and there are barely any misses over 245 episodes and a movie. When all is said and done, we’re talking about over seven hours of entertainment that can stand up proudly alongside other classics like Adventure Time, Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls, Courage the Cowardly Dog, or even Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and Sealab 2021.