Big Mouth: The Best Bits
- danielcolincheesem
- Aug 13
- 8 min read
(Warning: This article contains explicit language)
I had the great pleasure of growing up with The Simpsons in its heyday, but since then I've struggled to get on with animated sitcoms. There are a lot of cynical, cruel or dumb ones that feel like they were written by teenagers (e.g. Family Guy). Then there are a few that are so unwaveringly bleak that they make me despondent rather than amused (e.g. Bojack Horseman). Often, even in the more upbeat shows, there just aren't enough jokes. However, every once in a while, I find one like that offers insight, heart and plenty of laughs; Netflix's Big Mouth is one such show.
Its not a show I expected to like. The main characters are struggling with the pitfalls of puberty, something I haven't had to give much thought to for over twenty years now. The show is also frequently very gross, which doesn't interest me, and occasionally had me looking away from the screen.
Nevertheless, Big Mouth is sharply written, gleefully silly and as dirty as My Dad Wrote A Porno. It also has stuff to say about a wide range of topics, including consent, family planning, bullying, drugs, porn, anxiety, depression, periods, sexuality, asexuality, social media, divorce, identity, code-switching, misogyny, ADHD and transitioning. The spin-off series, Human Resources, focuses on adult characters and deals with addiction, post-partum depression, infidelity, grief, widowhood, and nonverbal neurodivergence.
In May this year, Big Mouth concluded with a final, eighth season and I celebrated by rewatching the whole thing from start to finish. Throughout my marathon, I noted down my favourite quotes to share with you here.
In the very first episode, we meet Andrew Glouberman (John Mulaney) who spends much of his time wanking. He is encouraged by his Hormone Monster Maury (Nick Kroll), an inappropriate, unpredictable, avuncular guide. I'm a big fan of the shoulder angel trope, and of the anthropomorphic personifications of Terry Pratchett's Discworld, so this dynamic, coupled with Kroll's hilarious performance had me on board from the beginning. In my first quote, we join Maury gracefully bidding farewell to Andrew after he has completed his nightly emission:
Maury: Goodnight you Prince of Westchester, you King of the Tri-State Area!
Andrew: Wait, what do we do about the mess?
Maury: Sleep in it, pig!
(Big Mouth, Season 1, Episode 1)
To the chagrin of Andrew and the delight of the audience, the bickering and teasing between these two characters continues throughout the series:
Andrew: Maury, why is this all so complicated?
Maury: I know I’m a broken record on this, but Mercury is in retrograde.
Andrew: Enough with the astrology!
Maury: Spoken like a two-faced fuckin' Gemini.
(Big Mouth, Season 1, Episode 8)
Tito (to Andrew): Aggh! They’re ganging up on you!
Maury: And it’s feeling antisemitic!
Tito: Do something!
Maury: Maybe get your friends in the media to help you?
(Big Mouth, Season 8, Episode 1)
Maury: You’re moving out of the Friend Zone and into her End Zone! And do you know what her End Zone is?
Andrew: Oh Jesus, what? Her butt?
Maury: No, it’s marriage! This is a family show, Andrew.
(Big Mouth, Season 8, Episode 6)
Maury meets his match when he is reunited with Connie, the Hormone Monstress (Maya Rudolph):
Connie: Nothing like a first kiss.
Maury: Do you remember ours?
Connie: Oh don’t, Maury…
Maury: It was Pangaea. The dinosaurs had just flown away on their spaceship.
(Big Mouth, Season 1, Episode 8)
Emmy (transforming into a Hate Worm): I fucking hate you, Rochelle! And I hate this conference, and I hate Maury and Connie jerking each other off under the table!
Maury (delighted): Alright! We got a shout out in her tirade!
(Human Resources, Season 1, Episode 7)
The pair are not impressed by the arrival of Lionel the Shame Wizard (David Thewlis), another of my favourite characters:
Connie: Give all the kids a night off! Don’t you have a hobby or something?
