''Click and Clack's As the Wrench Turns'' is an adult

animated television series An animated series is a set of Animation, animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can ...

produced by

Atomic Cartoons Atomic Cartoons is a Canadian animation studio founded in 1999 by Trevor Bentley, Mauro Casalese, Olaf Miller, Adam Ronald, and Rob Davies. Based out of Vancouver, British Columbia, it produces service animation for a wide variety of clients, as w ...

and airs on

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcasting, public broadcaster and Non-commercial activity, non-commercial, Terrestrial television, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly fu ...

. The series follows the adventures of the brothers Click and Clack from their auto repair shop, Car Talk Plaza. It stars

Tom Tom or TOM may refer to: * Tom (given name), a diminutive of Thomas or Tomás or an independent Aramaic given name (and a list of people with the name) Characters * Tom Anderson, a character in ''Beavis and Butt-Head'' * Tom Beck, a character ...

(Click) and

Ray Magliozzi Thomas Louis Magliozzi (June 28, 1937 – November 3, 2014) and his brother Raymond Francis Magliozzi (born March 30, 1949) were the co-hosts of NPR's weekly radio show ''Car Talk'', where they were known as "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothe ...

(Clack), also known as the Tappet Brothers, from

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other n ...

's ''

Car Talk ''Car Talk'' is a radio talk show that was broadcast weekly on National Public Radio (NPR) stations and elsewhere. Its subjects were automobiles and automotive repair, often discussed humorously. It was hosted by brothers Tom and Ray Magliozzi ...

''. The show was the first primetime animated series for a general audience to be produced and aired by PBS. The series debuted on July 9, 2008, and additionally in various time slots depending on local station scheduling. The series aired its ten-episode season in two-episode blocks for five weeks. It ended on August 13, 2008 with 10 episodes.

Cast

Tom Magliozzi Thomas Louis Magliozzi (June 28, 1937 – November 3, 2014) and his brother Raymond Francis Magliozzi (born March 30, 1949) were the co-hosts of NPR's weekly radio show ''Car Talk'', where they were known as "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothe ...

- Click Tappet *

- Clack Tappet *

Kelli O'Hara Kelli Christine O'Hara (born April 16, 1976) is an American actress and singer, most known for her work on the Broadway and opera stages. A seven-time Tony Award nominee, O'Hara won the 2015 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her per ...

- Beth Totenbag * Juan Carlos Hernández - Fidel * Cornell Womack - Reggie "Crusty" Crustwood *

Barbara Rosenblat Barbara Rosenblat is a British actress. She is best known as a prolific narrator of audiobooks, for which ''AudioFile'' named her a Golden Voice. She has also appeared on screen such as in the Netflix original series '' Orange Is the New Black'' ...

- Sal

Production

Executive producer Howard K. Grossman began pitching a television series based on ''Car Talk'' in 2001. On July 11, 2007, PBS announced that it had

greenlit To green-light is to give permission to proceed with a project. The term is a reference to the green traffic signal, indicating "go ahead". Film industry In the context of the film and television industries, to green-light something is to ...

the series for debut in the summer of 2008. This is the first prime-time animated series in the history of PBS. While at first a direct adaptation of the radio show had been proposed, the final product is an animated sitcom featuring a new cast of fictional characters alongside the radio-show hosting Click and Clack. The opening theme and other music for the series are produced by

Carl Finch Carl Finch (born November 29, 1951, in Texarkana, Texas) is a guitarist, keyboard player, accordionist, vocalist, songwriter and record producer who co-founded the Grammy-winning polka/dance band Brave Combo in 1979 in Denton, Texas. Career highl ...

and composed, arranged, and performed by Finch and his Grammy-award-winning band,

Brave Combo Brave Combo is a polka/rock/worldbeat band based in Denton, Texas. Founded in 1979 by guitarist/keyboardist/accordionist Carl Finch, they have been a prominent fixture in the Texas music scene for more than thirty-five years. Their music, both o ...

Episodes

DVD releases

PBS Home Video PBS Distribution (PBSd), formerly known as PBS Ventures, PBS Home Video, and Public Media Distribution, is the home video distribution unit of American television network PBS. The company releases and sells home videos of PBS series and movies and ...

and

Paramount Home Entertainment Paramount Home Entertainment (formerly Paramount Home Media Distribution, and originally Paramount Home Video) is the home video distribution arm of Paramount Pictures, a division of Paramount Global. The division oversees PPC's home entertainme ...

released the entire run of ''As the Wrench Turns'' on DVD. The two-disc set was released in the United States and Canada on September 30, 2008.

Reception

''Click and Clack's As the Wrench Turns'' received a largely negative response, with ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' commenting that "television seems to flatten and confine" Tom and Ray's spontaneity and that while the series is "indisputably adorable" it "lacks the magic of the Magliozzis unplugged." The ''

Boston Herald The ''Boston Herald'' is an American daily newspaper whose primary market is Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding area. It was founded in 1846 and is one of the oldest daily newspapers in the United States. It has been awarded eight Pulit ...

'' opined that fans of ''Car Talk'' will be "excited to hear that Tom and Ray Magliozzi have expanded to PBS and television. Until they see the show." The show is described as "silly like a bad Saturday morning cartoon" and that the Magliozzi brothers are portrayed as "low-grade scam artists instead of the cheery, charming guys we know they are." Christopher Kulik of DVD Verdict wrote in his review of the 2008 Paramount DVD release: "As a long-time devotee of ''Car Talk'', I found this series to be a mixed bag. The humor is certainly there, and the Magliozzis' comic punch is still hitting hard, except their famous improvisation and spontaneity is practically thrown out the window. The result is ''Click & Clack 2.0'', as the friendly voices are there but not the belly laughs or jolly merriment the boys' audibly display every Saturday morning. The out-there stories themselves set up some big laughs, like when the boys' discover pasta as an alternative energy source for automobiles, issedoff the local Mafioso in the process. Others lack any ingenuity whatsoever. The animation itself harks back to the 60s and 70s: very dim and dry, lacks real color and pizzazz, occasionally rough around the edges. Nothing special, unless you want to return to that old-fashioned, old-school look which was prevalent in ''

George of the Jungle ''George of the Jungle'' is an American animated television series produced and created by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, who also created ''The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show''. The character George was inspired by the story of Tarzan and a cartoon char ...

''. Since the humor will whisk over children's heads, it's clear this show was created specifically for the older crowd, ones who are too slow to catch every gag in ''

Family Guy ''Family Guy'' is an American animated sitcom originally conceived and created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The show centers around the Griffin family, Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter Griff ...

''. The show does earn points for its rich character design, courtesy of Stephen Silver, who also did the ''Clerks'' series with Kevin Smith.

References

External links

* * {{PBS 2000s American adult animated television series 2000s American sitcoms 2000s American workplace comedy television series 2008 American television series debuts 2008 American television series endings 2000s Canadian adult animated television series 2000s Canadian sitcoms 2000s Canadian workplace comedy television series 2008 Canadian television series debuts 2008 Canadian television series endings American adult animated comedy television series American animated sitcoms Animated television series about brothers Canadian adult animated comedy television series Canadian animated sitcoms English-language television shows PBS original programming Television shows set in Massachusetts