Trash Truck (also known as Giant Jack outside the USA) is a Netflix animated Preschool Show created by Max Keane, son of the animation legend Glen Keane, who is also an executive producer on the series.
Hank is a an imaginative Free Range Child, who tackles hilarious everyday situations with his best pal — a gigantic trash truck properly named Trash Truck. Accompanying them are talking animals — Walter, Donny, and Mona.
The series premiered on the platform on November 10, 2020 and also released a Christmas Special on December 11. A second season of the program released on May 4, 2021.
Trash Truck contains examples of:
- A Dog Named "Dog": A trash truck named Trash Truck.
- All-CGI Cartoon: The series is animated in CGI.
- Alliterative Title: Trash Truck.
- Bigger on the Inside: Hank's house, which is big enough inside that Trash Truck can fit inside it.
- Childish Tooth Gap: Hank has a gap in his teeth.
- Episode Title Card: The title cards for each episode are intricate, hand-painted pieces.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: In "Freeze Tag," Donny has to choose between hanging on to the smartphone that everyone's been fighting over or rescuing Walter from falling from a tree. He hesitates only briefly before rescuing Walter.
- Good Parents: Hank's parents, who are nice enough to let their son befriend a bunch of talking animals and a trash truck, and let them stay over at their house whenever they please.
- Instrumental Theme Tune: Sort of. The show's theme song is just whistling, but with some spoken dialogue over it.
- Interspecies Friendship: Hank's best friends are a bear, a raccoon, a mouse, and a trash truck.
- Kids Shouldn't Watch Horror Films: In "Sleepover", Hank and his friends try to watch TV, but they accidentally stumble upon a channel showing a horror movie, which scares them.
- List of Transgressions: In "A Trash Truck Christmas," Hank is trying to find out if his friends are naughty or nice. Trash Truck, Walter and Mona all have some small incidents that are easily excused. Donny asks "Where do I begin?" and declares "I guess we'll start from January last year..." and begins long-winded recitation with several perspective shifts to the various characters and trailing-off sentences before "And lastly, that brings us to this morning, I rolled in something brown. I don't know what it was," and Hank telling him he doesn't think it's all bad so much as "raccoon stuff."
- Non-Human Sidekick: All of Hank's friends are non-human. He has three animal friends and one vehicle friend.
- Not So Above It All: In "Freeze Tag," Hank and his friends are all playing a game of freeze tag when they discover a smartphone with a catchy game inside it inside Trash Truck. They all start fighting over it until finally Mona takes it away, saying that it's caused quite enough trouble for one day, then heads off inside her home. They then start bickering with each other over who's to blame for this... only to hear the sounds of the game and discover that Mona is now playing the game.
- Obscured Special Effects: Cheated Angle and Offscreen Teleportation are used to hide the fact that Trash Truck is getting through doors he should not be able to fit into.
- Quarter Hour Short: The episodes are basically standalone increments running 10-17 minutes long.
- Saving Christmas: "A Trash Truck Christmas" is about Hank volunteering for Trash Truck to fill in after Santa's sleigh crashes due to being too overloaded with toys.
- Sentient Vehicle: Trash Truck is a talking trash truck who is Hank's best friend.
- Shout-Out: Hank's Bear and Raccoon friends are named Walter and Donny.
- Slice of Life: Talking vehicles and animals notwithstanding, the show has simple plots focusing on the everyday aspects of childhood.
- Slumber Party: Hank and his friends have a sleepover together in "Sleepover".
- The Smurfette Principle: Miss Mona is the only girl in Hank's group of friends.
- Stylistic Suck: The opening has a card stating that the show is "A Glen Keane Productions."
- Talking Animal: Apart from Trash Truck, Hank also has several talking animal friends, including Walter the bear, Miss Mona the mouse, and Donny the raccoon.
- The Unintelligible: Trash Truck only communicates through vrooms, but Hank can still understand him.
- Unusually Uninteresting Sight: None of the cast finds anything odd about Hank's group of three talking animals and one Sentient Vehicle, though the doctor in the poison ivy episode does lampshade that it shouldn't be possible for a trash truck to have a poison ivy rash.
- Youthful Freckles: Hank has some faint ones on his face.