Shame Wizard: Well, as a matter of fact, I collect vintage Nazi dildos.
Maury: This fucking guy.
(Big Mouth, Season 2, Episode 8)
The Shame Wizard becomes a more sympathetic character when we meet his sadistic mother, Rita (Juliet Mills & Helen Mirren). Here she is, chatting with the equally cruel Depression Kitty (Jean Smart & Maria Bamford):
Kitty: I’m telling you, it’s on HBO and it’s hilarious.
Rita: And you say it’s called Chernobyl? I’ll write it down in my phone.
(Human Resources, Season 1, Episode 3)
But Lionel does eventually make a friend- the cheerful, incompetent gym teacher, Coach Steve (Nick Kroll, again):
Coach Steve: Yeah, Jay is my best friend and Miss B is my best friend and the Shane Lizard is my best friend!
Shame Wizard: Wait, wait, wait. Do you think my name is Shane Lizard?
Coach Steve: Yeah, cool name! I drew a picture of all of us in the bathroom, you wanna go see it?
(Big Mouth, Season 2, Episode 9)
When Coach Steve loses his job, Jay (Jason Mantzoukas) decides to turn his life around with the aid of the team from Queer Eye:
Jay: Can you guys, like, gay-rescue him?
Tan France: I am loving the child’s confident vest moment.
(Big Mouth, Season 3, Episode 10)
Jonathan Van Ness (looking at Steve's hair): So, you’re serving me some Clark Gable meets Super Mario vibes...
Coach Steve: I do like to jump on turtles.
(Big Mouth, Season 3, Episode 10)
Between Rick & Morty and Deadpool, you'd think I'd be bored of Fourth Wall Breaks by now, but they still crack me up:
Jay: I make one drawing of 23 teachers having consensual sex and I’m the creep?
Coach Steve (to camera): Yeah, I wasn’t included in the drawing, but that’s okay. It was just the academic teachers is how he did the cut-off there, so…
So what, this is gonna be on The Office or Modern Family or what?
(Big Mouth, Season 1, Episode 5)
Things get especially meta when Andrew and Nick realise there is a show within a show happening:
Jingle: Cafeteria Girls! A second helping of friendship!
Fuck Gremlin: I’m a handful!
Andrew: Wow. I’m beginning to think we’re not the centre of the universe.
Nick: I guess we have to start treating girls like they’re the stars of their own show.
Andrew: Yeah, but y’know, what’s the target audience for Cafeteria Girls?
Nick: I know! I mean, the main characters are kids, but the show is so filthy.
Andrew: It’s too much. And I like dirty stuff.
Maury: That Fuck Gremlin is really unpleasant.
(Big Mouth, Season 4, Episode 4)
Anthropophagus exchange students Mila and Lotte Jansen (Nick Kroll again) even taunt the audience on several occasions:
Mila: Such a tragedy.
Lotte: Yes, so much wasted flesh.
Mila (to us): Did you forget that we were fine young cannibals?
Lotte (to us): It must drive you crazy that you cannot help any of your beloved characters from where you are.
(Big Mouth, Season 4, Episode 5)
And they tell us the disturbing story of their Father Christmas, Vader Johan:
Mila & Lotte: His odour is that of cod and black liquorice. He has the body of a walrus, the sharp teeth of a dolphin, and the legs of countless crabs. He plays a flute made of, you guessed it, children's bones. And in our country, it does not matter if you are naughty or nice, for all the bones taste the same to Vader Johan.
(Big Mouth, Season 5, Episode 8)
Another Kroll character, the irrepressible Lola Ugfuglio Skumpy, often steals the show:
Lola: Oh my God! Shakespeare would get a big old British boner for all this drama!
(Big Mouth, Season 5, Episode 4)
The main characters' parents are funny too. My favourites are the perpetually affectionate Elliot (Fred Armisen) and the grumpy Marty (Richard Kind) who loves scallops even though they ruin his digestion:
Elliot: The locket is for Greg. Inside is a picture of who he needs to love the most: himself.
