Plot: ToonMarty follows the adventures of Marty, the mascot of ToonMart who becomes alive when a billboard is hit by lightning. Together, he and his friends Burnie and Holly have fun in Toonville under the supervision of Marty’s boss, Jack. (Excerpt taken from Wikipedia for reasons I’ll explain in a second.)
Breakdown: Hey guys, did you know Tubi was a thing? Apparently it’s like Peacock but run by Fox. Weird.
Anyway, one of their available shows is ToonMarty, a show I really didn’t have many expectations for, but pleasantly surprised me. ToonMarty manages to capture the goofy, somewhat random and rubbery style of older cartoons while still fitting into the modern animation world with its writing and jokes.
I found myself smiling an awful lot while watching the first segment, and, somehow, none of the characters got on my nerves, which is especially surprising considering the main character is one of those Spongebob-esque hyper optimistic and happy people. Like Spongebob, he’s endearing without being really annoying (Well, okay, Spongebob can be very annoying sometimes.)
The reason I completely ripped the description from the Wiki is because this episode doesn’t explain the main plot at all. I only watched the first segment before deciding to write this, but the other half of the episode also isn’t the origin story. As far as I can tell, the second episode contains Marty’s backstory, which is kinda weird.
Marty’s origins aren’t even touched upon in the opening theme either, so, needless to say, I was quite shocked when I read that description.
This episode touched upon the fact that Marty either doesn’t have a dad or is estranged from him, because he was surprised to hear that fathers are supposed to spend time with their sons, which did make me wonder….but I never expected the answer to my questions would be ‘Well, it’s because he’s a living mascot who became sentient when a billboard was hit by lightning.’
In that respect, the first episode fails, but it succeeds in every other avenue. It establishes several of the characters quite well, it gives us a taste as to the general vibe of the entire series and it provides a fun, funny and interesting story to draw you in.
The art and animation aren’t that special, but they’re also not that bad. This is a French animation produced for Teletoons, and it’s actually on the higher end for those parameters. ToonMarty was actually produced by Sardine Productions. They have a bunch of other kids shows, and I recognize approximately zero of them.
I do like the fact that they add some classic 70s style aesthetic in there sometimes, especially during the opening theme song. That was pretty cool.
Verdict:
Sadly, ToonMarty only lasted one season and 20 episodes (40 segments) but I think I’ll really have fun watching the rest of the series.
UPDATE 8/24/21 – I have now watched and reviewed the entirety of ToonMarty. You can find the full review here.
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The Anime Madhouse 