''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law'' is an American adult animated television sitcom created by Michael Ouweleen and Erik Richter for

Cartoon Network Cartoon Network (CN) is an American cable television television channel, channel and the flagship property of the Cartoon Network, Inc., a sub-division of the Warner Bros. Discovery Networks division of Warner Bros. Discovery. It launched on ...

's late-night programming block,

Adult Swim Adult Swim (stylized as dult swimand s is an American adult-oriented television programming block that airs on Cartoon Network which broadcasts during the evening, prime time, and Late-night television, late-night Dayparting, dayparts. T ...

. The first season of ''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law'' is the first adult animated production to be produced by

Cartoon Network Studios Cartoon Network Studios Inc. (abbreviated as CNS or CN Studios) is an American animation studio owned by the Warner Bros. Television Group division of Warner Bros. Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. The studio is the producti ...

. A spin-off of '' Space Ghost Coast to Coast'', the series revolves around Harvey Birdman, originally a

superhero A superhero or superheroine is a fictional character who typically possesses ''superpowers'' or abilities beyond those of ordinary people, is frequently costumed concealing their identity, and fits the role of the hero, typically using their ...

from '' Birdman and the Galaxy Trio'', and his new career as an attorney, defending characters who had originally been featured in past

Hanna-Barbera Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ; formerly known as H-B Enterprises, Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. and H-B Production Co.), simply and commonly known as Hanna-Barbera, was an American animation studio and production company, which was acti ...

cartoons. The

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

first aired as a sneak peek on Cartoon Network on December 30, 2000. The series officially premiered on Adult Swim on September 2, 2001, the night the block launched. It ended on July 22, 2007, with a total of 39 episodes, over the course of four seasons. The entire series has been made available on DVD, and other forms of home media, including on-demand streaming. A special, entitled '' Harvey Birdman: Attorney General'', premiered on October 15, 2018, and a spin-off, '' Birdgirl'', premiered on April 4, 2021.

Premise

''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law'' features ex-superhero Harvey Birdman of '' Birdman and the Galaxy Trio'' as an attorney working for a

law firm A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise consumer, clients (individuals or corporations) about their legal rights and Obligation, respon ...

alongside other cartoon stars from the 1960s and 1970s

cartoon series. Harvey's clients are also primarily characters taken from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series of the same era. Many of Birdman's nemeses from his former cartoon series appear as attorneys, often representing the opposing side of a given case. Harvey usually fills the role of a criminal defense attorney, though he will act as a civil litigator or other similar roles when the plot calls for it. The series uses a

surrealist Surrealism is an art movement, art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike s ...

style of comedy, featuring characters, objects, and jokes that are briefly introduced and rarely (if ever) referenced thereafter. Because the series relies heavily on

popular culture Popular culture (also called pop culture or mass culture) is generally recognized by members of a society as a set of cultural practice, practices, beliefs, artistic output (also known as popular art

f. pop art F is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet. F may also refer to: Science and technology Mathematics * F or f, the number 15 (number), 15 in hexadecimal and higher positional systems * ''p'F'q'', the hypergeometric function * F-distributi ...

or mass art, sometimes contraste ...

references to classic television animation, ''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law'' constantly delves into

parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...

, featuring clips of these series or specially created scenes which mimic the distinctive style of the animation being referenced. ''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law'' is the first

Williams Street Williams Street Productions, LLC, formerly known as Ghost Planet Industries, is an American animation and live action television production studio owned by the Warner Bros. Television Studios division of Warner Bros., a unit of Warner Bros. ...

cartoon to maintain continuity through the entire series. Various episodes reference Harvey's (or another superhero's) former crime-fighting career. The episode "Turner Classic Birdman" serves to bridge the gap between ''Birdman and the Galaxy Trio'' and ''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law''. Much of the humor is derived from giving superheroes and

supervillain A supervillain, supervillainess or supercriminal is a major antagonist and variant of the villainous stock character who possesses Superpower (ability), superpowers. The character type is sometimes found in comic books and is often the primary ...

s more eccentric qualities, such as transforming mad scientist Dr. Myron Reducto into a paranoid prosecutor. Several of the plots revolve around popular myths about classic Hanna-Barbera characters, such as Shaggy and

Scooby-Doo ''Scooby-Doo'' is an American media franchise owned by Warner Bros., Warner Bros. Entertainment and created in 1969 by writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears through their animated series, ''Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!'', for Hanna-Barbera (which wa ...

being

recreational drug use Recreational drug use is the use of one or more psychoactive drugs to induce an altered state of consciousness, either for pleasure or for some other casual purpose or pastime. When a psychoactive drug enters the user's body, it induces an Sub ...

rs.

Voice cast

Gary Cole Gary Michael Cole (born September 20, 1956) is an American actor. He began his professional acting career on stage at Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre Company in 1985. His breakout role was playing Jack 'Nighthawk' Killian in the NBC series '' M ...

as Harvey Birdman, Judge Hiram Mightor *

Stephen Colbert Stephen Tyrone Colbert ( ; born May 13, 1964) is an American comedian, writer, producer, political commentator, actor, and television host. He is best known for hosting the satirical Comedy Central program ''The Colbert Report'' from 2005 to ...

as Phil Ken Sebben, Myron Reducto * Thomas Michael Allen as Peanut * Paget Brewster as Judy Ken Sebben/Birdgirl *

Chris Edgerly Chris Edgerly is an American voice actor. Life and career Edgerly provided the voice of Peter Potamus on the Adult Swim animated series ''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law'', in addition to several guest voices on the TV series ''Drawn Togeth ...

