Stroker and Hoop
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| Stroker and Hoop | |
|---|---|
 The logo of the show |
|
| Format | Action Comedy |
| Created by | Casper Kelly Jeff Olsen |
| Starring | Jon Glaser Timothy "Speed" Levitch Paul Christie |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 13 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 0:30 (per episode, including commercial break) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Cartoon Network |
| Original run | August 1, 2004 – December 25, 2005 |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
Stroker and Hoop (also Stroker & Hoop) was an American Flash animated television series on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block. The series was a parody of buddy cop films and television series such as Starsky and Hutch.
Contents |
[edit] Plot
Stroker and Hoop are a pair of private investigators from Los Angeles, who act and dress as if it is still the 1970s. In spite of each man's high opinion of himself, they're both completely inept losers: Stroker fancies himself a suave ladies man, but is perceived by virtually every woman he meets as a repulsive chauvinist; and Hoop considers himself a crime-solving ace and master of disguise, when in fact he's an idiot and all of his disguises are failures. Their only "advantage" over their competition is C.A.R.R., a talking AMC Pacer with its own neurotic, vengeful, effeminate personality. Because of their abysmal track record and less-than-stellar capabilities, the two men eke out livings solving crimes for people who can't afford to hire better, more competent detectives. Invariably, the two men's attempts to solve a crime result in bloodshed, violence, and thousands of dollars worth of property destruction.
[edit] Characters
John Strockmeyer, aka Stroker (voiced by Jon Glaser): An ex-mattress salesman turned private investigator, Stroker is largely apathetic to his job; he only enjoys it because it allows him to shoot people, and because it brings him into contact with dozens of promiscuous women on a daily basis. Although he considers himself an excellent detective and suave ladies' man, Stroker is actually a failure and a deadbeat; his wife left him and gained sole custody of their son, Keith, and Stroker's own incompetence and negligence resulted in his former partner, Jermaine, being murdered while working a case (Stroker removed the clip from Jermaine's gun without telling him). Once in awhile, Stroker will have a moment of being a genuine detective (such as successfully deducing the plot behind the lottery ring run by the ghosts of christmas past, present and future), although these moments are incredibly rare.
Hoop Schwartz (voiced by Speed Levitch): Stroker's ever-optimistic partner. Although he considers himself brilliant and a master of disguise, Hoop is barely of average intelligence, and his disguises are poorly conceived and do nothing to hide his face. Unlike Stroker, Hoop is a detective because he loves the line of work. However, Hoop eventually reveals that he has never fired a gun with the intent to actually hit his target, that he always aimed and fired above the target's head. In a bit of dramatic irony, Stroker, who spends most of his time trying to bed women, fails miserably at it, while Hoop, who most often comes across as asexual, often finds himself having sex with gorgeous women who throw themselves at him (usually to try and sabotage the case he's working on). When he isn't solving crimes, Hoop lives with his elderly mother and participates in dinner theatre, seemingly unable to progress with his life.
C.A.R.R. (voiced by Paul Christie): Stroker and Hoop's primary mode of transportation, C.A.R.R. is a talking car that was state-of-the-art twenty years ago. He enjoys talk radio and car washes, perhaps a little too much. Years of nothing but AM right wing talk radio have left C.A.R.R. with a racist attitude towards Mexicans; he is also vengeful, paranoid, and often demonstrates effeminate behavior, in spite of his otherwise masculine personality. He is a parody of David Hasselhoff's car KITT from Knight Rider and the name "C.A.R.R." may be a spoof of "K.A.R.R.", KITT's "evil" prototype. C.A.R.R. appears to be an AMC Pacer and is painted to somewhat resemble the Ford Torino from Starsky & Hutch.
Double Wide (voiced by Curtis Armstrong): Ostensibly C.A.R.R.'s creator. A mechanic who spends his copious free time inventing bizarre things. He is a pornography connoisseur, and a furry. Can speak Spanish. Despite the fact that Stroker owes him countless thousands of dollars, Double Wide remains loyal to Stroker and Hoop out of a sense of duty (Stroker used to sell mattresses with Double Wide's brother).
Coroner Rick (voiced by Gary Anthony Williams): The county coroner on the show, who often serves as a source of information for the main characters. Coroner Rick is a good friend of Stroker and Hoop, and even willing to hide evidence that would get them tried for murder. He has a knack for making crude jokes from an otherwise unfortunate and tragic event, sometimes with the victim still conscious. Rick occasionally solves the actual crime in the episode, but is generally fine with Stroker and Hoop taking the credit.
Keith (voiced by Mary Birdsong): Stroker's 10 year old son. Lives with his mother, Angel Jimenez and has a strained relationship with Stroker who mixes attention with sheer neglect, resulting in moments where Keith genuinly loathes him.
