Free for All
The main cast ofFree for All. From left to right: Angus, Sylvia Jenkins, Douglas Jenkins, Johnny Jenkins, Clay Zeeman, and Paula Wisconsin.
Genre	Sitcom Off-color humor Satire
Created by	Brett Merhar
Developed by	Merriwether Williams
Directed by	Dave Marshall
Voices of	Jonathan Silverman Brett Merhar Sam McMurray Mitzi McCall Juliette Lewis Dee Bradley Baker
Opening theme	Free for All by Felix the Cat
Ending theme	Free for All (instrumental)
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	7
Production
Executive producers	Merriwether Williams Brett Merhar
Editor	Gil Ferro
Running time	24–26 minutes
Production companies	Film Roman Showtime Networks
Original release
Network	Showtime
Release	July 11 (2003-07-11) – September 12, 2003 (2003-09-12)

Free for All is an Americananimated sitcom created by Randall Brett Merhar^[1] forShowtime. The series, set inColorado, follows the day-to-day life of Johnny Jenkins, an innocent 19-year-old college student who has to deal with a bitter, cigarette smoking grandmother and a coarse, sometimes-violent, alcoholic father, in a ratherdysfunctional family while his friend, Clay, is living large with the settlement money he got from suing a taco restaurant for personal injuries.^[2]

The show was developed for television by Merriwether Williams, the head writer for the first three seasons ofSpongeBob SquarePants.^[3] The show lasted for only seven episodes that aired over the summer of 2003, the last ending on a cliff-hanger. Despite favorable to mixed reviews from critics, the show had very low ratings, due to poor promotion and basing the series on an already-unsuccessful property.Showtime canceled the animated series shortly after the last episode aired. Though the series is now considered "obscure" and no DVD release has been planned for it, the entire series is legally available oniTunes andAmazon.com.

In America, the series was rated TV-MA for explicit sexual content, including nudity and scenes of sexual intercourse (S), extremely offensive language (L), and adult content (AD on Showtime's content warning screen).

• Johnny Jenkins, the main character of the series, is a quiet, shy, blond nineteen-year-old and the main character of the show. Johnny wears blue jeans, sneakers and a black T-shirt whose anthropomorphic smiley face mimics Johnny's real expression or emotion (which goes completely unnoticed by other characters). When the naive Johnny isn't getting into trouble through his own fault, he is usually being bullied or pressured into dangerous, reckless and bizarre rituals of immature privilege by his rich best friend, Clay Zeeman.
• Clay Zeeman is a tall, charismatic, cunning, and evil friend of Johnny's. Having become filthy-rich before the story plot by faking an accident at Taco Hell, Clay now lives with his ferret Angus (which he rescued from an animal testing lab) in a luxury penthouse apartment on top of a skyscraper. Yet, he repeatedly commits insurance fraud and tax evasion to further increase his fortune. His obsession with money drives him to attempt to bribe and blackmail IRS employees and beat up his own friends just because they don't argue in favor of tax cuts like he does. Clay prefers to spend his masses of leisure time either playing video games and consuming drugs with Angus or with women in hisFerrari. He has tall, spiked, orange hair.
• Angus is Clay's manic, attitudinal and violent drug-addicted petferret. Angus regularly consumes any drug imaginable (Vicodin, marijuana, wood glue, cocaine, and experimental fertility drugs to name a few). He is typically worn like a stole around Clay's neck much of the time when he is not in a social setting. He is physically cruel to Johnny, and his actions include defecating into his shoes and biting his genitals. In each episode, Angus goes into a drug induced fantasy which usually alludes to his sub-plot.
• Sylvia Jenkins is Johnny's ancient, wrinkled, nymphomaniac and chain-smoking grandmother, who is ashamed of her entire family, particularly of her son Douglas (Johnny's father). Sylvia, Douglas and Johnny live in the same house, which is a cause for frequent tensions. Sylvia has lusted over and successfully had a large number of men, some of which include Clay Zeeman,Eminem, an army ranking officer, an ogre, a doctor's husband andTom Jones. She frequently torments Johnny about him having the room upstairs that she wants deeply, even to the point of being willing to quit her 100-year record of smoking. Her menacing cackle is usually cut short due to an attack of smoker's lung.
• Douglas Jenkins, Johnny's father, is an overweight severe alcoholic, suffers from incontinence and is occasionally prone to violence. He carries out his job as an office supplies salesman with a particular lack of success and, due to his chronic bankruptcy, constantly attempts to get Clay to invest in useless business ideas. Clay, however, always rejects due to his lack of respect for Douglas. In the seventh episode, he finally gets Clay to invest in the idea of a bar exclusively for tall people (Clay was bullied for his height as a child). However, Clay ends up firing Douglas due to his instability, questionable behavior towards guests and overall incompetence. Douglas has blond hair (like his son Johnny), a mustache, and a round belly. At all times, he is either drunk or depressed; nonetheless he is always helpless and dependent. Douglas has absolutely no respect for Johnny, as in his eyes, Johnny ruined his life as an unintended child. His mother always seems to be solving all of his problems, even if it means by arranging a date or handling the excesses of his incontinence.
• Paula Wisconsin is Johnny's next door neighbor, his childhood friend, and object of his desire. Johnny is hopelessly in love with Paula that is unrequited due to Johnny's reluctance of admitting his love and Paula's obliviousness. Most episodes revolve around Johnny getting himself into awkward situations as an attempt to impress Paula. While Paula is supportive of Johnny's escapades, she still remains completely in the dark about his true intentions. It is somewhat implied that Paula is not liked by most people, as some scenes have shown that many people she encounters (including Sylvia) refer to her as a, "tree-hugging bitch" due to her vapid pretentiousness.
• Omar is Johnny's best friend who is of Indian heritage. He attends the same college and is just as immature, naive and shy, sometimes even more extremely than Johnny. The two of them frequently become victims of violence, mostly by Johnny's father or by their "classmates".
• Johnny's mother does not appear in the series, her name is not mentioned. In the first episode, Douglas states to Johnny that they met during his half year at college and she skipped town after giving birth, leaving Douglas to raise Johnny alone.

