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Meet the Martins Benjamin Lund, Editor, Dentaltown Magazine

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by Benjamin Lund, Editor, Dentaltown Magazine

Last month, primetime Nick at Nite watchers everywhere were introduced to the network’s original animated dental comedy – Glenn Martin, DDS. The stop-motion sitcom follows the titular character and his functionally dysfunctional family as they bop around the country in their toothbrush-topped RV, which doubles at Glenn’s mobile dental office. The show, which is the collaborative brainchild of former Disney head honcho Michael Eisner and Executive Producer Eric Fogel, features the voice talents of Kevin Nealon, Catherine O’Hara, Peter Oldring, Jackie Clarke and Judy Greer.		 The Martins (from left) are vacuous, hyper-stimulated Conor Martin (voiced by Peter Oldring), Canine the family dog, corporate- exec-in-11-year-old’s body Courtney Martin (voiced by Jackie Clarke), Courtney’s loyal assistant Wendy Park (voiced by Judy Greer), Glenn Martin, DDS (voiced by former Saturday Night Live player Kevin Nealon) and his wife Jackie (voiced by Catherine O’Hara of Home Alone and Best in Show fame).

For those who aren’t already familiar with the show’s premise, Glenn is unhappy with his home life. He feels unable to connect or even communicate with his technology-wielding family, so he decides to take them all on a road trip to reconnect. As he and his reluctant crew back out of the driveway, Glenn causes a freak accident that leads to the utter incineration of the Martin household. Needless to say, the Martins are now on extended leave. They convert the RV into a mobile dental office and, as you might expect, an unending string of wackiness unfurls. One episode the Martins might stop in Amish country to be taught a lesson, the next episode they’re in Washington D.C., where Dick Cheney still lives in the White House basement.

The show stemmed from an idea Michael Eisner had about a family that gives up everything to experience life on the road. Eisner thought the dad ought to be a dentist and the family ought to be traveling in a mobile dental office. From there, Eisner started working with Eric Fogel, who had some success developing six seasons of MTV’s stop-motion toon, Celebrity Death Match.

“There was a script for Glenn Martin, DDS, at that point, but they didn’t know what it was going to look like or feel like, and that was where I came in,” says Fogel. “I basically designed the look of the characters, the look of the show and I directed the pilot presentation we used to sell the show.” The show was picked up by Nick at Nite, and became a key program in the cable network’s 2009 fall primetime line-up.

On Dads and Dentistry
TV-land is already choked to the gills with memorable animated dads like Fred Flintstone, George Jetson, Homer Simpson and Peter Griffin, but Fogel is optimistic Glenn Martin will stand out from the crowd. “I think Glenn is a unique dad because of his blind optimism,” says Fogel. “When I first started talking to Michael Eisner about this project, we got to talking about other TV dads. We wanted our dad to be more upper middle class, and we wanted to find a profession for him that at moments could be exciting yet often could be a little mundane – no offense to dentists.”

At the beginning of the show’s development it seems Eisner may not have held dentistry in such high esteem, although it was the profession he chose for his main character. In the July 28, 2008, issue of the Los Angeles Times, Eisner was asked why he chose a dentist for the show, at which he responded, “I asked myself what job would be one that I would be happy to give up.” But Fogel says, as things progressed, they realized that dentistry gave them the opportunity to put Glenn in a lot of heroic scenarios. According to Fogel, portraying the main character as a dentist has allowed the writers of the show to organically spin off story ideas from all things dental. For example: in one episode where the Martins visit the circus, two trapeze artists violently smash into each other and tumble to the ground below. Once the ringmaster realizes they’re not dead, the battered performers spit out a mouthful of teeth, prompting Glenn to respond. “It’s go time,” announces the heroic clay dentist. Glenn saves the day and thus begins the Martins’ antics at the circus for this particular episode’s arc.

“I think Glenn comes into every situation with very high expectations of improving the life of his family as well as everyone around him,” says Fogel. “What generally happens is by the time the Martins leave a place, they’ve completely turned the world upside down, and, for the most part, they’re oblivious to the effect they’ve had on a place. They never leave a place the same way they found it.”

The character of Glenn might be ensconced in dentistry, but don’t expect any accurate portrayals. When asked if much dental research went into developing Glenn, Fogel replies, “Only if you consider whatever you can find on the Internet, ‘research.’ But I think we all bring our own experiences to the show. Obviously everyone’s got their own dental experiences but none of us are trained dental professionals.”

On Production
Given the broad scope of the show, animating it was the best means to an end. “In a practical sense it’s easier to build miniature locations week in and week out than it is to transport a live-action cast and crew to a different environment,” says Fogel. The show is written and the voices are recorded in California, but the animation is produced by Canada’s stop-motion animation gurus, Cuppa Coffee. There are hundreds of artists and animators working on the sets of Glenn Martin, DDS, which can take up between 25 and 30 sound stages at any given time during production. From script to animation to rough cut, it can take upwards of three months to develop a half-hour show.

“I’ve always felt that stop-motion animation was sort of the under appreciated of all the animated art forms – almost the sort of redheaded stepchild of the group,” says Fogel. “There’s something wholesome about the look of stop motion; that it brings us back to our childhoods.” He cites the Rankin Bass Christmas classics like Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. Many people are still quite fond of those choppy-feeling movies, but even in the old-school medium of stop-motion animation, technologies have improved since the good old days. Computer-generated imaging is used in some instances in the show, according to Fogel, but only to “smooth out some of the bumps.”

Perhaps they’re smoothing out some of the bumps on the front end of production, because they’re aware the Martins will create more than a few bumps of their own as they cruise on down the road. The show has already been on the air for several weeks, however as of press time for this issue I’ve only viewed one advance episode of Glenn Martin, DDS. It is much in the same vein as South Park or Family Guy or anything on the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim, but its edginess, in comparison, feels like its turned down a couple notches. As the series progresses, maybe it will find its rhythm (after all, its hard to not feel a little embarrassed when watching the first season of The Simpsons). But will enough viewers tune in to give it enough time to do so? I guess we’ll get there when we get there…
Dentaltown Magazine
September 2025
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