Imagine if you will a little known 1960’s era Hanna-Barbera (the guys who brought us classics such as the Flintstones and the Jetsons) cartoon called Birdman and the Galaxy Trio. It starred an assortment of superheroes and supervillains doing what superheroes and supervillains do. Now add about 40 years, a propensity to turn kitsch historic animation into something severely more anarchic and you have Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law (HBAL). The old superheroes are now attorneys working at the law firm of Sebben & Sebben, and battle against their former foes in the court of law. The worthy souls now being defended are the beloved characters from our childhood, Scooby, Shaggy, Fred Flintstone; the whole gang get up to shenanigans which Harvey has to bail them out of.

This rather factual description in no way conveys the experience of watching an episode. If we are to take as some sort of basis an episode of family guy, where the humour is pretty random and in a lot of cases in no way related to the characters and therefore completely unearned. Now take that randomness, place it onto culture defining classic characters who most people have some frame of reference for and you are starting to get to what Harvey Birdman is all about. Birdman is much more along the lines of short sharp and very funny, think Aqua Teen Hunger Force rather than the Simpsons.

Series 1 of this gem has just been released on DVD and contains 12 episodes. Even a fan such as myself has to admit that the first two are a little rough, focusing too much on in-jokes that require significant background knowledge about the characters (I’m not too up on my Johnny Quest unfortunately, otherwise I probably would have thought ep.1 was a riot). However once these have served as an intro the writers strike the right balance of parodying nostalgia and bringing the funny that makes Harvey Birdman what it is – plus Peanut shows up… Peanut is king.

One of the areas where HBAL really shines is the quality of voice talent. If you skim to the top of the article the names Gary Cole and Stephen Colbert should be immediately recognisable

to you. Cole shows up all over the place nowadays, but most notably as Ricky Bobby’s no show father in Talladega Nights. Here he is brilliant as a bit of an idiot with a lot of bravado i.e. Harvey Birdman. Colbert is more famous across the Atlantic than over here but his show The Colbert Report is incredibly witty and he brings all of that to the table as Birdman’s somewhat hyperactive boss with a ridiculous list of demands. These two are notable as they are famous outside of this cartoon but the quality of the voice acting is excellent across the board.

It is an interesting venture which Cartoon Network undertook when greenlighting this series. They are in a situation of taking their old cartoons, which I am sure are money-spinners to this day and parodying them in a very astute way. In a lot of cases parody done very well (which HBAL definitely is) makes the original almost unwatchable without referring to the piece that has lampooned it so fully. A good example of this belongs to Wes Craven, where he initially tore to pieces the teen slasher genre conventions with Scream just to be butchered by the original Scary Movie. Luckily this is not the case for HBAL. It is in a very loving way that these classic characters are used, almost making me want to watch the old cartoons again rather than analyse their current cultural relevance.

If there is one real complaint I have about this DVD it’s that I just want more of Birdman trials and tribulations, this just isn’t enough! I think it is definitely a polariser, you will either not get it at all or wonder why you have never heard of it before, either way 1 episode is only about 15 minutes. What have you got to lose? I highly recommend you give it a shot.