One of the writers on “The Tick” was Henry Gilroy, who began his career working on “Tiny Toon Adventures,” and would go on to write for “Batman: The Animated Series,” “Earthworm Jim,” and many other notable animated programs. He would become the series head writer for “Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!” in 2006, and “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” in 2008. Most recently, Gilroy has written for “Star Wars Rebels” and is currently leading “DreamWorks Dragons: The Nine Realms,” a spinoff of “How to Train Your Dragon.”
Gilroy recently sat down with /Film’s own Rafael Motamayor to talk about his long and prestigious animation career, and his time working on “The Tick.” Gilroy revealed that his first episode on the show, an episode called “The Tick vs. The Uncommon Cold,” contained a snot-based joke that was just way too gross for the studio. The mucosal mummery was ultimately cut.
It should be noted that the Tick has no secret lair, and lives for free in Arthur’s down-rent apartment in The City (the city in “The Tick” is called The City). In “The Tick vs. The Uncommon Cold,” the superheroes find they have a new neighbor in the building named Thrakkorzog (Jim Cummings), an interdimensional space alien with designs on world domination. Thrakkorzog possesses a miniature sentient tongue that wants to eat human brains and requires a cheap place in the city where it can build a cloning machine. Thrakkorzog makes a zombie clone of Arthur and sends it to the Tick’s apartment to collect a tissue sample.
The Tick is indestructible and has no visible hair, so collecting cells proves to be difficult. Clone Arthur has to settle for a used Kleenex that the Tick used to blow his nose.