The Brothers Grunt is an adult animated horror comedy television series, and the earliest series made by Ed, Edd n Eddy creator Danny Antonucci. It originally aired from August 15, 1994, to April 9, 1995, on MTV. It centers on five humanoids, named Frank, Tony, Bing, Dean and Sammy, who are in search of their lost brother Perry.[2] The series had a short run and was met with a generally negative reception, with many considering it one of the worst animated TV shows ever made.[3]
The series centered on an ensemble cast of pale, rubbery, twitchy, yellow-eyed, blue-haired, green-tongued and shirtless humanoids called "The Brothers Grunt" or simply "The Grunts" with prominent bulging varicose veins, generally clumsy and dim-witted, able to bend, twist and contort their bodies into various forms, all of them ostensibly male, wandering around in their signature attire of boxers and wingtip shoes. Their main food staple is cheese and martinis; nevertheless, they are able to eat other foods (at least potatoes, according to the episode "Not My Potato").
The Grunt's single parent is a large, floating, mute and fat male humanoid called Gruntus Primus Maximus or simply "The Maximus", often leaking various noxious bodily fluids, to whom they are born as embryos inside skin warts, much in the way of the common Surinam toad. They live in a monastery in an unspecified location in the American wilderness, which the sewers lead to.
A group is formed, composed of five of a group of sextuplets born from the Maximus in a rare occurrence, in a quest to bring back their sixth brother, Perry, who has abandoned his involuntary position of "Chosen One" (leader of their order) and is now living the "high life" among human beings (who seem to deal with the bizarre nature of the Grunts by ignoring them and pretending everything is normal).
Due to the Grunts being practically silent characters, whose speech mostly consists of grunts with occasional subtitles (hence the name), most of the humor relies on physical comedy, particularly the Grunts enduring heaps of physical abuse.
In music video segments that are intervened with some episodes, supervised by Kathy Karp, there are additional animated portions of the main characters grunting.
As shown in the episode "Grunt Moments in History", Grunts' earliest known ancestor was a pale, veiny hippo-like creature called the Gruntus Not Quite Us, which can be presumed to be a relative of the Gruntus Primus Maximus as it is shown birthing Grunts from its back. A prehistoric Grunt called the Neandergrunt had invented the cocktail glass using a cone-shaped bone. An influential Grunt named The 5th of Kevin was born centuries later. While the others fell off the Gruntus Primus Maximus at birth, Kevin remained and lived on the body of the Maximus his whole life. He built the monastery as a safehaven to protect his fellow Grunts, including the Maximus, from human persecution. The Brothers Grunt are therefore not only religious brothers, but biological brothers as well. Not much is known about the Grunt religion (itself seemingly a spoof on Catholicism due to the brown monk's habit worn by the brothers on occasion) other than that it involves the almost monomaniacal reverence, production and eating of cheese, as well as a variety of bizarre rituals overseen by the Gruntus Poobah. As shown in the episode "The Filling of the Shorts", the Grunts' trademark boxer shorts, invented by Brother Wayne, contain massive amounts of cheese stored in some sort of hammerspace pocket.
A sporting event is held on occasion called the Grunt Games, as shown in the episode of the same name, including such sports as necktie-folding, sumo, doing a clean and jerk using a giant cheese called the Great Dane before swallowing it whole, diving off the Maximus into a pool of melted cheese, throwing a giant olive into a sandwich, and a relay race involving assembling a martini.
The main characters were named after famous crooners of the 1950s: Frank (Sinatra), Tony (Bennett), Bing (Crosby), Dean (Martin), Sammy (Davis Jr.), and Perry (Como), all voiced by Doug Parker. They are sextuplets, all born from the same wart on the Maximus' skin, a rare occurrence among Grunts.
The characters that would become The Brothers Grunt were first seen in one of MTV's numerous 30-second promos. This particular promo consisted of close-up shots of the then-unnamed character's faces who seemed to be straining to do something (veins in their heads would bulge, the characters would squint and grunt) until the scene cut to the MTV logo landing in a pool of sludge followed by a satisfied "Ahhhhh" (suggesting that the characters were suffering from constipation and the MTV logo was the 'turd' as it were). It is unclear when this promo aired if the storyline and characters for The Brothers Grunt had been developed already or if it had been developed into its own show after the success of the promo, in the wake of Beavis and Butt-Head.
The show's origins can be traced back to 1993 when the MTV ad "Grunt MTV" aired. At the time Danny Antonucci had animated several MTV ads to find work outside of International Rocketship Ltd., who he had worked for since 1984. Although Danny enjoyed the success of Lupo The Butcher, he wanted to leave International Rocketship Ltd. and start his own animation company. The result was a.k.a. Cartoon, which began on April 1, 1994. The studio began as a way to locate his work for The Brothers Grunt after MTV executive Abby Terkhule liked his MTV ad so much, he asked him to turn it into a television series.[4] In production order, each episode of the show would consist of three to four segments.[5]
"I still think it's a cool show and I really enjoyed doing it. For what I wanted to do I thought it was quite successful. That's the key for me. I really dig what I do and it's important for me to like what I do. I don't regret anything. I just look at it as something I did, and move on."
Danny Antonucci, in response to the show's obscurity[4]
The Brothers Grunt had a short run and was met with generally negative reception from critics. Kenneth R. Clark of the Chicago Tribune said that, with the series, MTV "created the most repulsive creatures ever to show up on a television screen" and "accomplished the seemingly impossible."[6] Charles Solomon of the Los Angeles Times called the show "an effortful, sophomoric half-hour that leaves the viewer longing for the refined good taste of Alice Cooper."[7] In their book North of Everything: English-Canadian Cinema Since 1980, William Beard and Jerry White called the series a "failure".[8]
The show was often compared to Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, an animated series that aired on MTV's sister channel, Nickelodeon. Gábor Csupó, co-creator of Aaahh!!! Real Monsters, rejected these comparisons, claiming that his show was more character-driven, while The Brothers Grunt was an idea-driven series, also pointing out that both shows have different visual styles.[9] When looking back on the series, creator Danny Antonucci stated that the series "didn't really do too well", also saying that the show has since become MTV's "dirty little secret".[4]
Note: All episodes directed by Danny Antonucci
These episodes are unreleased, but have been uploaded to YouTube in June 2019 by YouTube user Oecobius33. Three of these episodes might have been produced, but are currently unconfirmed.
Fleer released in 1995 trading cards based on the series, as part of the MTV Animation Fleer's Ultra set.[13] The show's theme song, written by Brendan Dolan and Geoff Whelan, was featured in Television's Greatest Hits: Volume 7, which was released in 1996 by TVT Records' soundtrack imprint, TVT SOUNDTRAX.[1]
There were also few tshirts, boxer shorts, socks and calendars sold to promote the show between 1994 and 1995.
