Late in the first season of the Netflix animated comedy “Mating Season,” the protagonists — beta bear Josh (Zach Woods), randy raccoon Ray (Nick Kroll), Sapphic fox Penelope (Sabrina Jalees) and single deer Fawn (June Diane Raphael) — gather on the couch to watch “MiceFlix.” (Is the concept even a feeble attempt at a pun? No! It’s literally two mice in a box.) The foursome are disgusted to find themselves watching “some show called ‘Big Mouse,’” in which a horny beast urges children to do unspeakable things. “They should arrest whoever made this,” Josh sighs.
The scene is not an unprovoked dig at a rival for the title of lewdest cartoon on streaming, but a winking acknowledgment of shared heritage. “Mating Season” may not be an official spinoff of “Big Mouth,” like the short-lived “Human Resources,” but it does share a creative team in Kroll, Andrew Goldberg, Jennifer Flackett and Mark Levin — the same quartet who landed on the visual metaphor of Hormone Monsters for the universal experience of puberty. The subject matter of “Mating Season” isn’t nearly as unique; rather than the precarious middle ground between childhood and adolescence, the show dramatizes the same phase of adult singledom as countless live action shows, like “Friends” or “Sex and the City.” The raunch factor, however, is the same, and that’ll be more than enough for fans missing “Big Mouth” after its conclusion last year. There’s less insight into an under-explored life experience than in the earlier show, if about the same level of laughs.
