Tuca & Bertie

Tuca & Bertie is an animated comedy series that first aired on Netflix in 2019, with its second season releasing in 2021-2022. This quirky and dynamic show is created by Lisa Hanawalt, who has famously worked as a producer and production designer for the critically acclaimed animated series, Bojack Horseman. But where Bojack Horseman leans more towards realistic themes with streaks of comedy, Tuca & Bertie represents a sharp contrast with its unapologetically buoyant, eccentric, and distinctly feminine perspective on Cartoon-ized life in the sprawling Bird Town city.

The show provides a platform to the voices of excellent comedians like Tiffany Haddish and Ali Wong, who play the lead roles of Tuca and Bertie respectively. Haddish voices Tuca, an irreverent, care-free, and wildly charismatic toucan with a free spirit, while Wong plays Bertie, a high-strung and career-driven songbird. Steven Yeun complements the duo as the voice of Speckle, Bertie’s architect boyfriend. Despite their strikingly contrasting characters, Tuca and Bertie share an inseparable bond of friendship that becomes the primary operative force of the narrative.

The storyline pivots around the adult lives of these anthropomorphic bird women, the 30-something bachelorette Tuca and her introverted, often anxiety-ridden, longtime friend Bertie. Each episode grapples with themes like friendship, trauma, love, body-image, sexuality, self-esteem, and mental health amidst the unpredictable whirl of adult life. In between their peculiar but relatable life escapades, Tuca & Bertie explores how friendships can bear the weight of the harshest realities, surf the waves of life changes, but also grow and evolve with time.

Despite its light-hearted comedic outlook, the show doesn’t shy away from providing unique insights into a woman's vulnerabilities and fears. Tuca & Bertie skillfully tackles serious issues with a unique blend of humor and surrealism, demonstrating a knack for drawing out deeper, more intense themes from the seemingly mundane daily occurrences of our lives.

The animation style of Tuca & Bertie is vibrant, unique, and abundant in its creativity. The artwork hums with bold, bright hues, and the characters are developed with a surreal and hallucinatory charm that sets the series aside from any typical adult animation. It is brimming with visual puns, rapid-fire jokes, and a whirl of imaginative details, adding a whimsical vibrance to the screen that mesmerizes audiences. The surreal tone of the show extends to the lively cityscape of Bird Town itself. With buildings morphing into animals, plants randomly singing, and howling boobs fleeing from blouse-zippers, the show practically engages in a gleeful rebellion against the laws of physics and reason.

That being said, it’s not all about visual grandeur. A key to its charm is the sharply observant writing which is poignant, bold, audacious and, at times, quite raw. The dialogues resonate with a blend of screwball humor and clever witticisms, often bordering on cutting self-reflection. The show strikes a delicate balance between being entertainingly wacky yet powerfully evocative, often catching viewers off-guard by switching from laugh-out-loud scenarios to hard-hitting realizations in a snap.

Being a rare jewel in the realm of adult animation, Tuca & Bertie is not just about two bird-women navigating the seas of adulthood. It is a showcase of bold femininity, a celebration of enduring friendships, and a meditation on the joys and vulnerabilities that constitute the human (or bird-human) experience. The series challenges norms and shatters conventions, beckoning viewers to immerse themselves in the psychedelic and delightfully chaotic world of Tuca & Bertie. It's colorful, vivid, meaningful, and most importantly, unforgettably wild. From start to finish, Tuca & Bertie is nothing short of a rollercoaster ride through the kaleidoscope of life. One thing is certain– it is an experience unlike any other.