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The Critic/Season Two
| Season Two | |
| The Critic | |
| |
| Season Premiere | March 5, 1995 |
| Season Finale | May 21, 1995 |
| Episode Count | 10 |
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Season Two of The Critic premiered on March 5, 1995. It is also the first season to be aired on FOX after the series was cancelled by ABC. The biggest change that they made was that the writers made a conscious effort to make Jay a more like-able, less pathetic character. Alice Tompkins is introduced in the first episode of the season as a girlfriend character specifically to make him a happier character overall. In addition, several changes were made to the design of the characters. Jay's head, for instance, is rounder and his eyes are larger.
Budgets were cut for the series after the transition, although they were able to keep up the same standard of animation by having the series co-financed by French and German investors. They were, however, forced to show a clip show episode to save money even though the season was only 10 episodes.
Eventually FOX cancelled the show as well. Creator Al Jean gave two reasons for why the series failed, the first being that the network didn't have as much invested in the show, since it was inherited from another network. The second reason Jean gave was that because the series wasn't a 20th Century Fox produced cartoon, FOX had less financial interest in keeping it going because they wouldn't get revenue from reruns or syndication. When given the choice between The Critic and King of the Hill, which started around the same time, they chose to continue King of the Hill because they did own that series.
Had the series continued in a half-hour animated format, as opposed to the webisode relaunch many years later, the writers had already finished nine scripts for a third season, including a parody of Single White Female where a guy decides Jay is the most handsome man ever and slowly looks and sounds more and more like him, an episode where Marty participates in a rigged quiz show and a plot involving Jay moving to Nashville and becoming a country music critic.
The series was nearly moved a second time to UPN, which would have necessitated further budget cuts and the introduction of more children into the show. UPN reasoned that because kids liked the show, they should target that audience more. They were unable to reach an agreement with UPN and FOX refused to cancel the show until the last minute, fearing that it would be picked up by another network and become a success.
Episodes
| # | # | Title | Airdate | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14 | 1 | Sherman, Woman and Child | March 5, 1995 | |||||
| 15 | 2 | Siskel and Ebert and Jay and Alice | March 12, 1995 | |||||
| 16 | 3 | Lady Hawke | March 19, 1995 | |||||
| 17 | 4 | A Song for Margo | March 26, 1995 | |||||
| 18 | 5 | From Chunk to Hunk | April 2, 1995 | |||||
| 19 | 6 | All the Duke's Men | April 23, 1995 | |||||
| 20 | 7 | Sherman of Arabia | April 30, 1995 | |||||
| 21 | 8 | Frankie and Ellie Get Lost | May 7, 1995 | |||||
| 22 | 9 | Dukerella | May 14, 1995 | |||||
| 23 | 10 | I Can't Believe It's a Clip Show | May 21, 1995 |
