The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy

The show's main characters. From left to right: Billy, Mandy, and Grim.

The series is centered around the exploits of Billy (Richard Steven Horvitz), an idiotic and happy-go-lucky boy; Mandy (Grey DeLisle), a cynical and cold-hearted girl; and Grim (Greg Eagles), a Jamaican-accented Reaper. After Billy and Mandy cheated at a limbo match against Grim (in retaliation for putting the limbo rod too low for them to go under), he is enslaved in a permanently unwanted friendship with the children.[1] Grim is miserable in the first days of his servitude, and even fantasizes about killing them multiple times. However, as the time passes, he gradually adapts to the new life, and even grows to care for Billy and Mandy, if only somewhat. Despite this, he retains a love–hate relationship with the two and desires to eventually break free from his servitude.

Billy and Mandy use Grim's supernatural abilities and powers to venture into supernatural locations or environments, such as the Underworld, or the Netherworld, inhabited by an assortment of grotesque monstrous beasts. The pair also use Grim's enormously strong supernatural abilities or ties with a number of beastly characters to achieve goals or desires for themselves, often with twisted results. Famed fictional monsters including Dracula, the Wolfman, and the bogeyman are also comically depicted in the series.

Supporting characters include Irwin (Vanessa Marshall), Billy's nerdy best friend who has a crush on Mandy; Harold (Richard Steven Horvitz), Billy's father who shares his son's stupidity; Gladys (Jennifer Hale), Billy's loving yet mentally unstable mother; Mindy (Rachael MacFarlane), the snobby, stuck-up, and spoiled queen bee of Billy and Mandy's school; Sperg (Greg Eagles), the local bully who has a sensitive side; Hoss Delgado (Diedrich Bader), an overly-intense "spectral exterminator" who hunts supernatural creatures; Nergal (David Warner/Martin Jarvis), a friendship-seeking demon who later marries Billy's aunt and bears a son, Nergal Jr. (Debi Derryberry); General Skarr (Armin Shimerman), Billy's ill-tempered next door neighbor who originated in the Evil Con Carne animated series; and Jeff (Maxwell Atoms), a giant spider constantly trying to win the approval of the arachnophobic Billy, whom he sees as his father.

The show lacks continuity for the most part, as many episodes end with characters killed, exiled, or stuck in a situation. Characters sometimes display an awareness of some events from previous episodes, but there are no clear character arcs or coherent plot lines tying the show together.

The series had its genesis in 1995, when Maxwell Atoms, while he was a junior at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, made a two-minute short film for his thesis project. Titled Billy and Mandy in: The Trepanation of the Skull and You, it centers around Billy and Mandy (prototype versions) discussing trepanning with each other. In the end, Mandy drills Billy's head, causing him to pass out after too much blood loss even though he says he feels great. The short had never been shown publicly until April 30, 2016, during the first annual TromAnimation Film Festival.[2] After the screening, Atoms uploaded the film to his YouTube channel, albeit in a deteriorating state after years of storage.

While working on the first season of Cow and Chicken, Atoms was approached by Hanna-Barbera executives for ideas for new short films. Among the ideas he presented to Hanna-Barbera was "Milkman", centering on an anthropomorphic, superhero milk carton who saves the missing children depicted on his back. Though the idea was rejected, executives were interested in Billy and Mandy, two characters that were to be featured in the project.[3] Atoms was prompted to devise a series centering on the two children. Feeling that the characters Billy and Mandy would not be enough to carry a show, he began devising a third character to round out the main cast. He was always fascinated by the idea of a little girl befriending the Devil or the grim reaper, but eventually settled on the latter, as Cartoon Network did not approve of depictions of the devil after Cow and Chicken. Atoms pitched the Billy & Mandy concept to Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon, to which Cartoon Network approved the production of a short film 6 months later (which would become the short/pilot Meet the Reaper).[3]

