Story
The movie Regular Show is a collection of six short animations from the 2012 season of the Regular Show animated TV series shown on the Cartoon Network.
The series features two main characters in their mid-20s – a six-foot blue jay named Mordecai (voiced by J.G. Quintel) and a hyperactive raccoon named Rigby (voiced by William Salyers). Mordecai and Rigby are best friends. They share a house and love to party. They work for a walking, talking gumball machine named Benson (voiced by Sam Marin) – but they don’t work very hard. Although they’re always getting into trouble, things generally turn out all right for them.
Their adventures often involve strange friends including Pops, an eccentric man with a lollypop for a head, a muscle-bound Yeti named Skips (voiced by Mark Hamill), and High Five Ghost, a packman-type character with a hand sticking out of the top of his head.
Themes
Violence
The cartoon series Regular Show contains slapstick cartoon violence and comical dangerous situations throughout. Children might copy some of the violent and dangerous behaviour. Characters also make comic threats to act violently. And occasionally characters are shown with injuries or are killed in a comical way. For example:
- Cartoon characters are kicked, punched in the stomach and face, slapped, elbowed, pushed and shoved.
- Characters make verbal threats of violence including, ‘I’ll kill you’. They repeatedly talk about ‘ham-boning’ other characters. Computers and machines threaten to ‘burn’ Mordecai and Rigby and ‘erase’ them from existence.
- Bullies on a school bus punch schoolchildren.
- Giant, cartoon-style video game characters come to life and fire laser beams at each other. They destroy houses and property, including the roof of a school bus. At one point some school children are surrounded by fire, but no-one is hurt. After watching a video game, a boy’s eyes burst into flames. Two cartoon characters disintegrate after being hit by laser fire. All that remains are two large piles of ash. Characters in a video game punch each other and slam each other into the ground.
- In a slapstick fight between some young adults, the cartoon characters and a sea monster, there are lots of punches to faces and bodies. The sea monster destroys a wooden dock.
Content that may disturb children
Under 5
Regular Show has many strange, comical cartoon characters that might scare younger children. For example:
- A giant moon monster looks like a cross between a man and a bird. This monster tries to eat another character.
- A giant face sits in the middle of an audience of cartoon characters.
- A video game fuses Mordecai and Rigby into a single giant character with one body and two heads.
- There are several giant sea monsters, including a giant fish and a type of sea slug.
- A packman-type character has a hand sticking out of the top of its head.
- There is a muscle-bound yeti.
From 5-8
Children in this age group might also be disturbed by some of the scenes and images mentioned above.
From 8-13
Children in this age group are unlikely to be disturbed by anything in this movie.
Over 13
Nothing of concern
Sexual references
Regular Show has occasional low-level sexual innuendo. For example:
- Mordecai says that he and a female jaybird named Margaret ‘had a really good time last night’.
- Margaret says to Mordecai, ‘I thought we made a pretty good team, you and me, and I’m pretty much up for anything’.
- A character talks about ‘how hot’ Margaret is.
Alcohol, drugs and other substances
This movie shows some use of substances. For example, in one scene a man dressed as a clown answers his hotel door. As the door opens, several cans roll out. The man seems to be very drunk. He says that it’s very bright, gags and goes off to one side to vomit. This isn’t shown.
Nudity and sexual activity
None of concern
Product placement
None of concern
Coarse language
Regular Show has low-level to medium-level coarse language, put-downs and some racial stereotyping. There is also some crude humour.
Ideas to discuss with your children
Regular Show is a quirky, fantasy cartoon series targeting older teenagers and young adults. It’s unsuitable for children under 12-13 years because of its slapstick violence, intoxicated characters, crude humour, coarse language, sexual innuendo, and racial and cultural stereotyping.
A few episodes have some worthwhile messages, such as the following:
- Being irresponsible will eventually catch up with you.
- Being with friends is more important than winning video games.
Although one of the underlying values is the importance of friendship, in general the series shows more negative values than positive ones.
The two main characters Mordecai and Rigby repeatedly show irresponsible attitudes and behaviour, but there are no negative consequences. You could talk with your children about how irresponsible behaviour in real life can have disastrous and far-reaching consequences.