Baby Blues

Baby Blues is an American adult animated sitcom, based on the comic strip of the same name by Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott, produced by Warner Bros. The first eight episodes of Baby Blues originally aired in the United States on The WB between July 28 and August 24, 2000, before being canceled. The five remaining episodes from the first season eventually aired on Adult Swim in 2002. A second season, consisting of 13 episodes, was produced but never aired.

Plot
The animated adaptation of Baby Blues differs from the comic by having it take place when Zoe was still an infant, even though she was the older sister to Hammie in the strip at the time. In addition, it focuses on Darryl and Wanda's relationship with supporting characters created for this series, including the Bittermans, a dysfunctional next-door family with three children; Bizzy, Zoe's babysitter; and Kenny, Darryl's laid-back close friend and co-worker.

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Unlike Mission Hill or the Oblongs..., where both shows were funny, this show is a disgrace to its source material. It's already not in tune with the strip at the time, because in 2000, Zoey turned 5 years old, and had their second child Hammie, who was around 2 to 3 years old.
 * 2) The show took four years to produce, and creators Rick Kirkman and Jerry Scott had little to no involvement, reduced to being credited as executive producers.
 * 3) Pointless episode concepts, like in the first episode where Darryl and Wanda wonder what would happen if they died.
 * 4) Unlike in the strip, Darryl, Wanda, and Zoey are all shown interacting with the Bittermans, who conceptually, aren't very interesting.
 * 5) * Carl Bitterman is a cross between Tim Taylor from Home Improvement mixed with Homer Simpson.
 * 6) * Melinda Bitterman is a chain-smoker who looks like she lost her faith in humanity somewhere down the line.
 * 7) * Rodney is just Bart Simpson with Quagmire's jaw and the voice of Kath Soucie.
 * 8) * Megan, also voiced by Soucie, does little but cry and laugh.
 * 9) * Shelby who's mute, hits things with a fungo bat, indicating that he might be a serial killer someday.
 * 10) Bizzy is not as interesting either, as she mostly complains about life at her house, and her mom's intolerable boyfriend Drew Carey.
 * 11) Kenny is just a pervert without any charm.
 * 12) Ironically, none of the supporting characters listed above were ever in the comic strip, as those executives at Warner Bros. wanted to turn Baby Blues into the animated version of Married... with Children; as they decided that a show about kids saying the craziest things would be for losers and dorks, and wanted to shoehorn in another family whose father teaches kids how to kill people, and a bratty teenager who tricks Wanda into breaking into amusement parks and grave robbing. This is something Warner Bros. thought we would watch.
 * 13) It's just a rehash of every dysfunctional family sitcom ever made, except the dysfunctional family is in the supporting cast and steals the spotlight from the actual strip characters, and they had to throw in words that were never used in the strip at all, like "skank", "slut", and "whore".
 * 14) "It's All Been Done" by the Barenaked Ladies, although a great song, was the theme song for this show, just because.
 * 15) At the topper, the network changed the show's name to "Bluesville", because they said, "Their main teenage girl demographic wouldn't be drawn to a show with "baby" in the title", even if the original strip did great with that audience. Scott wasn't even told about the change by the network, as he heard about it from Jim Borgman, and had to talk with WB CEO Jamie Kellner (ugh... him) to get the name changed back. This shows that even Warner Bros. themselves by the time of the 2000 decade can be just about as greedy as the Walt Disney Company.
 * 16) The characters that weren't in the strip, but in the TV show, were all owned by Warner Bros. Discovery as of 2022, and WB wouldn't even license them to King Features Syndicate, despite adding them to the strip might've helped promote the show.
 * 17) Dilbert and Garfield and Friends didn't get the same treatment as much, because the characters that weren't in either of the original strips were added on to be used on occasion after the shows established the shows' main characters. While every episode has Darryl and Wanda having their conflict center around the Bittermans or Bizzy, debating whether to make the Bittermans Zoey's guardians in their will, worry about Bizzy's attraction to losers and bad boys, the Bittermans lure Bizzy as a babysitter after they start making more money, Darryl and Wanda get Rodney to move in with them because he keeps Zoey from crying; making Zoey an afterthought.
 * 18) The series finale summed up everything wrong with the show: having an admittedly good basis, the old reverse role story where Wanda goes back to work, while Darryl becomes a stay at home dad, and they enjoy the new roles, but can't help pining for what they used to have. What went wrong was that the episode opens with a scene involving the Bittermans, and not the main characters, and the Bittermans get tied into the story because Wanda's work endeavor involves going into business with Melinda.
 * 19) * And yes, there was an actual Ku Klux Klan reference, just because.
 * 20) * That Disney reference at the end just wasn't needed.

Good Qualities

 * 1) Some episodes are not too bad out of context.
 * 2) The Bittermans can be somewhat funny from time to time, and they do show that they care for one another.
 * 3) * In execution, a lot of the characters can be likable and entertaining; just poorly used.
 * 4) The animation is quite good.
 * 5) As mentioned in BQ#9, the theme song is good on its own.
 * 6) The art style is nice.
 * 7) If WB wanted their version of The Simpsons, other than Mission Hill (though not a family sitcom, rather has the similar writing to the Simpsons during its golden age) or the Oblongs..., Warner Bros. could've just made the show about the Bittermans, and create their own secondary family as their foil, and then the show might've worked.
 * 8) The writing was creative and funny at times.
 * 9) And as an adult cartoon from Warner Bros. Animation, it’s definitely better than the time they produced 3-South on MTV.