Ars celebrates 25 years of The Tick by picking our top ten favorite episodes

Enlarge / The Tick brings Mighty Blue Justice with the help of his sidekick, Arthur. (credit: Fox Broadcasting)

Ars readers of a certain age may well remember spending Saturday mornings watching talking giant blue arachnids bringing mighty blue justice to evildoers in the animated series, The Tick. The series turns 25 today and remains a cult favorite two decades after its tragic cancellation after just three seasons.

The Tick is the creation of Ben Edlund, who started writing a comic book series while he was still in college. He and co-writer Richard Liebmann-Smith came up with a pilot that was ultimately approved by Fox, and the animated series debuted on September 10, 1994. The darker aspects of the comic were abandoned for the more kid-friendly animated series, although Edlund kept the satire, absurdist/surreal scenarios, and cheeky irreverence. Sure, it was aimed at kids, but the series gained a cult adult following over the years, drawn by all the weird, whip-smart in-jokes about history, pop culture, science, and so forth. The Tick ranked sixth on IGN's 2009 list of the Top 100 Animated Series. IGN compared the show's tone to Monty Python and Mel Brooks, and declared it "the first great lampooning of the superhero genre."

(Spoilers from all three seasons below.)