Well, I used to work at a hotdog factory
Until them robots came along
And now there is no job for me
But I get 3,000 bucks a month
Thanks to UBI!
Now we're Universal Basic Guuuuuys!
It may not sound like much
But we're still gonna tryyyyyyyy!
We're just Universal Basic Guuuuuys!
Until them robots came along
And now there is no job for me
But I get 3,000 bucks a month
Thanks to UBI!
Now we're Universal Basic Guuuuuys!
It may not sound like much
But we're still gonna tryyyyyyyy!
We're just Universal Basic Guuuuuys!
Universal Basic Guys is an 2024 Animated Sitcom created by Adam and Craig Malamut that premiered on September 8, 2024 on Fox. The show centers around a group of Pennsylvania factory workers who are enrolled in a Universal Basic Income pilot program when their jobs are taken over by AI-powered robots, and left with a monthly income and a lot of free time to get into trouble.
Tropes:
- Amazon Brigade: Tammy discovers that the wives of the members of a men-only country club run a secret paramilitary organization that fights female oppression around the globe; they only let the men run the country club to keep them busy.
- Brilliant, but Lazy: Season 2, Episode 10 shows that when Mark is willing to put in the work, he is actually pretty smart. However, his tendency to act first, think later (along with being incredibly petty at times) means this aspect of his character is rarely shown.
- Body Horror:
- Mark spends much of "Pet Projects" with his face torn off. He gets a low quality skin graft that is a patchwork of decaying skin tissue.
- "I Am Jar" has Mark able to pull off the jar trick by literally breaking every bone in his body and being stuffed inside before they can reset. When he emerges from the jar, he's a gelatinous mess.
- In "Two Marks", a malfunctioning teleportation device creates a misshapen clone of Mark with all his body parts mixed up.
- Butt-Monkey: Mark's friend and neighbor David appears to be the universe's punching bag, as he's frequently getting injured or inconvenienced by Mark's shenanigans. In the second episode, he breaks his manhood while on a cruise due to Mark trying to catch a whale, and in the third episode, Mark orders a sex doll (to use as a crash-test dummy) and has it delivered to David's house to avoid getting in trouble with Tammy...which just gets David in trouble with his wife Andrea. And even when Mark isn't involved, things rarely go David's way, such as failing to bond with his niece and nephew in an attempt to prove to Andrea that he's ready to be a father.
- Cool Old Guy: Artie, the factory's former head technician who despite his technological expertise was laid off alongside Mark and Hank because the robots are instead fixed by other robots.
- Crash Course Landing: In "Fight or Flight", Mark accidentally incapacitates both pilots on a plane and decides to fly it himself, as he's been playing on a flight simulator. The flight coordinator tries to talk him through landing the plane, but Mark, stubborn as he is, ignores all his commands and lands it his way, by doing a barrel roll (his "signature move"). He manages to land the plane safely... upside down.
- Devil in Plain Sight: "Poconos" has Mark, Hank, Tammy and Darren playing a magic board game called "Witch Trials" where the players must figure out who the witch is in a line of suspects lest they all lose their lives. Mark insists that it's the one who most fits the stereotypical witch appearance, only for Tammy to repeatedly claim that the creator would never make the answer so stupidly obvious and must be some kind of Reverse Psychology trick. Turns out the answer actually is that stupidly obvious, as the game was made by a member of the Hoagies family who was a real witch and based the culprit off herself.
- Fantastically Indifferent: Zig-zagged; things like trolls are interesting enough to be the subject of rumors, and mermaids like to keep their existence under wraps, but stuff like the Jersey Devil and being trapped in a board game cursed by your witch ancestor aren't something the characters are that shocked to experience or scrambling to tell anyone else about.
- Fleeting Passionate Hobbies: The episodes take on a hobby of the weak structure with the Mark and the gang coaching hockey, opening up a coffee shop, going skiing, trying to become a great magician and more. It ties into the theme of the show that without a need for income the characters are free to pursue their desires.
- Genre Savvy: The judge who sentences Mark after he injures a biker with his car. She describes her method of sentencing as quirky and uses what appears to be a styrofoam gavel. She clearly knows she is in a sitcom and has to move the plot along in a comic way.
