The premise of the 2017 Netflix animated series “Big Mouth” is novel. It follows a group of junior high school kids as they traverse the trials and tribulations of puberty, usually with the utmost level of embarrassment. The boys are all obsessed with sex and masturbating, and the girls are mortified over having their first periods. Every interaction is awkward, and the kids have to fight to find some kind of emotional stability in a world where their hormones are melting their brains. No one is sure what’s happening, the kids are all confused, and everyone is horny. It’s startlingly relatable.
“Big Mouth” also teaches us that every kid is assigned a supernatural puberty deity called a Hormone Monster, who lasciviously encourages them to follow their basest pubescent instincts. The male Hormone Monster is Maurice (show co-creator Nick Kroll), who snarls and grins and encourages compulsive masturbation from the show’s main character, Nick (also Kroll). The female Hormone Monstress is Connie (Maya Rudolph), who is initially attached to a character named Jessi (Jessi Klein). The Monsters, however, drift between male and female, revealing that gender and sexuality are kind of fluid.
As the show progresses, we see other minor deities appear. There are many Hormone Monsters of different intensities. David Thewlis plays the Shame Wizard. Jean Smart plays the Depression Kitty. Zach Galifianakis plays the Gratitoad. All of the deities, we eventually learn, work for a Heaven-like bureaucracy called Human Re
Human Reeries “Human Reouth.” The new cast was wild and whimsical, and boasted Hugh Jackman as Dante the Addiction Angel
Human Re
“Human Rey depicting monsters and deities that aid fully grown adults. It’s like a crass combination of “Monsters, Inc.” and “Inside Out,” wherein monsters are blue-collar employees, but also represent human emotions, mostly love. Aidy Bryant, for instance, played Emmy the Love Bug, who appears when an adult is lovelorn. She is assigned to Becca (Ali Wong), who is the human center of the series
Also swirling through Human Resources are fellow Love Bugs Rochelle (Keke Palmer) and Walter (Brandon Kyle Goodman). To represent the unemotional parts of a human mind, there is an anthropomorphic talking Logic Rock named Pete (Randall Park). David Thewlis returns as Lionel, the Shame Wizard, and Nick Kroll and Maya Rudolph come back as their respective Hormone Monsters. Supporting and background monsters include Petra the Ambition Gremlin (Rosie Perez), Tito the Anxiety Mosquito (Maria Bamford), a talking Grief Sweater (Henry Winkler), and a Pity Onion (John Lovitz).
Hugh Jackman played Dante, the Addiction Angel, who encourages addictive behaviors. He is incredibly handsome and seductive and charms the Love Bugs on “Human Resources” with his rugged good looks and his three penises. When he tries to charm people into bad habits, his wings sprout, glitter appears around his body, and he begins speaking in a bedroom voice. You are coated in addictive dust. When Hugh Jackman gives you a bad idea, it suddenly sounds like a good idea. Emmy is dating Dante at the beginning of the series, and it takes her a while to realize that, well, he’s just not good for her. Eventually, Dante begins dating Rochelle.
Human Re
Hugh Jackman is having a ball as Dante, given a lot of filthy dialogue and a wild, broad comedy character to work with. The showrunners are clearly banking on Jackman’s well-known good looks and on-screen charms, undercutting it with lines about “Burying my face in …” Well, you get the idea. This, while talking about how great it is to take too much ketamine. Later in the series, he loses one of his penises, and it becomes a disembodied extra character on the show.
But for all their crassness and horniness and capriciousness, “Big Mouth” and “Human Resources” are weirdly honest about the human emotional experience. It’s unvarnished, pointing out that people are not driven by broad emotions like Joy or Anger (two of the five emotions selected for the main characters in “Inside Out”), but a series of pettier emotional experiences like shame, arousal, anxiety, and depression. On “Big Mouth,” the series zeroes in on the adolescent experience, but “Human Resources” is a workplace drama about monsters handling the lives of adults. And even our Shame Wizards have our best interests at heart, sometimes. When Emmy tries to dump the toxic Dante, she is occasionally still drawn back to him. Lionel, the Shame Wizard, can help her stay away from Dante. Lionel might be David Threwlis’ best character since Johnny Fletcher in Mike Leigh’s “Naked.”
Although both shows are incredibly raunchy, there’s a definite humane sweetness underneath. One might not want a Depression Kitty, but these two shows do reveal what it’s like to interact with one. Our Hormone Monsters may not always give good advice, but they do care about us.
