By: Reiko Hungee Jing Tong (24J08)
I love cartoons. As someone who grew up watching Cartoon Network every day, something about animations just appeals to me more than real actors. So it’s safe to say that when I saw that the first 3 seasons of Regular Show had been uploaded onto Netflix, I was very excited.
For any of you who are unfamiliar, Regular Show is a cartoon that aired a few years ago on Cartoon Network. It follows a quirky cast of park workers, mainly the anthropomorphic raccoon and bluejay, Rigby and Mordecai. It was made popular by all the absurd adventures the characters go on, such as accidentally causing their friend to lose his immortality (S1E5, Free Cake) or battling a British Taxi (S2E1, Ello Gov’nor).
A poster featuring Mordecai and Rigby. (Credits: Cartoon Network)
I had watched this show regularly (pun intended) as a child but that was ages ago. Hence, I decided to click on it and see if the show still held up.
And boy, did it.
I finished all the episodes listed on Netflix within 2 days, which unfortunately only covered 3 out of 8 seasons. Although each episode is only about 11 minutes long, I enjoyed every bit of it and was scrambling to find a platform where I could binge the rest of the seasons. After watching all the episodes in one go, something struck me. I noticed a pattern that had flown right past younger me.
Rigby is an incredibly terrible friend to Mordecai and the rest of the characters. He is so insufferable that you wonder why Mordecai keeps up the friendship. The climax of most episodes happens because Rigby makes a mistake that Mordecai has to clean up. Their relationship is very toxic, and I am here to lay it all out for you. So if you have any friends who possess the following traits, it might be time to rethink your relationship…
1. Rigby is selfish
Rigby regularly does things for his own benefit without considering how it will affect others. Sometimes, he even knowingly causes harm to others for his own sake. In the episode “Fortune Cookie” (S3E13), Rigby opens his fortune cookie only to find that bad luck is coming his way. Hence, he secretly trades fortunes with Benson, his boss who has been on a streak of good luck lately. Following this, Benson’s days of horrendous luck begin. He continuously gets injured, misses the bus, gets beaten up, and is even evicted from his apartment.
Rigby secretly switching his fortune for Benson’s. (Credits: Cartoon Network)
Meanwhile, Rigby is having the time of life, with food falling from the sky, chasing money down the street, not getting run over by cars, and winning every game he plays. In fact, Rigby is so good at video games that he is approached to be on the cover of the magazine, Video Game Monthly. When Mordecai confronts him, saying that all this glory belongs to Benson, Rigby says, “No way! My life’s never been better.” Although Rigby eventually admits to Benson what he had done, he only does so after a warlock threatens to destroy the park. Rigby never considers all the torture he put Benson through, blinded by all the good things happening in his life. He also never lends a helping hand to Benson, who has basically lost everything. I mean, what kind of friend does that?
Another example of this is in the episode “Eggscellent” (S3E17), where Rigby and Mordecai try to win the coveted “I’m Eggscellent'' hat by eating a huge, 12-egg omelette. While Rigby is more willing than Mordecai, Mordecai goes along with the plan to make his friend happy. However, Rigby does not disclose that he is allergic to eggs and therefore falls into an anaphylactic coma. Before he passes out, he makes Mordecai promise to get the hat for him.
Mordecai, being a good friend, trains for months to take on the omelette. While eating, he has to battle the restaurant staff, who desperately do not want him to finish the meal. Despite almost dying along the way, he wins the hat for Rigby. However, Rigby, ever ungrateful, sees a commercial for another eating contest and, forgetting about his hat, asks Mordecai to join the new contest. Rigby, who knows how much of a challenge it was to get the hat, still made his friend do it. Furthermore, he was not grateful at all for all the turmoil he put his friends through, even asking them to do it again. Hence, Rigby is very selfish.
Rigby awakened from the coma, wearing the hat Mordecai worked so hard to win.
