ICYMI: FOX’s Animal Control Is the Sweet Spot Between Community and Parks and Recreation

Editor’s Note: Welcome to ICYMI! With so much TV constantly premiering, we’re highlighting some of the best shows you may have missed in the deluge of content from throughout the year. Join the Paste writers as we celebrate our underrated faves, the blink-and-you-missed-it series, and the perfect binges you need to make sure you see.

A good sitcom is hard to come by these days, especially on network TV. Clever fan favorites like Community, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Place are long gone—and have mostly been replaced by more broad comedies aiming to be non-offensive enough to carve out a space. 

Which is a fact that makes FOX’s Animal Control all the more unique that it’s actually on network TV in the year 2024. To be clear, there are plenty of weird, great comedies out there right now, it’s just that most of them are on streaming or cable these days. Whereas Animal Control (much like the equally hilarious Abbott Elementary) feels like a throwback to that mid-2010s era when there was still space for a quirky comedy on network TV, when shows like Community could still squeak by as cult hits.

The Community connection is also apt because Animal Control stars Community fan favorite Joel McHale, who also executive produces the series. McHale plays Frank Shaw, a jaded animal control officer in Seattle who works with a few other zany, irreverent folks just trying to keep the wild animals at bay on a weekly basis. As far as a comparison, Animal Control feels like the perfect combination of Community’s comedic vibe and Parks and Recreation’s magnifying glass approach into a hyper-local government department.

Upon launch, the series had all the markings of your usual midseason comedy long-shot gamble that would come and go, destined to be forgotten, like most midseason comedies do these days. But luckily, the series found just enough of an audience among FOX’s comedy fans (which makes sense, as Animal Control is a decent tonal fit with animated fare like The Simpsons and Family Guy). It reportedly carved out a space across multi-platform streaming as a modest hit, and FOX was so pleased that they renewed the show for its just-premiered second season. The network is so high on the series they’ve also already ordered a third season ahead of Season 2’s debut.

Though McHale is understandably the face of the series, it’s the ensemble that really puts this show over the top. McHale is joined by his optimistic new partner, the former snowboarder Shred, played by Michael Rowland; Vella Lovell’s Emily Price, the cheery (and delightfully weird) director of the animal control office; Ravi V. Patel’s fellow animal control officer Amit Patel; and Grace Palmer’s Victoria Sands, Ravi’s partner who has a bit of an affinity for illegal drugs. Put together, they just work, and you can feel the chemistry as early as the pilot. From Episode 1, it feels like a fully-formed show, no need to find its footing required. Shred might be the audience surrogate to this world, but it feels like it’s already in its prime from the jump.

Animal Control was created by Bob Fisher (Wedding Crashers), Rob Greenberg (The Moodys), and Dan Sterling (The Last Man on Earth)—with McHale joining as a producer once he was cast in the lead—and you can certainly feel all of those influences and sensibilities bleeding through in the final product. It’s a relatable, goofball cast in a workplace concept that’s niche and funny, but relatable for anyone who has ever worked a job and had some weirdo co-workers. Or, ahem, been the weirdo co-worker. It’s just instead of traditional office hijinks, they’re being chased by rogue ostriches and mauled by adorable bunny rabbits that are accidentally tripping out after getting into the wrong baggie.

It’s a workplace set-up that provides a broad template, with no shortage of exotic pets, wild animals, and general workplace weirdness to build a story around every week. And there is always office politics to deal with along the way, and a brewing romance between Shred and Emily still bubbling in the ether. It’s a concept that’s low-stakes enough to have fun with, and the writers room clearly has a deft feel for how to get the most out of it. 

But if you weren’t paying attention during the winter-to-spring network TV window last year (or if your Hulu algorithm didn’t serve it to you at some point), it’s a show you might’ve missed—or mistaken for a reality TV series about an actual animal control department (which is understandable). 

It’s a comedy you can pick up and jump into at pretty much any point, and unlike most any other show actively airing on TV right now, you can take solace in the fact it shouldn’t be unceremoniously canceled anytime soon, since there’s two seasons worth of animal controlling shenanigans already coming down the pipeline. If you missed the first season, it’s an easy (and hilarious) weekend binge to get up to date in the early days of Season 2, so it’s a perfect time to jump on the bandwagon as the new episodes kick off.

Just watch out for the mountain lion, majestic though it may be.

Watch on Hulu

Trent Moore is a recovering print journalist, and freelance editor and writer with bylines at lots of places. He likes to find the sweet spot where pop culture crosses over with everything else. Follow him at @trentlmoore on Twitter.

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