'Big Mouth' Season 1 Review: Netflix's Upcoming Unfiltered Coming-of-Age Sitcom
In a few days, Netflix will debut their all-new animated series that is not exactly for kids. The upcoming show "Big Mouth," as shown in its official trailer, will feature several young characters who are just at the age of discovering a whole lot of things about their bodies.
The sense of the show being unfiltered was manifested in several ways. First, its characters – a bunch of young kids in middle school – were shown in the trailer to be in several situations where they were being led to discover things that their bodies do, more specifically involving their reproductive system.
To be fair, the focus on the reproductive system (at least in the trailer) might be explained by the fact that physiologically, it is where most of the changes happen when people hit the puberty stage. In this case, the show did an honest presentation of what most people seemed to have experienced when they were still in middle school but were too shy to talk about.
At one point in the trailer, the leading girl character asked why puberty was taught in a way that the girls' experiences or would-be experiences were consistently depicted in a negative, suffering tone, while the discussion about the boys was more about dealing with their urges.
This might be too mature for middle schoolers to watch; however, many adults will probably realize that it was really how puberty was presented to them back when they were starting to undergo that phase.
Another interesting element of the show is its representation of hormones.
Scientifically speaking, most of the changes and physical manifestations of puberty are attributed the hormonal aspect of one's body. Thus it is a fairly nice touch for the show to feature a live, moving and talking representation of hormones.
The trailer previewed hormone monsters that appeared to be "guiding" the young characters and explaining to them about the certain situations they were going through, whether emotional or physical.
"Big Mouth" is co-created by Nick Kroll and Andrew Goldberg based on their own puberty experiences. Kroll is also part of the cast and lends his voice to characters Nick Birch, The Hormone Monster and Coach Steve. Meanwhile, both the Hormone Monstress and Diane Birch are voiced by Maya Rudolph.
Other cast members include John Mulaney, Jason Mantzoukas, Jordan Peele, Fred Armisen, Jenny Slate, and Jessi Klein, among others.
The first season of "Big Mouth" will premiere on Friday, Sept. 29, on Netflix.