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This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (May 2007) |
| Odd Job Jack | |
|---|---|
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| Genre | Animated television series |
| Created by | Smiley Guy Studios |
| Directed by | Adrian Carter Denny Silverthorne Jr. |
| Starring | Don McKellar |
| Country of origin |  Canada |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 59 (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Jonas Diamond |
| Associate producer(s) |
Adrian Carter Jeremy Diamond |
| Editor(s) | Adrian Carter Denny Silverthorne Jr. |
| Running time | 21 - 23 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | The Comedy Network |
| Original run | March 5, 2003 – present |
| External links | |
| Official website | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
Odd Job Jack is a Canadian animated comedy television show featuring Don McKellar, about one man's misadventures in temporary employment. Seen on The Comedy Network, a cable specialty channel, and in Adult Swim in Latin America, the show is currently in production of its fourth season. The second season has been released to DVD.
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Production
Odd Job Jack is created by Smiley Guy Studios in Toronto, Ontario. The show was originally developed as a web-based cartoon, but quickly moved to cable television distribution. The producers of the show pay homage to their web roots by maintaining a web site that contains unique interactive content to support each episode.
On July 14, 2006 in an email to subscribers, Smiley Guy Studios announced FreeJack, an initiative under which they have started releasing the master files of every character, prop, and background from every episode for the upcoming season under a share-friendly license1.
Plot
The eponymous character, Jack Ryder, graduates from university with a degree in sociology and becomes a temporary employee at an agency which specializes in filling difficult and unusual positions. Each episode ends with Jack adding a chapter to a book which he is writing about his experiences on his laptop.
When not working, Jack often hangs with his eccentric friends, Leo, an agoraphobic computer hacker who, like one of the characters in McKellar's earlier comedy series, Twitch City, is unable to leave his apartment but nonetheless leads a complex and bizarre life, and Bobby, an Asian kid who works in the family store by day, and is a club disc-jockey and masked hero by night.
Jack also spends some time at the beginning and end of each episode at the agency where he attempts to develop a rapport with Betty, the female assignment "associate" (Betty is not in Season Four however) while under electronic surveillance from the gruff, imperious, and decidedly unpleasant, manager/owner who is often involved in some way in the bizarre conspiracies, sordid sexual escapades, and crimes which lurk behind the workaday appearances of Jack's assignments.
Season One
Among the unusual situations which in which Jack finds employment during the show's three seasons are mortuary worker; rodent wrangler on the set of a James Bond-like movie produced entirely with rodents; tree-planter in Bigfoot country; waiter in a chi-chi restaurant where something is definitely not right in the kitchen; security guard in a high-tech firm; Eighties-style business executive in a take-over firm; and Christian theme-park employee. None of these assignments are as straight-forward as they seem. Jack's co-workers and employers can only be describedly as contentedly psychotic.
In the rodent wrangler episode, McKellar plays and parodies himself as a stereotypical vain, role-hungry and superficial actor, as well as voicing the anti-hero, Jack, and is the subject of a self-deprecatory episode based on Being John Malkovich in which a tunnel is dug from Jack's kitchen into McKellar the actor's ego.
There are also a number of sly allusions in the episode to McKellar's movies, including The Red Violin (1998) and Highway 61 (1991)citation needed.
Guests
The show features voice work by a number of largely Canadian celebrities, especially after the first season: celebrities appear occasionally on the second season, and the third season has a special celebrity guest star for each episode, who either play themselves or voice one of the show's eccentric, if not mad, characters. Celebrities in the first season were Dave Foley, Troy Hurtubise and Gary Farmer. The second season featured the Barenaked Ladies, Jeff Tweedy of Wilco, John O'Hurley, Christopher Plummer, Catherine O'Hara and Don Knotts. And the third season sees Tom Arnold, Scott Thompson, Megan Follows, James Woods, Tom Green, Leslie Nielsen, Rick Mercer, Will Arnett, Samantha Bee, and John Goodman accompany Jack on his adventures in the weird world of work.
Notes
References
See also
External links
- Odd Job Jack Homepage
- Odd Job Blog
- Smiley Guy Studios Homepage
- FreeJack
- "Free Jack City" -kapiTal magazine, December 2006
