2000-2005
Produced by 70-30 Productions
On Warner Brothers DVD
Although it did not recieve as much coverage as the original DVD releases, Adult Swim's Sealab 2021 released the fourth, and final, collection of episodes of the much-beloved show just a few weeks ago. Although decent autopsies (or any well-done surgical procedure) are not ever going to be The Factual Opinion's modus-grand, we would be remiss in out duties if not to ring in the trumpets and lower the flags in respect towards one of the finest pieces of absurdist comedy to see wide release, since, well, Aqua Teen Hunger Force.
Sealab 2021 hit the ground running in it's first few episodes: we got our first taste of how incredibly funny Harry Goz could be as Captain Murphy when he started a pirate radio station, our first glimpse into how much danger he would put his subordinates in to find a Happy Cake Oven, and we watched an entire episode where nothing happened, excepting a long meandering conversation on what type of robot bodies each crew member would like to be placed in--and we saw the lab blow up each time, killing everyone inside.
By the time one reached the close of the first season and spent 15 minutes watching the main character trapped underneath a soda machine, you'd already become a fan: otherwise, you would've stopped watching a long
time ago. For those who stuck around, Sealab 2021 became one of those happy secrets, a show that was (and remains) impossible to explain to someone without annihilating the humour. Unlike South Park or The Simpsons, where the joke is often in the telling, Sealab thrived on the rhythm of it's delivery system: a poorly animated cartoon for the 70's, free-jacked into the 2000's. The cast, a slip-shod mixture of actors and video-game nerds, only served to accent what was already apparant from the opening of the show: this cartoon was interested in amusing itself, and while it hoped you stuck around, your enjoyment was far down on the Lab's list of priorities. Sealab 2021 dabbled in straight-forward humour, blisteringly uncomfortable satire; but its pride and joy always remained in an unwavering committment to absurdity: either with a flying 
feng-shui-conman or with an Interpol employee who offers callers to take advantage of "Two-fer-Tuesdays."
Although Sealab 2021 experienced a noticable decrease in quality after the unfortunate demise of Harry Goz, the voice behind Sealab's funniest character Captain Murphy in the midst of Season 3, Season 4 found them able to pull together an ecletic mix of some of the shows more extreme efforts. It's a nice epilogue to a show that not only holds up under repeat viewings, but seems to grow funnier and funnier all the time.
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