Once upon a time on network prime time TV, sitcoms ruled the entire prime-time landscape. Families use to look forward to sitting down after dinner and watching the hilarious adventures of their favorite TV family and possibly learn a couple life lessons along the way. As time has gone by, these series became too formulaic and the public’s interest in them started to wane. Now sitcoms on TV are very scarce and most don’t even make it past their first seasons. In order to try and break up the normal formula of how a sitcom is, we started to find shows that took on gimmicks such as That 70s Show, Scrubs and Greg the Bunny.
In 2002, we were introduced to Andy Richter Controls the Universe, a show about a writer named Andy who works for a big company and writes Technical Manuals but he also writes small stories about his life using his overactive imagination. Most of the show is him narrating over his life giving him some personal enjoyment of his drab, dull life he has been forced into. Most of the show comes from his interaction with his co-workers who fill out a lot of the normal office archetypes who Andy then uses and exaggerates in his stories he tells to the viewer.
The best episodes make use of this quite a bit, such as the episode where Andy makes a cartoon character to insert into one of their manuals and the idea is stolen from him… despite it resembling Andy or the episode where Andy gets his supervisor to date another co-worker who has a twin brother just to prove that the twins will try and share her.
Special Features
-Commentary by Andy Richter and Victor Fresco on selected episodes
-How Andy Richter Controlled the Universe…Featurette
-What if Andy Richter Controlled the Universe? Featurette
Overall
In truth the show is very much hit and miss with its jokes and humor style and not for everyone, but for those of you who give this one a shot, you may find a quirky little sitcom which has become a slowly dying breed.
ComicsOnline gives Andy Richter Controls the Universe 3.5 out of 5 shows canceled too soon.
