Bump in the Night (1994–1995) User Reviews

He's green dynamite

[ReptiDomus · 7/10 · 23 May 2016]

This show had smooth claymation, wacky humor and a small cast of entertaining characters: Mr. Bumpy, the green, sock-eating, wise-cracking monster, Squishington, the kind but neurotic bathroom monster and Molly Coddle, the loyal comfort doll. (You know the writing is good when some segments get by on just two of them!) They were backed by a great voice cast too, with guests including Brad Garrett as a baby and Gilbert Gottfried as a stinkbug. It also had a catchy intro which perfectly set the mood, and some pixelated flash-animated shorts which could be described as "cartoons on a Super Nintendo".

Unfortunately, the show declined in quality during the second season, allegedly when it became a co-production with DIC Entertainment. I started noticing close-up shots of characters being re-used often, and it's also when the "Karaoke Cafe" segments were introduced. These were montages of previous footage set to music, sandwiched between a minute or two of new animation. What's worse is these often made up half of an episode, alongside a rerun segment for the other half. Budget problems, I assume.

This was great!

[crappyemailrepository · 2 August 2004]

This show didn't last, more's the pity, but I have to put it up there near The Tick as one of the most brilliant, hilariously postmodern "children's" TV shows. The quotes there mean that, yeah, it was theoretically marketed to kids, but I and, I suspect, many other 20-somethings of the day who happened upon it made a point of watching it ever after.

A smelly-sock-hole-eating hero, his honest but squishy friend (never figured out what he was... a mold?), the control-freak comfort doll, and of course the closet monster composed of laundry, all animated in *genuine claymation*, not crappy CG effects!

The musical Christmas special, as Mr. Bumpy plots to voyage to the North Pole to steal Santa's bag of toys, was particularly great.

• Sean

Soo glad I finally found it after looking for so many years!

[only4chase · 10/10 · 14 April 2018]

My son and I absolutely became addicts of this show! That was about 5 years ago. We are now 14 and 34 years old and lack none of the excitement of getting to see it again!

LOVE Bumpy!!!!

[birdsonthings · 10/10 · 12 February 2022]

I absolutely love this show. I was delighted to find it after not being able to remember the title. The animation/claymation with real life backgrounds is brilliant. The voice actors are perfect. The characters are perfectly weird. The stories are cute and funny. Overall, this is just a great series that unfortunately was canceled too soon.

I LOVED IT

[Groverclevland2224 · 5 March 2004]

I only caught it a few times on its final run on toon disney and loved it. i was wondering if anyone knew if it was avalible on video or dvd. it was a great short lived show. the only times i saw it was on vacations at places with toon disney (ex. Disney world) by the time toon disney was avalible in pittsburgh most good shows were kicked off of toon disney, such shows as raw toonage, tail spin which is till on but at weird times. this was a classic claymation show which should be treated with respect and brought back on tv. but if it is availible on video then it dosen't have to come back. there are many short lived seires which should be brought back. we should start a petition to bring these shows back

****:A perfect 4 stars a really humorous series of claymation! !

[PJS-5 · 7 November 1999]

Good:All sorts of things such as the humor & claymation & the storylines & of course the music & not to mention the cast.

(Jim cummings & Rob Paulsen & Gail Mattheus of SNL & Tiny toons)

Beautiful:I dunno what to report here.

Bad:Although some may find Bumpys "Gross-out" humor attempts a little juvenille to just plain crude & disgusting not much to say here.

Ugly:That it way too short-lived on ABC.

(Although its availible on Toon Disney)

****:an excellently comic,delightful claymation show

[PJS-5 · 26 April 1999]

A rather mistreated series,(but ABC is as 2nd as bad as fox when it comes to this),of the adrenaline-surged under-the-bed monster,neat-freak but still gold-hearted blob bathroom monster,& a very kind but strong-determined rag doll(or as known as a comfort doll),you might be placed off by the fact that is has been consirdered as the "Gumby" of the 90's,don't be it has high amount of comic hijinx & well-placed in storylines(the theme & karoke cafe songs have no complaints whatsoever),the only pity is that ABC placed this off but it at least lasted a bit more than the other high-quality program Reboot.

In a love- hate relationship.

[OmegaJ17 · 27 December 2022]

I have mixed feelings about this show (that's the definition of love-hate relationship). I'm not surprised that there are people who don't think this show exists, because it's so run of the mill and bland.

First off, the things I love:

The voices are... uh... decent I guess? I hated the voices for Squishington and the cute dolls, and those were the ones I had a problem with. The only one that could be considered great was the voice of Gail matthuis' character, Molly the doll.

Speaking of characters, they're all likable. Bumpy is just a fun energetic glutton, who brings his friends on crazy and funny adventures. Squishington is the polar opposite, he's a cowardly germaphobic blob of cleaning detergent (or at least I think he's cleaning detergent, oh and did you know that he was once gonna be BROWN? For context, he lives In a toilet... think about that.) who, unlike bumpy, thinks before he acts. Finally there's Molly the doll, who seems to be the brains of the trio, and doesn't mind taking (nose) blows from her owner, but she snaps when the other two disagree with her.

Now... for the things I hate:

HOW does the animation in this cartoon get so much praise? IT LOOKS HIDEOUS! Ironically, the "cute" doll characters make me want to throw up. Ok, it's nice to look at when it's not moving, but still. Also, there are some moments when the characters are shown in this really limited and choppy cel shaded animation which somehow manages to look worse than the actual animation.

The stories are way too extreme for a show about a monster just living in someone's bed. There's one episode where A random slice of bread chases bumpy and Squishington for no apparent reason. Think that's bad? There's another episode where Molly wants to BECOME A LITERAL DOCTOR AND APPARENTLY HAS A MEDICAL LICENSE BEFOREHAND! WHAT!? And finally, for the series finale, the gang flies to the North Pole for Santa just to take Bumpy off the naughty list. I'm DEAD SERIOUS.

I don't get why some characters exist. Take destructo, a giant robot. He's supposed to be the law enforcer in the bedroom and despises Bumpy. Why does he despise Bumpy? NEVER EXPLAINED! Then there's these two aliens that want to take over earth. Said aliens are about the size of a playing card. If they wanted to conquer just the bedroom, I could see they're motives working, but AN ENTIRE PLANET? (I don't know, maybe they're like that episode from SpongeBob where plankton gets all his relatives and almost destroys the Krusty Krab)

So yeah, Bump in the night is generic, I can see people liking it, but I wouldn't recommend it. Maybe when Disney makes a reboot I'll decide if it's good or bad.