Monsters at Work – Episodes 1-2 Recap & Review

Welcome To Monsters Inc

Episodes 1 and 2 of Monsters at Work serves as an introduction to our world and characters, beginning with big changes at Monsters Inc. Sulley is made the CEO while Roz has news of her own. Her sister Roze is about to arrive and she’s going to oversee the big changes.

With scaring on the way out and laughs now the new norm, many monsters find themselves scared and worried about unemployment. In fact, some are just plain not funny. This big series of changes is just what Tylor Tuskmon doesn’t want. His world is turned upside down when he arrives at Monsters Inc, fresh off of graduating from scare school.

He’s sent over to MIFT, a branch of Monsters Inc which is responsible for repairs and engineering works. There are a number of characters here, including deputy supervisor Duncan and former university friend Val.

After a comedy of errors, Tylor decides to leave after failing to make a kid laugh. It then falls to Sulley and Mike to convince him to stick around and come up with new ideas for Monsters Inc.

Mike is going to start comedy classes while settling on the new slogan “It’s laughter we’re after.” The monsters have mixed ideas about this though.

Fritz and Val are there to greet Tylor as a new day rolls round. Our newcomer prepares for his second day at work, including a big initiation ceremony for him. There’s an air of Finding Nemo with the way they chant his name, although Tylor’s attempt to “wrench the nut” goes completely wrong.

The changes around Monsters Inc are causing a mixed bag of fortunes across the company. Power outages are causing Mike to work 18 hours straight, singlehandedly keeping the power going. There’s a lovely parallel to the way Sulley was the head honcho during the scare routines here and the show does a great job of emulating that.

Anyway, with a comedy class coming up and Mike struggling to stay awake, he eventually takes some energy drink which keeps him going. Between comedy class and making kids laugh, Mike is stretched thin. Unfortunately he also finds himself trapped inside a door.

With power down, Tylor soon learns the true worth of the MIFTers as they hurriedly save the day and prove him completely wrong. They’re not as useless as he first thought and actually work really well as a team.

On the back of this, Winchester (the farting three-eyed monster with the MIFTers) is promoted to the laugh floor after acing comedy theory. Tylor however, is happy for him and decides to stick around with the MIFT gang for the time being.

The Episode Review

Monsters at Work kicks off this new Pixar series with a decent animated effort, one that leans into the Monsters Inc mythology while progressing forward past the films into serial territory.

The whole idea of the workplace being transformed from scaring into laughing was one of the more ingenious ideas of the original film and this series explores the pros and cons of this change.

With Sulley and Mike now in charge, returning faces like Roz and Celia help to give this show some authenticity. The new characters are bubbly and suitably weird too, while Tylor is both relatable and easy to warm to with his fish-out-of-water storyline.

Each episode looks set to follow a progressive episodic format, with the first chapter here serving as an introduction to the world and our characters. The second is much more thematic in structure, with the whole “don’t judge a book by its cover” motif played out in satisfying fashion.

The ending certainly promises lots more drama to come, and this could prove to be quite the enjoyable midweek romp.