This post is part of the A-Z Blog Challenge.

Basically is about one of my (many) favourite cartoon shows.

I’m a sucker for cartoons. They are almost all I watch these days – that, and the occasional science fiction-esque TV series.

But cartoons vary wildly in quality; from the truly idiotic Aqua Teen Hunger Force to the endless vapidness of the more recent Simpsons to the stellar brilliance of (most of) My Little Pony.

Home Movies is definitely on the better end of cartoons. And, handily, it starts with the letter H and therefore fits nicely into this themed challenge.

It’s pretty old now, the four seasons aired from 1999 to 2004, but I still rewatch it from time to time.

The show focuses on lead-character Brendan Small, an 8-year old, who makes movies incessantly, assisted by his friends Melissa and Jason. The show is pretty grown-up, with adult themes and situations, although the show as a whole is rated PG.

One of the reasons I enjoyed it so much is because of the free-form, sarcastic and realistic script. The show uses retroscripting, by which scenes are plotted but then the actors improv the actual dialogue. The result is more fluid, in my opinion, and avoids the terribly obvious boom-boom-bang punchline jokes in other shows that suffer from having been scripted to within an inch of their lives.

The relationships between the characters also feel grown up and complex. Nobody is reduced to ‘mother’ or ‘estranged-father’ – the characters all feel like they have multiple parts to their personality.

The show is has lots of music (Brendan Small went on to help with Metalocalypse, an insanely violent show about a death-metal group) and the movies-inside-a-movie are often hilarious.

Enough talk from me. Go watch them!