The show was put into full production after the result of a viewer poll event by way of telephone and the Internet called Cartoon Network's Big Pick which was held from June 16 to August 25, 2000.[4][5] The three final choices were The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy, Whatever Happened to... Robot Jones?, and Longhair and Doubledome.[4] Out of the three, Billy & Mandy attained the most votes with 57%; Robot Jones came in second place at 23% while Longhair and Doubledome received 20% of the vote.[4]

Originally part of Grim & Evil, Billy & Mandy served as the main show. In each episode, an Evil Con Carne short was put between two Grim shorts.[5] An original Evil Con Carne short was produced in 2000 after Meet the Reaper, but Cartoon Network wanted to combine the series, to have a "B cartoon" as a middle segment (similar to the Dial M For Monkey and The Justice Friends shorts in Dexter's Laboratory, or the I Am Weasel segment on Cow and Chicken).[3] On occasion, it was the other way around, with two Evil shorts and one Grim short. The series premiered on August 24, 2001, during the Cartoon Cartoon Fridays Big Pick Weekend.

Another batch of 13 half-hour episodes were produced for Grim & Evil, but on June 13, 2003, the network separated the two segments and gave each their own half-hour program. The split came as a result of Cartoon Network wanting to move away from three 7-minute segments and focus on two 11-minute segments instead.[3] After both series aired their respective new seasons, the network gave Atoms a decision to continue one series, while the other would be dropped from production. Atoms opted to continue Billy & Mandy and accepted the network's decision, as he considered running both shows stressful.[3] Evil Con Carne characters occasionally appear on The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. General Skarr was introduced into the show as a recurring character beginning in Season 2's "Skarred for Life", where he became Billy's new next-door neighbor.[6] In "Company Halt", the ninth episode of the final season which also functions as the true series finale for Evil Con Carne, Ghastly, Hector, Boskov, and Stomach restart their evil organization and convince Skarr to rejoin them, but their plans are ultimately foiled by Billy and Mandy, and Skarr goes back to living his life as a normal person.[7]

On March 20, 2022, Craig McCracken revealed that years ago on Cartoon Network there were plans for a spinoff series titled Cheeseburger featuring Fred Fredburger and Cheese from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, but the idea never gained traction.[8]

Atoms confirmed in 2021 that the three main characters of the show are on the autism spectrum, having been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome late in life. He likened Mandy to "the cold, rational way [he] learned to view the world in order to survive", Billy to "the fun and joyous inner-world where [Atoms likes] to spend [his] time" and Grim to "the moral mediator between the two."[9]

The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy currently airs in reruns on Checkered Past.

Grim will appear in a Jellystone! special.[10]

Common Sense Media gave the show a 3/5 star rating and stated that it has "goofy punchlines and obscure cultural references" and recommends the viewer age be at least 8 years old.[11]

Three television films were produced:

• Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure (2007)[17] sees Grim stripped of his powers by the underworld, and Billy, Mandy, Grim, and Irwin must race the Boogey Man and his crew of monster pirates to capture a powerful artefact capable of making whoever wields it into the scariest being alive.
• Billy & Mandy: Wrath of the Spider Queen (2007) follows a spider queen from Grim's distant past, who seeks revenge because she was meant to be the reaper. Meanwhile, Billy learns to love his spider son Jeff.[18]
• Underfist: Halloween Bash (2008) focuses on Irwin, Jeff, Hoss, Skarr, and Fred inadvertently coming together to defeat an invasion of chocolate bar monsters, led by an evil marshmallow bunny, on Halloween night.[19]

The first season was first released on DVD by Warner Home Video on September 18, 2007. Collection 2 released February 11, 2010, in Australia and New Zealand and contains the next 13 episodes in the series.

The entire series is available on iTunes and Amazon Prime in six volumes, with the exceptions of Billy & Mandy Save Christmas, Billy & Mandy's Big Boogey Adventure and Underfist: Halloween Bash.

On January 1, 2021, The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy was added to HBO Max in United States.[27]

Wikiquote has quotations related to The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.

• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy at The Big Cartoon DataBase
• The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy at IMDb
• Markstein, Donald D. "The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy". Toonopedia. Archived from the original on September 1, 2016.