Kidding

2018
4.5
18 reviews
TV-MA
Rating
Eligible
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Season 1 episodes (15)

1 Green Means Go
9/9/18
Jeff Pickles decides it's time to talk about death on Mr. Pickles' Puppet Time. His executive producer, Seb, feels that Mr. Pickles the persona and Jeff Pickles the person need to remain separate. Deirdre punishes her daughter Maddy for not eating her veggies.
2 Pusillanimous
9/16/18
Jeff makes a rash decision that could affect the ability of the show to continue. Seb strategizes how to rebuild Jeff's image. The two disagree about how Jeff can repair his family. Deirdre tries to learn more about what's happening while Maddy is at her piano lesson. Jeff's son Will decides to let loose with his new friends.
3 Every Pain Needs a Name
9/23/18
Jeff tries to fix his heartbreak. Deirdre deals with her daughter's developing medical condition. Seb outlines the future of Mr. Pickles' Puppet Time without Jeff. Jeff tries to get Will off pot by giving him a hobby.
4 Bye, Mom
9/30/18
Jeff deals with a one-night stand. Jill learns that Jeff has been sending money to someone behind her back and confronts him.
5 The New You
10/7/18
Jeff decides to step out of his comfort zone. Seb tries to get Jeff on board with new changes for Puppet Time, as well as his ice skating show – Pickles On Ice, starring Tara Lipinski.
6 The Cookie
10/14/18
Will tries to honor his brother in a unique way. Jeff decides to make some changes to Pickles on Ice. Deirdre lets her anger out on Maddy. Jeff tries to convince Vivian to continue with her treatment.
7 Kintsugi
10/21/18
Jeff goes off script and starts to speak more honestly to children on Puppet Time as Seb panics that Jeff will soon have to appear on live television for the National Tree Lighting Ceremony. Deirdre and Scott get a new visitor from Japan – Mr. Pickles-San. The Pickles have Thanksgiving as a family.
8 Philliam
10/28/18
Jeff meets the son of his pen pal, an inmate on death row, and decides to help him.
9 LT. Pickles
11/4/18
Jeff wonders if he's having a breakdown or a breakthrough. Will gets into trouble at school. Scott confronts Deirdre about her feelings for Mr. Pickles-San. Seb decides to make a last-minute change to Pickles on Ice while Jeff is away.
10 Some Day
11/11/18
Everyone in Jeff's life deals with the results of the speech Jeff made on national television.
101 About Kidding Season 1
1/7/19
Go behind the scenes of SHOWTIME's new original series Kidding. Jim Carrey, Judy Greer, Catherine Keener, Frank Langella, and Creator/Executive Producer Dave Holstein discuss the creation and inspiration underlying the show. Starring Jim Carrey, Frank Langella, Catherine Keener and Judy Greer.
102 Meet the Pickles
1/7/19
Season-only
Go behind the scenes with the cast of Kidding and meet the family behind the magic, The Pickles. Starring Jim Carrey, Frank Langella, Catherine Keener and Judy Greer.
103 Mr. Pickles' Puppet Time
1/14/19
Season-only
Go behind the scenes of Kidding with puppeteers, Patrick and Sean Johnson, as they discuss all of the puppets that are used throughout the series.
104 Scene Set Up with Jim Carrey
1/21/19
Season-only
Jim Carrey sits down to discuss Kidding and the scene in which his character, Jeff Pickles, shaves his head thereby breaking the norm. Starring Jim Carrey, Frank Langella, Catherine Keener and Judy Greer.
105 Shooting Shaina's Sequence
1/21/19
Season-only
A behind-the-scenes look at how the sequence of Shaina's (Riki Lindholme) transformation, after being inspired by watching "Mr. Pickles' Puppet Time," was filmed, side-by-side with how the scene played on screen in episode 3. Starring Jim Carrey, Frank Langella, Catherine Keener and Judy Greer.

About this show

In his first series regular role in over two decades, Jim Carrey stars as Jeff, aka Mr. Pickles, an icon of children's television, a beacon of kindness and wisdom to America's impressionable young minds, who also anchors a multimillion-dollar branding empire. But when Jeff's family begins to implode, he finds no fairy tale or fable or puppet will guide him through the crisis, which advances faster than his means to cope. The result: a kind man in a cruel world faces a slow leak of sanity as hilarious as it is heartbreaking.

Ratings and reviews

4.5
18 reviews
Aisha Thiessen
December 28, 2020
This series is great! It practically brought Jim Carrey back from the dead and you get to see it happen throughout the 2 seasons it lived for. (I'm sure his experience doing Sonic as Robotnik helped as well. They really treated him well during that production, which happened between seasons 1 and 2 of Kidding.) The camera work is clever and pristine, the writing is witty and grounding in its use of irony punctuating the end of each scene, the puppets and songs are cute, the themes explored are important to our current human experience (where so many are creating these marketable images of themselves to monetize and then they're stuck like that, as well as complicated family relationships caused by living and working together--*cough*CoviD*cough*), and the acting is... it's ok. There's a lot of Boomers yelling at each other, like this is the only place they can yell at anyone. It seems like an awfully expensive form of therapy for the actors at times more than entertainment for the viewer's pleasure. Jim Carrey is sorta... fake acting? While Jim Carrey is best playing Jim Carrey, he CAN act, but he started doing this thing where it's obvious he's "pretending" somewhere in the mid-late 2000s. You really see it here as he tries to play this "nice guy dealing with a mean world." He's not a "nice guy." Have you seen his Trump doodles? They're so terrible. And he's got all these minions in his feed rooting him on. Honestly the main reason I'm glad Trump is heading out of office is so Jim Carrey stops drawing the ugly man. You can only spend so much time drawing ugly before you become ugly, which is Jim's face in most of season 1. Throughout season 2 it gets much better as Mr. Pickles's attempts to be nice backfire and you, as the viewer, enjoy watching him LOSE IT--as Jim Carrey's characters do by trademark throughout his work. What's different in Kidding though is that when he loses it, it's kinda nasty. I don't wanna spoil it, but usually you laugh when he loses it because you wanna lose it like that too and just tell people what you really think and dance around, physically harmlessly, but spiritually woke. However, in this series, he becomes kinda scary when he loses it. He'd be less scary losing it if he were the show's villain, but he's supposed to be a good guy. Nevertheless. This is a quality piece of work. I am glad that it's cancelled though so Jim can branch out to something new again before he dies. I was kinda worried he'd be stuck in this for 9 seasons and that'd be the last we get out of him. He really needs to lay off the grilled cheese sandwiches. *pokes his tummy*
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Lisa Ohmann
August 6, 2022
So many talented actors who give such marvelous performances, but Jim Carrey is beyond amazing. Funny, quirky and heartbreaking at once. Really showcases his superb range as an actor. I wish they had done many seasons of this...I want more.
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A Google user
March 12, 2019
Aaron here, assy user to make a day complete , yet all you needeed is a great person with an awesome personality. Plus the perks are always a surprise. Seems top notch, alright I can't wAit. A monkey's your uncle. -Aaron J.
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