You should be watching Tigtone, Adult Swim’s insane riff on fantasy

Who takes on all manner of quests with nothing but his own cunning and lethal pieces of sharp metal? Tigtone! Who has bested the prettiest of unicorns by making the fugliest of cloud-dwelling monsters cry tears of pure hideous energy? Tigtone! Who can stab-write about his mighty adventures in a journal? The most literate of Tigtones!

Fantasy is everywhere these days, which means that the genre is ripe for a good ol’ piss-take. The only problem? Hot damn is it an expensive genre to riff on in live-action form, and animated efforts are few and far between. Tigtone on the other hand, absolutely nails the balance between creating a magical world of dungeons, dragons, and horny centaurs, and runs wild with the premise.

It is quite possibly the maddest series I’ve seen in a while, as it stars the titular Tigtone, a glorified mass murderer obsessed with quests and mostly on the side of angels. He’s an almost-unstoppable force of pure neutral chaos energy, thirsty for blood and adulation as he takes on all manner of quests and is joined by Helpy, a faithful sidekick whose ability to instantly regenerate makes the little fella useful. Who hasn’t chopped someone’s arm off and used the severed limb to knock a jewel of power out of a tree? This makes sense.

A little bit of background on this show: It’s the bastard nightmare fuel creation of Andrew Koehler, who started a pair of Kickstarters in 2011 and 2014 to get it off the ground, eventually culminating in the pilot episode The Begun of Tigtone. Which you can watch below!

Time moved on, and eventually this gorgeous series was picked up by Adult Swim and has so far seen two seasons produced, with a third on the way. The entire style of the show makes it look like it was ripped from the pages of a Renaissance Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, and while the animation is limited, the pure anarchic energy that it exudes more than makes up for it. Heck, I’d say that this particular style of animation only serves to magnify the absurdity of everything, especially the facial animations that sell the compact insanity of each episode.

The end result is more addictive than snorting a bump of crushed pixies, as Tigtone never takes itself seriously and runs wild with its concept. One episode starts with a typical fellowship of adventurers joining forces to stop an evil Necromancer and failing miserably, another episode spins out a lengthy credible threat fight that puts Family Guy’s infamous chicken showdowns to shame, and there’s even an adventure involving a haunted castle looking for the perfect princess. You never know which direction Tigtone will swerve towards, but the end result is always bloody and surprising.

And through out all of it, Tigtone never fails to either leave a smile on your face or draw out an exclamation of what the hell dude. It’s mad, silly, gorgeous to look at, and the deserved kick up the pants that the fantasy genre was unprepared for. TIGTONE!

Both seasons of Tigtone are now on Showmax’s Adult Swim block.

Last Updated: May 25, 2021