The turn of the century saw many channels taking a stab at the grown-up TV animation market after the runaway success of The Simpsons. It seemed that many attempts emerged around 2000-01, including Mission Hill, Undergrads, Clerks, and the focus of this article, The Oblongs.

If you missed this, you may have been taking a long nap in 2001. That’s because the show debuted on The WB in April and was promptly canceled in May due to poor ratings and some opposition for its more risqué nature and themes. Yet in the years since, The Oblongs has achieved a bit of a cult following thanks to several factors that I’ll go into here. I can tell you that its 13-episode run is greatly entertaining and full of daring humor that you wouldn’t see in our flinch-at-everything society today.

The Oblongs was created by Angus Oblong, an illustrator who started dressing up like a clown on a regular basis and specialized in counter-cultural characters. His 1999 collection of short stories was tagged for the creation of a series, and thus two years later, its characters inhabited the decidedly odd and bizarre world of the television show.

The show’s catchy theme lays out the core structure: In an unnamed town, the rich and powerful Hill people continually send all of their toxic waste down into the Valley, resulting in pretty much everyone down there becoming mentally or physically altered. Yet the two wildly disparate groups end up interacting in work, school, and elsewhere, leading to a nonstop struggle and not-so-subtle social commentary.

At the core are the Oblongs, a nuclear family headed up by an arm- and leg-less Bob (Will Farrell). If nothing else, Farrell (who was coming off of his SNL days and transitioning into his megastar movie era) keeps this show on the map as the family’s constantly optimistic and creative patriarch. Bob’s married to Pickles, a former “Debby” from the Hills who has since lost all her hair and resorted to chain-smoking and heavy drinking. The two lovebirds have four-ish kids: extremely hyperactive Milo, a little girl named Beth with a growth sticking out of her head, and two conjoined twins called Chip and Biff. They also have a smoking cat, narcoleptic dog, and a nearly catatonic grandmother who communicates via beeping box.

Milo also has a pack of school chums with their own issues, including Creepy Susie (a Wednesday Addams clone), a kid with a floppy butt, a girl missing her lower jaw, and a toad-like girl who delusionally imagines that all of the pretty girls are her best friends.

The art and animation style is of particular interest, as Angus Oblong’s designs create a striking array of characters that look nothing like you’d see elsewhere. Apart from the freaks, the Debbies are a bizarre take on identical Barbie-like jerks. One of my favorite episodes was when a Debby accidentally falls into a woodchipper, becomes hideously disfigured, and has to live in the Valley for a time before a surgeon can restore her beauty.

As I was rewatching this, the thought that “They would NEVER get away with this today” kept running through my mind. I don’t think any of it is over-the-top, mind you, just reminded how our media’s gotten toothless in its pursuit of never offending anyone. The Oblongs is bound to offend milder sensibilities today, but it really shouldn’t. It’s an exaggerated world with exaggerated characters who sometimes make really good points about not looking down on disabled people, holding yourself back from your full potential, and bridging social gaps to find commonalities.

I really like how the show has a strong vision for the two different worlds of this town — and how it subtly portrays the Hill people as not actually that satisfied while the Valley folks boast more contentment and stronger relationships.

The episodes are a mixed bag, almost always entertaining but not always laugh-out-loud hilarious. Thirteen episodes is not a lot of space to find your footing, and The Oblongs needed some more space to truly grow into its best self. Helga-centered episodes are almost always a great time, while ones that shift the focus to Pickles always struck me as weak. It’s hard to portray a mother who is this wildly negligent also being loving and nurturing, and The Oblongs tries to have both with her and doesn’t really make it work.

I’d say that The Oblongs are a good recommendation to anyone who enjoys, say, The Addams Family and similar subversive ilk.