Parents' Guide to Big Mouth

This animated comedy gets some important things right: Sex can be scary, other people are complicated, and there are a lot of laughs to be mined from growing up. That it's a bit too raunchy and frank to allow parents to be comfortable showing it to -- or watching it with -- the very teens the show intimately understands is ironic, but these teens could do worse than watching a show that talks frankly about feeling weird about your body, normalizing these complex topics in a surprisingly sweet way. The great thing about Big Mouth is that it has bawdy jokes aplenty, and moments where characters genuinely connect (particularly as seasons move on and the characters mature, both as characters and in their relationships with each other).

You may wince along with Nick when his parents discuss their sexual compatibility in graphic terms, but we've seen scenes like this before. What's rarer, and far better, are moments when characters talk to each other like real, unguarded people. One episode revolves around Nick getting a good look at Andrew's penis, which he views as more impressive than his own. Threatened, he snubs his friend until Andrew begs to know "Why are you being so mean to me? What did I do?" Nick admits exactly what's wrong -- and with the embarrassing confession on the table, all the two good friends can do is laugh at themselves, and each other. "It's embarrassing," says Nick, rueful. "Everything's embarrassing," counters Andrew. It is. But it's a little less so when a show like this makes you feel so normal.