Eddie Murphy was at the top of the world in the late nineties. He’d just come off the massive success of The Nutty Professor and Dr. Dolittle, proving he could dominate the family-friendly box office. But then he did something weird. He went to Fox with a concept for a prime-time animated sitcom about life in the projects. It wasn't clean. It wasn't "Disney-fied." It was The PJs, a show that used a labor-intensive animation style called "Foamation" to tell stories about a side of American life that television usually ignored or caricatured.
Honestly, looking back at The PJs in 2026, it’s wild it ever got made.
The show centered on Thurgood Stubbs, the grumpy, short-tempered superintendent of the Hilton-Jacobs projects. He lived there with his wife Muriel, voiced by the legendary Loretta Devine. It was a show about poverty, urban decay, and community, but it was also hilarious. It didn't feel like a lecture. It felt like a neighborhood.
What People Get Wrong About the Animation
People often call The PJs "claymation." It’s a common mistake. If you actually look at the production credits from Will Vinton Studios—the same geniuses behind the California Raisins—they used a proprietary process called Foamation.
Why does that matter?
Because clay is heavy. Foam is light. Foam allows for more fluid movement and more expressive facial contortions. It gave the characters a tactile, grimy, yet soulful look that reflected the environment of the show. Each puppet had a skeleton made of metal, known as an armature, which allowed the animators to move them frame by frame. It was an agonizingly slow process. We are talking about weeks of work for just a few minutes of footage. This wasn't some cheap Saturday morning cartoon; it was a high-art technical achievement hidden inside a sitcom about a guy trying to fix a leaky pipe.
The detail in the backgrounds was insane. Look at the peeling wallpaper in the hallways or the rust on the "Ho-V" (the elevator that rarely worked). It grounded the comedy in a reality that felt lived-in.
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The Controversy That Followed Thurgood Stubbs
Not everyone loved it. That's an understatement.
When The PJs premiered in 1999, it faced immediate heat from activists like Spike Lee. Lee famously criticized the show, suggesting it was "hateful toward Black people" and relied on stereotypes. He wasn't alone in that feeling. There was a genuine fear that showing the projects through a comedic lens would reinforce negative biases for a mainstream audience.
But here’s the thing: the writers' room was packed with talent who knew exactly what they were satirizing. Larry Wilmore, who went on to be a massive voice in political comedy and late-night, was a co-creator alongside Steve Tompkins and Murphy.
They weren't making fun of poor people. They were making fun of the struggle.
Thurgood wasn't a stereotype; he was a specific archetype of an overworked, under-appreciated man trying to maintain dignity in a system designed to fail him. If you actually watch episodes like "He's Gotta Have It," where Thurgood deals with the complexities of his own health and ego, you see a level of character depth that most 22-minute sitcoms never touch. The show leaned into the absurdity of the environment—the crackhead character "Smokey" (voiced by Shawn Michael Howard) was a lightning rod for criticism—but the showrunners argued that ignoring the existence of these people in that setting would be more dishonest than portraying them with humor.
The Voice Cast Was Low-Key Legendary
We have to talk about the voices. Eddie Murphy was the draw, obviously. He brought that "grumpy old man" energy he’d perfected in the barbershop scenes of Coming to America. But the supporting cast was a "who’s who" of Black excellence in the 90s.
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- Loretta Devine as Muriel: She was the heart. Her voice provided the warmth that kept the show from feeling too cynical.
- Ja'Net DuBois as Mrs. Avery: The veteran actress from Good Times played the elderly, shotgun-toting neighbor. It was a meta-commentary on the history of Black sitcoms.
- Kevin Michael Richardson as Mr. Hudson: One of the greatest voice actors of all time, giving life to the man with the wooden leg.
Then there was the music. The theme song by Quincy Jones III (QD3) set the tone perfectly. It was funky, slightly discordant, and instantly recognizable. It told you exactly what kind of show you were about to watch before a single puppet moved.
Why Fox Let It Go (and the WB Picked It Up)
Ratings started strong. The premiere had over 14 million viewers. That’s a number modern showrunners would kill for. But it was expensive. Foamation wasn't cheap.
Fox eventually soured on the show. Network TV is a brutal business. If the cost-per-episode doesn't align with the ad revenue, you’re toast. Fox canceled it after two seasons. The WB (which later became the CW) snatched it up for a third season, but the magic was starting to fade. The production hurdles were just too high.
There was also a shift in the cultural zeitgeist. By the early 2000s, "edgy" animation was moving toward the hyper-fast, random humor of Family Guy. The PJs, with its slow-burn physical comedy and character-driven plots, felt like a relic from a different era, even though it had only been on for a few years.
It’s a tragedy, honestly.
The Lasting Legacy of the Hilton-Jacobs Projects
You can see the DNA of The PJs in shows like The Boondocks or Black Dynamite. It proved that you could use animation to tackle systemic issues like redlining, inadequate healthcare, and urban neglect without losing the funny. It was "pre-woke" in the sense that it just presented the reality of the characters' lives without the need for a PSA at the end of the episode.
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One of the most nuanced aspects of the show was the "Haiti" character. He was the neighbor from Haiti who practiced Voodoo. While it played for laughs, the show often used him to highlight the cultural clashes within the Black diaspora. It was sophisticated stuff for a show that also had jokes about a broken elevator.
What You Should Do If You Want to Revisit It
If you’re looking to dive back into The PJs, don't just look for clips on TikTok. You lose the scale.
- Watch the "Richie Rich" episode. It’s a perfect breakdown of how Thurgood views class and status. It captures his jealousy and his pride in a way that is genuinely moving.
- Pay attention to the background radio and TV. The writers snuck in tons of satire about 90s media culture that still holds up.
- Check the credits. Look at the names of the animators. Many of them migrated to Laika (the studio behind Coraline and Kubo and the Two Strings). You are watching the literal evolution of the stop-motion craft.
The PJs wasn't perfect. It was messy. It was controversial. But it was real. In a world of polished, safe, corporate-approved animation, Thurgood Stubbs and his crumbling apartment building stand as a reminder that sometimes the best stories are found in the places everyone else is trying to look away from. It remains a landmark in television history, not just for its "Foamation" tech, but for its willingness to find the humanity in the struggle.
To truly appreciate it now, you have to look past the "crude" jokes and see the craftsmanship. Every dent in the trash can, every wrinkle on Muriel’s face, and every sigh from Thurgood was a deliberate choice made by a human being moving a puppet a millimeter at a time. That’s soul. You can't fake that.
Practical Steps for Fans and Collectors
If you're trying to track down the series today, keep in mind that the DVD releases are often the best way to see the original "Foamation" textures without modern streaming compression artifacts.
- Check for the complete series DVD sets. These often include behind-the-scenes footage of the Will Vinton Studios, which is essential for understanding the sheer physical labor involved.
- Compare the Fox vs. WB episodes. There is a subtle shift in tone and pacing in the third season that is worth analyzing if you're a student of television history.
- Support stop-motion creators. The lineage of The PJs lives on in independent stop-motion. If you loved the tactile feel of this show, look into the current work being done at ShadowMachine or Laika.