[edit] Episodes
[edit] Season 1: 2004-2005
- 101. (Pilot) C.A.R.R. Trouble (a.k.a. Feelin' Dirty): Stroker and Hoop start off trying to talk to a possessed teenager named Megan. After a series events go horribly wrong, they leave Megan behind in favor of a new case: a high school charity car wash has been receiving threats, and hire Stroker and Hoop for protection.
- 102. The Five Diamonds (a.k.a. A Hard Act to Follow): At Keith's birthday party, magician David Copperfield makes ten-year old Danny Diamond-Schmiggler disappear, leading Stroker to take the case after shooting Copperfield. The trail of clues leads them to the ultimate boy-band: The Five Diamonds (Neil Diamond, Dustin Diamond, Mike Diamond, Lou Diamond Phillips, and a talking diamond). In the meantime, Hoop is trying to patch his relationship with his girlfriend Vanessa who is fed up with Hoop's lifestyle.
- 103. Tinfoiled Again (a.k.a. Star Crossed Livers): A desperate client requests Stroker and Hoop's aid in stopping Ron Howard from entering his mind. In the meantime, Stroker tries to help out his son, who has been the victim of bullying, and takes an active role on Keith's tee ball team. Things are turned upside down when Stroker and Hoop are seduced by two hot ladies who steal their vestigial organs and Ron Howard ends up focusing his anger on Stroker.
- 104. The Rube Job (a.k.a. Revenge is a Dish Best Served Fried): After getting on the bad side of notorious Columbian drug lord Tio the Terrible, Stroker and Hoop retreat down to Vidalutha, Mississippi where Hoop's identical cousin, Mumu is the town sheriff and requests the duo's aid in catching a serial killer who is hunting down contestants in a beauty pageant. To make things worse, a disgruntled Double-Wide helps lead Tio to their location.
- 105. XXX Wife (a.k.a. Stroke Her and Boob): Stroker and Hoop are hired by pornography mogul Judd Winner to spy on his wife, whom he suspects is cheating on him. His previously faithful wife, fed up with her husband's undisguised philandering, finally does cheat, with Hoop. In revenge, Stroker and Hoop are hypnotized into appearing in several porn videos, from straight (having sex with women) to bizarre (having sex with goats). As a result, Stroker and Hoop become adult film celebrities, which leads them to make several (failed) attempts of revenge against Winner, each resulting in greater humiliation for them.
- 106. Ninja Worrier (a.k.a. Chopping Spree): The episode starts off with Stroker talking about why he is on his back, bleeding on the sidewalk. At their weekly karate class, Keith is entrusted with protecting the handle of the Fire Lotus Sword from a band of ninjas who take down their teacher. In the struggle, Hoop manages to kill a ninja, this experience shatters him with guilt and he quits. In the mean time, Stroker and Keith use an attempted car-bomb to fake their deaths and escape the ninjas, taking C.A.R.R. with them after extracting his brain (this is a parody of the Knight Rider episode "Soul Survivor" in which KITT's body was stolen and his CPU had to be carried around in a box resembling a portable TV). Believing Stroker has been murdered, Hoop goes into training with a karaoke singer, Suko who turns Hoop into a deadly assassin, she then tricks him into disposing of her ex boyfriends, who she mislead him into thinking were the ninja.
- 107. Quiller Instinct (a.k.a. Peeping Todd): Stroker is tricked into helping Double-Wide try to prove that his inventions have been stolen for years by his rival, Todd. Stroker works the case solo as Hoop behaves strangely after being pricked by a porcupine while protesting nuclear power, leading him to believe that he has super powers. To make things worse, all of Todd's appliances start to rebel against humans.
- 108. Hip Hop Hooray (a.k.a. Gangsta Sap): Branching out as bodyguards, Stroker and Hoop are hired to watch over a party thrown by gangsta rapper MC Homicidal Rapist. It all goes badly as Homicidal Rapist is beaten and robbed of his home movies by three men in presidential masks. The next day, Homicidal Rapist and his protege, Li'l Rapist gives the duo a new assignment: retrieve his tapes and protect Homicidal Rapist's credibility or they will kill them. In the mean time, C.A.R.R. takes on a new job as a DJ on an "adult contemporary" station.
- 109. Just Voodoo It (a.k.a. For Whom the Bear Tolls): After an elderly billionaire dies, Stroker and Hoop are hired by his young widow to find out what happened. They learn that a teddy bear found near the murder scene has the same injuries as the man, and Hoop suspects the bear's creators of using Voodoo. They travel to the company's headquarters in New Hampshire in order to learn more about the evil scheme, but they are captured by a witch doctor, turned into zombies (Stroker is, but Hoop manages to avoid the zombification powder by holding his breath), and then forced to make teddy bears in a Haitian factory as a form of cheap labor. The CEO reveals that his company uses zombies for cheap labor, but that some zombies occasionally make voodoo teddy bears by accident.
