Stream It Or Skip It: ‘The Freak Brothers’ On Tubi, The Animated Series Based On The Underground Comic

With so many streaming services to keep track of (the big ones, the TV network ones, the niche ones), it can be hard to choose where to put your money and what to actually watch. Tubi may not be the most well-known of these, but it does have one quality many of its competitors don’t: it’s free. The relatively new platform is finally debuting their first animated original, an adult comedy called The Freak Brothers featuring the voices of stars like John Goodman, Woody Harrelson, Pete Davidson, and Tiffany Haddish. 

THE FREAK BROTHERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: As the trippy opening credits come to a close, we are shown San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge.

The Gist: It’s 1969 – the summer of love – in San Francisco. Freewheelin’ Franklin Freek (Woody Harrelson), Fat Freddy Freekowtski (John Goodman), and Phineas T. Phreakers (Pete Davidson), along with their cat, Kitty (Tiffany Haddish), spend their days smoking weed, landing babes, and stuffing their faces. When they find out about a magical trippin’ sauce that will give them “the ultimate high”, the group ventures to Woodstock in search of the man who can give it to them. While they may hit some unexpected detours (like accidentally venturing to Woodstock, Georgia), the group eventually does get their hands on some of this wacky weed sauce.

What begins as a great trip soon turns into a very, very long nap – a little over 50 years, in fact. When the Freak Brothers wake up, their beloved shitty neighborhood is now the San Francisco we all know: the city with the highest cost of living in America. They’re confused by these masses of people walking around glued to little rectangles in their hands and speaking in what seems like a different language, and when they become convinced that all the machines are out to get them, they crash a fancy corporate party (and destroy all the technological devices and a few lives in the process). Things may be scary in 2020, but they aren’t all bad; weed is legal now, a revelation that sparks a showy gospel number, and the new residents of their once-run down home are willing to house them – at least for a little while. Can this group of freaks make it in the new world? Only time will tell.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Freak Brothers may please fans of shows like Big Mouth, Animals, Hoops, Rick & Morty (same animators!), and Bojack Horseman, though it may veer a little dumber (and raunchier) than those titles.

Our Take: If there’s one thing The Freak Brothers gets right, it’s casting; putting together two of our favorite celebrity stoners – Woody Harrelson and Pete Davidson – with national treasure John Goodman and superstar Tiffany Haddish is perhaps one of the more inspired celebrity voice casting choices I’ve seen in a minute. There’s a playfulness to all of them that makes each scene a delight, even when the script isn’t up to their level, and it’s these silly voices that keep The Freak Brothers afloat. While Davidson and Harrelson were easy to pick out from the jump, it took me a minute to realize what John Goodman was doing – and that only made the whole thing more fun.

The Freak Brothers may not be my personal cup of tea, but it’s easy to see the potential here; even when the jokes are bland (the 2020 mindless “LOL” and “OMG”-using millennial gag felt so phoned in), the show remains pretty watchable. I’m curious to see what they do with this story, especially with there being some genuinely interesting components like the housing crisis and police brutality in the mix. I don’t expect The Freak Brothers to handle subject matter like this particularly well – based on the pilot, it will all be played for laughs – but there’s certainly room to go to unexpected places. Pilots in general are a tricky thing, and adapting IP that has been around since the ’70s was undoubtedly no easy feat. I just wonder how well this gang of misfits will fare in the modern age – both on screen and off.

Sex and Skin: There are boobs within the first, like, 15 seconds of The Freak Brothers, and they keep on comin’. From a Woodstock fuck fest to imagined encounters while they experience “the ultimate high”, there’s no shortage of sexy stuff in this pilot.

Parting Shot: Our entire cast of kooky characters stares as Phineas pushes past everyone and announces he has to take a shit.

Sleeper Star: Tiffany Haddish (unsurprisingly) steals the show as Kitty, proving she’s hilarious whether you can see her or not. She really takes each one of her ridiculous lines to the next level, keeping things moving and eliciting laughs – albeit some horrified – even when jokes from other characters aren’t landing. She’s the perfect foil to our central trio, calling them on their nonsense one minute and teaming up with them to score weed the next. It’s no secret that Tiffany Haddish is a star, but gigs like this only demonstrate just how dynamic her talent really is.

Most Pilot-y Line: Nothing stuck out as particularly pilot-y, though I did get a giggle out of “I have a high school degree in chemistry” and “I have a middle school degree in sharing”.

Our Call: STREAM IT… if it’s your kinda thing. The Freak Brothers may not be for everyone, but for lovers of stoner humor, raunchy adult animation, and genuinely funny voice performances, it might check all the right boxes.

Jade Budowski is a freelance writer with a knack for ruining punchlines, hogging the mic at karaoke, and thirst-tweeting. Follow her on Twitter: @jadebudowski.

Stream The Freak Brothers on Tubi