Kyle Mooney's Saturday Morning All Star Hits! grows weirdly compelling the further you get into it

Paste Magazine

"I felt I knew exactly what to expect from the whole series after watching the first trailer, but Mooney and Co. take this thing to surprising places," says Garrett Martin. "If you grew up watching Saturday morning cartoons on the three major networks—especially once NBC started to filter in live-action sitcoms like Saved by the Bell at the turn of the ‘90s—you’ll immediately recognize what SMASH is going for. It purposefully looks like it was recorded on a VHS tape, with fuzz and tracking issues, and abrupt cuts during commercial breaks, as if somebody hit pause as soon as the first toy ad hit. Mooney plays the fictional Saturday morning block’s hosts, generic SoCal surfer dude twins named Skip and Treybor, as they introduce a variety of recurring cartoons. Those short cartoon parodies include Randy, a “cool” teen dinosaur who skates, wears backwards ball caps, and hangs out with what seem like middle schoolers while struggling with depression over growing up and away from his first girlfriend; Strongimals, an excessively violent ‘toon that’s equal parts Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Thundercats; and the Create-A-Crittles, a Care Bears / Alvin and the Chipmunks hybrid about an ad artist under intense pressure to redesign the logo for a sub sandwich chain. There’s even a Bobby’s World riff starring Mooney’s SNL stand-up loser, Bruce Chandling. They all seem a little obvious and predictable in the first episode, but as the storylines carry over and develop throughout the season they become weirdly specific and absurd. They’re not just vaguely recognizable cartoon stereotypes doing and saying things they’d never do in real cartoons, but defined characters dealing with dilemmas both realistic and ridiculous."