as Peter Potamus * John Michael Higgins as Mentok the Mindtaker *

Peter MacNicol Peter MacNicol (born April 10, 1954) is an American actor. He received a Theatre World Award for his 1981 Broadway debut in the play '' Crimes of the Heart''. His film roles include Galen in '' Dragonslayer'' (1981), Stingo in '' Sophie's Choic ...

as X the Eliminator

Episodes

Production

''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law'' creators Michael Ouweleen and Erik Richter had no credited involvement with '' Space Ghost Coast to Coast'', which featured a separate character with the same "Harvey Birdman" name who was established by Evan Dorkin and Sarah Dyer. The "Attorney at Law" part of the series title comes from a separate Space Ghost Coast to Coast character, Dr Nightmare, from the episode "Lawsuit"; which was also written by Dorkin and Dyer. The show was

's most expensive original series at the time, and is the most expensive spin-off of ''Space Ghost Coast to Coast''. Although the first season was animated using digital ink and paint, the remaining seasons were animated using

Adobe After Effects Adobe After Effects is a digital visual effects, motion graphics, and compositing application developed by Adobe Inc.; it is used for animation and in the post-production process of film making, video games and television production. Amo ...

. The reason for the switch was that the animation studio was having difficulty maintaining the fast pace of the show, and thus the production of episodes slowed down due to constant retakes. By animating the later episodes at Turner Studios in

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Georgia (U.S. state), most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia. It is the county seat, seat of Fulton County, Georg ...

with

Adobe Flash Adobe Flash (formerly Macromedia Flash and FutureSplash) is a mostly discontinuedAlthough it is discontinued by Adobe Inc., for the Chinese market it is developed by Zhongcheng and for the international enterprise market it is developed by Ha ...

, not only were problems corrected more quickly, but production costs were much lower.

International broadcast

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

, ''Harvey Birdman, Attorney At Law'' previously aired on

Teletoon Cartoon Network (formerly Teletoon) is a Canadian English-language discretionary specialty channel owned by Corus Entertainment. The channel primarily broadcasts animated series aimed at children and teenagers. It was launched on October 17 ...

's Teletoon at Night block and later G4's Adult Digital Distraction block. The series currently airs on the Canadian version of Adult Swim.

Reception

In 2009, ''Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law'' was named the 91st-best animated series by

IGN ''IGN'' is an American video gaming and entertainment media website operated by IGN Entertainment Inc., a subsidiary of Ziff Davis, Inc. The company's headquarters is located in San Francisco's SoMa district and is headed by its former e ...

. They called the concept of the show "wonderful" and the show as a whole "especially clever." The review summarized that "''Harvey Birdman'' worked as both a parody and homage to these animated characters we know and love, with plenty of funny, surreal jokes along the way."

Home media

Each DVD is in the shape of a law book. Each season's box art is nearly identical; the only change for each season is the background colour (''Volume One'' is brown purple, ''Volume Two'' is blue, and ''Volume Three'' is black). The small picture next to the title and the title itself also appears different. In April 2005, Adult Swim had a "Do Our Work For Us" contest for ''Harvey Birdman'' Season 1 on DVD. The objective of the contest was to ask viewers to make their own fan-made promo commercial for the then-upcoming DVD. The series is also available on Max.

Music

The theme song is an edited version of the song "Slow Moody Blues" written by Reg Tilsley. Other notable songs used in the show include Charlie Steinman's "It Is Such a Good Night" (also known as "Scoobidoo Love") and a lyricless version of Gianni Morandi's "La Mia Mania" (also known as "Okay Maria").

Other media

Video game

video game A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

based on the series has been released for the

PlayStation 2 The PlayStation 2 (PS2) is a home video game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on 4 March 2000, in North America on 26 October, in Europe on 24 Novembe ...

, Wii and

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PA ...

video game console A video game console is an electronic device that Input/output, outputs a video signal or image to display a video game that can typically be played with a game controller. These may be home video game console, home consoles, which are generally ...

s. It was developed by High Voltage Software and published by

Capcom is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil'', ''Monster ...

, with gameplay mechanics similar to Capcom's '' Ace Attorney'' series. It was released on January 8, 2008, and includes five new, interactive cases.

Special

On May 14, 2018, it was announced that there would be an upcoming special based on the series entitled '' Harvey Birdman: Attorney General''. In the special, Harvey Birdman becomes the next

Attorney General of the United States The United States attorney general is the head of the United States Department of Justice and serves as the chief law enforcement officer of the federal government. The attorney general acts as the principal legal advisor to the president of the ...

, under President Phil Ken Sebben. The original voice cast returned for the special. It premiered at midnight on October 15, 2018.

Spin-off

On May 9, 2019, a spin-off entitled ''Birdgirl'' was announced, following Judy Ken Sebben/Birdgirl in her new role as the CEO of Sebben & Sebben. It premiered on April 4, 2021, with a second season premiering June 19, 2022.

References

External links

*
Online Channel Australia
*

IGN's review of the DVD set, ''Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law, Volume 1''
{{Rough Draft Studios 2000s American adult animated television series 2000s American animated comedy television series 2000s American legal television series 2000s American parody television series 2000s American sitcoms 2000s American superhero comedy television series 2000s American surreal comedy television series 2000s American workplace comedy television series 2000 American animated television series debuts 2007 American television series endings Animated adult television sitcoms American adult animated television spinoffs American adult animated comedy television series American adult animated superhero television series American animated sitcoms American flash adult animated television series Legal comedies Television series by Cartoon Network Studios Crossover animated television series American English-language television shows Adult Swim animated television series Space Ghost Coast to Coast Television series about lawyers Television series by Williams Street