10 TV Shows That Worked Despite Their Absurd Premise
2. Big Mouth
If you ever thought you would watch a TV show about a bunch of young teenagers going through the changes of puberty in incredibly graphic ways, and enjoying it as much as audiences have enjoyed Big Mouth, then chances are you’d be lying to yourself.
Discussions about the size of the children’s genitals, when and how best to masturbate, and having sex with a sentient pillow or two, with some of the most graphic animated images TV can offer, Big Mouth shouldn’t work. Any animator that has to draw a child's penis should have the right to quit on the spot.
In theory, no one should enjoy this show, and yet it has become extremely popular. Something that works in its favour, that again in theory shouldn’t, is Maury the Hormone Monster. The very first scene of Big Mouth shows Nick Kroll’s character emerge in school in Andrew’s imagination to tell the young boy to go and masturbate in school. How did it ever get past this without being cancelled?
Five seasons later, not only is the series showing no signs of slowing down, it has its own spin-off in Human Resources, a show about the monsters whose job it is to get kids to masturbate. Oh, and Jordan Peele plays the ghost of Duke Ellington who lives in Nick Birch’s attic.