In 1992,Free for All began life as an alternative comic strip published in college newspapers. The comic became nationally syndicated shortly afterwards, but eventually ended in 1998. A shortpilot for the series - which was never aired on television - was made in 2001. Brett Merhar pitched the show to Showtime in 2001 as an animated series, wanting to do edgier jokes than what he could do in the comic. He brought in a friend of his, Merriwether Williams, who was, at the time, the head writer for Nickelodeon'sSpongeBob SquarePants. She worked onFree for All as showrunner and head writer alongside her duties as writer forSpongeBob SquarePants.

The show had three writers: Jeff Poliquin (future writer forComedy Central's short-lived animated sitcomUgly Americans, and former writer forThe Simpsons video games), Gil Ferro (who also served as the show's editor), and Williams herself; Brett Merhar, from Rapid City, South Dakota,^[4] also co-wrote the first episode, "The Deal", with Williams.

The show had an all star cast:

• Jonathan Silverman, from the 1980s farce/dark comedyWeekend at Bernie's, was the voice actor for Johnny.
• Brett Merhar himself voiced Clay Zeeman (originally,Jeremy Piven was going to voice Clay, but Piven turned down the offer).
• Longtime voice actorDee Bradley Baker provided vocal effects for Angus the ferret.
• Juliette Lewis, known for such films asNational Lampoon's Christmas Vacation andNatural Born Killers, voiced next-door neighbor Paula Wisconsin.
• Mitzi McCall voiced Sylvia Jenkins.
• Sam McMurray (who did voicework on such shows asDinosaurs andThe Simpsons) was the voice of Johnny's father, Douglas.

The show's animation was interesting, as it was a combination of CGILightWave animation (cars/some buildings/panning backgrounds), and traditional hand drawn animation/backgrounds - drawn in pencil and ink on animation paper, then scanned into a computer and colored withWacom tablets onToonBoom Harmony. The show's animation was produced atFilm Roman inLos Angeles and outraced toSouth Korea. Dave Marshall, a former animation director forAnimaniacs, was the series director. William Reiss andC. H. Greenblatt, twoSpongeBob SquarePants veterans, worked on the show as storyboard artists. The two of them would go on to work on the Disney Channel hit seriesFish Hooks, while C. H. Greenblatt would also go on to createChowder forCartoon Network, andHarvey Beaks forNickelodeon. BothFish Hooks andChowder would become far more successful and profitable thanFree for All.

The show was also one of the first animated series to be broadcast in high definition.Free for All once held the distinction of being the first, and only, animated sitcom to air on Showtime up until the seriesOur Cartoon President in 2018. It is currently also the only traditionally animated, half-hour sitcom to air on a premium network (HBO has had six different animated shows, thoughThe Ricky Gervais Show was not a sitcom, and was animated onAdobe Flash using the puppet tool.The Life and Times of Tim, while it was a sitcom, was composed of two eleven-minute segments, and was created digitally withPhotoshop andAfter Effects, andSpawn andSpicy City were, while traditionally animated, serial dramas rather than sitcoms).

After the show was canceled, Merhar went on to create a web series withGabor Csupo titledBeverly Hills Anger Management, which premiered onYouTube in 2007. He was beaten to death in July 2016.^[5] Williams went on to write for Cartoon Network'sCamp Lazlo as the head writer, as well asJohnny Test (also on Cartoon Network),My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic (onThe Hub, now Discovery Family), andPound Puppies (also on The Hub/Discovery Family).

• Free for All atIMDb 

• 2000s American adult animated television series
• 2000s American sitcoms
• 2003 American animated television series debuts
• 2003 American television series endings
• American adult animated comedy television series
• American animated sitcoms
• American English-language television shows
• Fictional ferrets
• Television series by Film Roman
• Showtime (TV network) original programming
• Television shows based on comic strips
• Animated television series about dysfunctional families
• Television series by CBS Studios
• Television shows set in Colorado
• Television shows based on American comics

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from March 2025