‘Big Mouth’ is an elegantly lewd — and very creative — guide to puberty
Episodes viewed: 1–3
Did your school hire the ghost of Duke Ellington to teach you sex ed? I didn’t think so. Meet Big Mouth, a brash but sweet animated series from co-creator Nick Kroll about the tribulations of pre-teen sexuality. Kroll voices a kid called Nick who looks exactly like him, and his frequent collaborator John Mulaney is his best friend Andrew, who sorta looks like John Mulaney. The first season, 10 episodes, debuted on Netflix last Friday, yet I didn’t know the show existed until Kroll appeared as a guest on The Watch Podcast. Bad form, Netflix. This is a really smart little show, and I’d like to think that 13/14-year olds will stumble upon it and embrace its largely agreeable attitudes.
The series begins with Andrew’s first meeting with Maurice the Hormone Monster, who’s a bit like The Flying Dutchman from Spongebob except he flies around giving young boys unwanted erections in the middle of a class. Andrew is part of a gender mixed friend group, and is unhappy with the shifting dynamics brought on by hormones. Nick falls into a dating situation with their friend Jessie, which doesn’t last very long, but gives Andrew a whole episode of questioning his sexuality: after watching the trailer for a homoerotic Dwayne Johnson blockbuster, Andrew wonders if he’s gay. After watching the trailer for Call Me By Your Name a few months ago, I honestly asked myself the same question.
The gay episode is terrific: ghost Ellington introduces Andrew to some of his gay ghost friends: Socrates, Freddie Mercury and Chief Justice Antonin Scalia! Maya Rudolph also stands out as the voice of Connie the Hormone Monstress, the most terrifying TV villain of the year. The humour in Big Mouth, which involves a lot of okay-but-not-amazing comedy musical numbers and throwaway gags about jive-talking ladybirds and a hapless gym teacher, are more Family Gay-adjacent than Bojack Horseman, and the show — for the most part — only operates on one level. But it’s incredibly enjoyable, never nasty, and could really really work as an alternative introduction to positive sexual attitudes for young adults!