(Credits: Cartoon Network)
2. Rigby is manipulative
Rigby often uses manipulative tactics to get what he wants, which is definitely not a trait of a good friend. One such example of this is when he manipulates Mordecai into slacking off during their job, getting them both in trouble. In “Just Set Up the Chairs” (S1E2), the duo are tasked by Benson to set up chairs for a birthday party that is being held in the park. After a while, Rigby gets bored and finds a room full of old-school arcade games – a hobby of his and Mordecai’s. While Mordecai wants to get back to doing their job so that Benson does not fire them, Rigby insists on staying to play, asking Mordecai, “Do you want to be boring forever?” Mordecai probably should have stood his ground firmer, as he ends up getting tricked into “taking a break” with Rigby. Every time he decides to continue setting up the chairs, Rigby comes up with a new manipulative line that plays into Mordecai’s weaknesses, and the pair end up playing a game so intense that the game character tries to burn down the park.
The duo arguing about whether or not to slack off. (Credits: Cartoon Network)
On another occasion, Mordecai is training for the “Game Inferno Tournament”, a video game competition. He teams up with his colleague, Skips the Yeti. Rigby proves to be very bad at the game, but he wants to compete, hence he begs Mordecai to switch Skips out for him. He even badmouths Skips, who has helped him out countless times. Mordecai refuses. However, on the way to the competition, Rigby incessantly tries to guilt-trip Mordecai, making him feel bad for “not picking his best friend”.
He even threatens to break off their friendship. Tired of all of Rigby’s shenanigans, Mordecai enters the tournament with Skips, but with Rigby as an alternate player. Skips senses the tension between the two, and injures himself at the final stage of the tournament, allowing Rigby to compete alongside Mordecai.
Mordecai and Rigby enter the final leg of the tournament together. (Credits: Cartoon Network)
But when it matters most that Rigby gives it his all to play the game, he begins to realise his incompetence at it. Lamenting that the team is going to lose the competition because of him, Rigby plays the victim, as if he wasn’t harassing Mordecai and guilt-tripping him a few hours ago. Although they win with the power of friendship, Rigby still should not have manipulated Mordecai like that and given him such intense emotional whiplash. In both examples, Rigby’s exploitation of their friendship gets them both into deep pits of trouble and places many challenges in their path, challenges that could have been avoided if Rigby had just been a decent friend.
3. Rigby does not abide by the Bro-Code
Finally, Rigby is a terrible friend because he does not abide by the rules written in the Bro-Code. Specifically, the rules about “not going after someone that your friend likes” and “not throwing your friend under the bus to impress someone”. When Mordecai finally gathers the courage to ask Margaret, his longtime crush, out to see a movie with him, he forgoes seeing a zombie movie with Rigby. To mess with Mordecai, Rigby interrupts him while he’s talking to Margaret to make a joke that puts him down. He does this repeatedly and begins flirting with Margaret, even though he’s not interested in her, just to upset Mordecai.
Rigby asks Margaret to see a movie with him, just to make Mordecai mad.
(Credits: Cartoon Network)
When Mordecai tries to ask Margaret out again, Rigby beats him to it, inviting her to see the zombie movie with him instead. Rigby feels no remorse while Mordecai sulks, even bragging to him. I think this is low, even for Rigby. Mordecai has been working up the courage for so long, only to have it all ruined by his so-called best friend. A true friend would never break the rules of the Bro-Code like that.
In conclusion, Rigby is not a great guy/raccoon. And Mordecai’s soft approach to their relationship definitely enables Rigby’s behaviour. However, you might be pleased to know that he does, in fact, go through some character development in the later seasons. I have spent way too much time watching this cartoon, but it did make me more aware of toxic friendships that the younger me missed, even within a seemingly silly show. Though there are no such people like that around me, I guess I have learned something valuable from my time spent holed up watching this.
The duo and their friends who work at the park! (Credits: Cartoon Network)
I hope that there will be no Rigby's in your life, but if there are, may you be better than Mordecai at standing up for yourself!
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