Nick: Okay, if it’s Greg’s, why are you wearing it?
Elliot: To warm it up!
(Big Mouth, Season 2, Episode 7)
Elliot: Nicky, a man can touch another penis or even kiss one very lightly, and it still doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a homosexual.
(Big Mouth, Season 1, Episode 1)
Scallops: It’s us, Marty. Have a taste. You know you love our texture.
Marty: Stop that, please, all of you! I’m married, for Christ’s sakes. And these are new shoes.
(Big Mouth, Season 1, Episode 9)
Aside from resisting alluring shellfish, there are plenty of lessons to take away from the show:
Andrew: Apologise? What for? It was an accident!
Jessi: That doesn’t mean it wasn’t harmful, Andrew. Sometimes, people just need to hear you’re sorry.
(Big Mouth, Season 7, Episode 10)
Jessi: Wow, I never even thought about being friends with my depression.
(Big Mouth, Season 8, Episode 7)
Coco the Compassion Pachyderm: Humans would rather be right than decent.
(Big Mouth, Season 8, Episode 7)
Montel: Gender puts you in a box and you spend your whole life trying to claw your way out, until you end up in a literal box under the ground.
(Big Mouth, Season 6, Episode 8)
Nancy: Gratitude, like your pelvic floor, is a muscle that needs to be strengthened.
(Big Mouth, Season 4, Episode 9)
Nancy (Maria Bamford, who also voices Tito, the Anxiety Mosquito) provides therapy to Jessi (Jessi Klein). In the next episode, Jessi passes on what she's learnt to Nick (Nick Kroll, yet again). Nick embraces his fears and lists everything he appreciates, supercharging the Gratitoad (Zach Galifianakis), who defeats Tito the Anxiety Mosquito. In a later episode, Missy (Jenny Slate, Ayo Edebiri & Diamond White) beats Dread (Patrick Page) by simply putting one foot in front of the other, pretending she has the confidence of an idiot like Coach Steve.
In the Season 8 finale, the kids face a particularly potent fear- fear of the future. Missy tackles this with the help of her younger self:
Missy: Things are changing really fast and I’m kind of freaked out about the future.
Young Missy: But you’re my future and you’re pretty dang cool. So, what if your future is even cooler?
(Big Mouth, Season 8, Episode 10)
Meanwhile, Jessi finds strength in realising how much she had overcome already:
Jessi: I made it through, and somehow I am still here.
Connie: You are a fucking cockroach, Jessi Glaser! You’re indestructible!
Jessi: True.
Tito: But if all that already happened…
Kitty: Imagine what else is gonna happen…
Tito: In the future!
Jessi: You know what? I think I can handle it.
(Big Mouth, Season 8, Episode 10)
Jessie to Tito & Kitty: I give you both permission to just, like, take a break.
(Big Mouth, Season 8, Episode 10)
Did I also mention that there are catchy songs? There are even two soundtrack albums for the show. I'm fond of 'Everybody's Going Through Changes,' 'Best Friends Make The Best Lovers' and 'What're You Gonna Do?' but my favourite has to be 'Totally Gay.' Andrew is questioning his sexuality so the ghost of Duke Ellington (Jordan Peele) asks the ghost of Freddie Mercury (Brendan McCreary) to sing to him:
Freddie: When you're gay
Every day is a nonstop cabaret
You've got style and flair, you're loved everywhere
Except for North Carolina!
Bears and queens, and Catholic tweens
The world's your buff buffet
Come and join in the fun, say hello to tight buns
And goodbye vaginas!
(Big Mouth, Season 1, Episode 3)
If you've never seen the show, I hope this article has given you an idea of whether (or not) you'd like it. If you have watched it, I hope you've enjoyed this little reminescence. Thanks for reading!
All seasons of Big Mouth are now streaming on Netflix. I promise I was not paid to tell you this.
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