- 110. I Saw Stroker Killing Santa (a.k.a. A Cold, Dead, White Christmas): While Stroker is waiting in line with Keith to meet Santa Claus, an unknown assailant jabs Santa with a hypodermic needle. Stroker chases him but mall security interferes, but not before Stroker grabs the assailant's lottery ticket. At Coroner Rick's, Rick gives Santa a grim prognosis: he has been poisoned with a slow-acting substance not recorded before. Stroker initially pledges to help Santa but changes plans when it turns out the lotto ticket the perp dropped is a winner. Stroker and Hoop end up leaving for the ski slopes, leaving Santa to suffer. C.A.R.R. later takes it on himself to save Santa and Christmas while a drunk Stroker is visited by the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, starting with his late partner, Jermaine Washington.
- 111. The Wrath of Khan'Ja (a.k.a. Dammit Mamet): Stroker comes upon a wrecked space ship with a beautiful alien. He is entrusted with trying to retrieve the funds for a giant sapphire to save her and allow Stroker to be the leader of an enslaved human race. Meanwhile, Hoop is heavily involved in starring in the new David Mamet play at the local theater.
- 112. How to Get Dead in Advertising (a.k.a. Caged Rose): Hoop's mom Rose Schwartz is charged with the brutal murder of her former supervisor and Stroker and Hoop are called on to clear her name. To do so, they go undercover as advertising executives "Stroganoff and Hopowitz" where Hoop gets caught up with trying to come up with a new ad campaign for Freshen Up Fabric Softeners. In the meantime, Rose has difficulty adjusting to prison where she gets on the wrong side of a Hispanic senior citizen gang.
- 113. Three Cheats to the Wind (a.k.a. Putting the 'Ass' in Assassin): Stroker, Hoop, and Double-Wide wake up in C.A.R.R., who is suspended from a crane over a large canyon. The gang is taunted over the radio by the villain that has trapped them inside and is about to kill them, as they struggle to figure out who would have a past grudge against them. In the end it is revealed to be an unnamed minor background character who has actually appeared in many episodes in the past, each time Stroker and Hoop horribly affecting his life: he wasn't noticeable each time because often he was left unrecognizable by his run-ins with Stroker and Hoop. He was the office worker Frank Wilson in "Ninja Worrier" who had CDs impaled into his face like throwing stars by Hoop. He became a waiter named a a Southern theme restaurant, a messenger, a caterer and even a male prostitute. He was originally the mysterious assailant who killed Stroker's old partner Jermaine in a flashback in "I Saw Stroker Killing Santa". He explained that he was stealing medicine to save his dying baby daughter Karen At the last minute, Coroner Rick stumbles upon the kidnapper as he gloats to Stroker and Hoop over the radio, and holds him at gunpoint. Unfortunately, he can't stop the kidnapper from hitting the remote control which releases the crane, and sends C.A.R.R. and everyone inside him plummeting to the bottom of the canyon. The words To Be Continued appeared on-screen with a question mark appearing afterwards, giving a hint that the show becomes a cliffhanger.
- 201. Unnamed: Following the show's cancellation, creators Casper and Jeff made a posting to the adult swim blog outlining what would've happened in the Second Season Premier. The episode would've opened with the revelation that Stroker and Hoop died in the crash and were sent to the afterlife; Hoop, specifically, was sent to a section of Hell reserved for lettuce. Double Wide survived the crash but ended up in the burn ward of the hospital, where he received visions of Stroker and Hoop in the afterlife. Trying to save them, Double Wide puts himself on ice to temporarily "kill" himself, but he's stopped by doctors at the last minute. In a last ditch attempt to save Stroker and Hoop, Double Wide shoots himself and Coroner Rick. The two men then travel to the afterlife, where a series of events lead to the death of God. God's temporary absence from Heaven (a technicality stipulates that it takes 20 minutes for God's soul to return to Heaven) allows all the characters to return to Earth. [1]
[edit] Trivia
- In the episode "Putting the 'Ass' in 'Assassin'", Hoop mentions a villain named Beeffinger. The show then (as a joke) cuts to footage from the 70s cartoon Speed Buggy with the S&H cast dubbing in new lines over the original footage.
[edit] Cancellation
In February 2006, Les Harper, head animator on the show, announced via AdultSwim.com that the show has not been greenlit for a second season and will therefore not continue, leaving the show on a cliffhanger ending. It was stated by the creators both on the Adult Swim message board[2] and the employee blog[3]. The blog entry was on February 10 [4]. The creators will continue to work with Williams Street regardless of the cancellation. Reruns however, occasionally air on Adult Swim, and previously ran on Teletoon.
[edit] External links
- Stroker and Hoop section at AdultSwim.com
- AdultSwim.co.uk - Stroker and Hoop on Adult Swim UK
- Stroker and Hoop at the Internet Movie Database
