YMMV / Gary the Rat

• Audience-Alienating Premise: In spite of the talented and acclaimed Kelsey Grammer voicing the title character, the show still suffered from this. The plot has an Amoral Attorney transforming into his true nature of an anthropomorphized rat... for whatever reason. In addition to living in a Crapsack World where there is virtually no one to root for (except for his elderly and sickly mother, who he hates for unclear reasons), Gary remains a self-centered asshole for the most part, apparently taking nothing away from his experience. And whenever we're treated to a flashback with human Gary, his face is always conveniently obscured. The failure of this cartoon, along with that of Stripperella and especially Ren & Stimpy "Adult Party Cartoon" caused whatever animation block Spike TV was hoping to create to end up dead in the water and effectively killed any hope of Viacom launching an adult animation block for several years.
• Crosses the Line Twice: There's Gary's brutal honesty with his mother and the tendency for people to get killed, for starters.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: This isn't the only time Kelsey Grammer portrayed a blue character. 3 years after the show debuted, he played Hank McCoy.
• Memetic Mutation: This is the show that gave us the phrase, "Jiminy Christmas, someone should tell her that it's a vagina, not a clown car!"
• Nightmare Fuel: Some of Gary's more...vicious expressions can be this when he's a little too close to the screen.

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