- Improperly Paranoid: Hank gets detained by airport security because his baggage is filled entirely with hot dogs and, even though all tests show that they are perfectly mundane and he has no criminal record, airport security refuses to take him at face value and are convinced he's some kind of covert terrorist mastermind.
- Job-Stealing Robot: The central premise of the show, as shown in the opening sequence, is that Mark and Hank lost their jobs at the hot dog factory when it became fully automated. To compensate, they are given a $3,000 monthly check as part of a Universal Basic Income program, which gives them lots of free time for shenanigans. "Jaws of Life" reveals that even the factory's head technician Artie was let go, because the robots are apparently instead fixed by other robots, who are themselves fixed by other robots, and so on.
- Kindhearted Simpleton: Hank is frequently shown to not have much going on upstairs, but he's one of the nicest guys in the main cast.
- Know-Nothing Know-It-All: Mark always talks like he knows what he's doing, but it's perfectly clear that he does not.
- Major Injury Underreaction: Mark gets his face ripped off by a monkey. Rather than scream in agony, he mostly acts annoyed and is more concerned with Tammy finding out.
- Manchild: Mark and Hank act incredibly immature. In the fourth episode, the head of the country club they're going to outright calls them man children.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: In "Fight or Flight", the pilot bears an unmistakable resemblance to Sully Sullenberger.
- Not So Above It All: While usually one of the voices of reason in the setting, Tammy proves on multiple occasions that she can be just as childish and petty as what Mark is.
- Paper People: In “Down the Shore”, Hank falls into a taffy machine and is stretched out thin. He is later used as a sail on a boat.
- Read the Freaking Manual: Mark buys a Jaws of Life and refuses to read the instructions manual, thinking there's a tutorial video on YouTube... which he doesn't watch because it's 11 minutes long. The first time he tries to use it, it pins him to a jungle gym and the firefighters have to use their Jaws of Life to free Mark from his Jaws of Life.
- Real After All: In "Bird Cage", there are mentions of a jail underneath Eagles Stadium, as well as trolls under the Benjamin Franklin Bridge, which are dismissed as rumors. Both turn out to be very real.
- Sex Sells: On "Mark Men", Mark pitches this tried-and-true approach to advertise a retirement home, showing pictures of elderly people in suggestive situations, including one not shown to the audience that the others find revolting.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Parodied on "Sheet Shock" when Mark joins the Marines but quits on the first day of training after he fails to make his bed, acting like he's just gone through war for the rest of the episode.
- Simpleton Voice: Hank.
- Skewed Priorities:
- Mark. He won't have a necessary reconstructive surgery because he thinks Tammy is flirting with the doctor who performs it. He is so desperate to catch a fish to show off that he will let a whale drag the boat he's on into the open ocean.
- In "Guy's Day", Tammy is determined to play golf at a men's-only country club. The owner's wife recruits Tammy to a secret organization to help women and girls around the world, revealing the country club acts as a "placebo" to keep their husbands occupied while the wives use their money for good. Tammy, however, can't get over the desire to play at the country club, eventually abandoning the organization.
- In "Mark Men", Tammy refuses to let a dangerous Russian mobster die because she took the Hippocratic Oath, even when there are children who need his organs, up until he mocks her new haircut.
- Sliding Scale of Realistic vs. Fantastic: This show falls into the Unusual parameter. We have things like Mark still being functional after getting his face ripped off by a monkey that turns out to have a super intelligent side. Things like the Jersey Devil, mermaids, trolls and witches are also real.
- Tear Off Your Face: In the pilot, Mark buys Tammy an old chimpanzee, which tears his face off.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Hank really loves hot dogs. He once left a woman who was perfect for him just because she didn’t like hot dogs. He was also detained by airport security for carrying hundreds of them in his suitcase, as well as carrying the buns and seasonings strapped around his person like a suicide vest.
- Weirdness Magnet: Out of the main cast, Hank finds himself in bizarre situations the most often and tends to have a very downplayed reaction.
