The original post: /r/television by /u/Turbulent_League9668 on 2026-02-23 04:42:59+00:00.
I’m gonna go on a bit of a tangent here: Hubert & Takako is one of my favorite TV shows of all time and it’s not even close. Out of all the shows in Xilam’s catalog, I’m unhappy that the best one was the one that achieved such a level of non-success. I enjoyed the concept of Space Goofs, loved the vibes of Ratz and Shuriken, and adored the humor of Oggy and Zig & Sharko, but H&T is just a really well-written show that I will gush over forever, from its delightfully manic art direction, wonderful sense of humor, and incredible cartoony-looking Toon Boom/Flash animation.
The basic premise: there’s a pig (voiced by Joe Ochman, the guy who does Jiminy Cricket) and a fly (voiced by Marieve Herington, aka Tilly Green) who live in the most un-Xilam-y universe imaginable. It’s just an animated sitcom with dry humor and verbal banter, with virtually none of the slapstick and surrealism the company is most known for. And the comedy makes me laugh hard enough to make my stomach hurt.
Hubert & Takako is also really damn funny. The series is just an absolute riot that fires on all cylinders comedically; nearly every joke got me to at the very least laugh and at the very most nearly fall out of my chair wheezing, and on the very rare occasion that it didn’t, there were always at least 5 jokes right behind it ready to make my sides split. It can seamlessly go from traditional zany slapstick to dry, witty conversations without ever descending into try-hard observational humor; basically just everything I love about zany cartoons and sitcoms condensed into a hysterical package. It’s pretty sharply written and our main duo bounces off perfectly despite how extremely different their personalities are. The vocal performances are also delightful; Joe Ochman really sells how much of a pretentious, pseudo-intellectual frazzled loser Hubert is while still making him oddly endearing and rootable as a protagonist, and Takako’s hyperactive and over-the-top nature lends a lot to how Marieve Herington’s vocal performance works and how much the jokes work because of it. The little fly’s so completely unhinged and yet down-to-earth that you stop thinking about some of her worse actions and just start laughing at the pure absurdity of the things she does, which is only plussed by how much of a snark machine she is.
I highly recommend that you check it out, but there is a minor caveat; there isn’t a feasible way to view half of the English dub. Not because I won’t do so, but because I can’t (they used to be on Kidoodle.TV, I don’t know how to download shows on there, they’re not there anymore, the ball’s in Xilam’s court to make it widely available and they don’t seem to be doing anything with that ball). Xilam didn’t bother to post a good chunk of the English dub online (only 37 episodes, basically half of it, were made available. That’s better than nothing, but still). Now it’s basically just another footnote in Xilam history.
If you want to watch the show besides the English version, every episode was released on YouTube… in French.