General · EdgepediaOctober 3, 20266 min read

Gary and His Demons

Gary and His Demons is a Canadian adult animated comedy about Gary, a cantankerous, aging demon slayer who, as the prophesied "Chosen One," is stuck fighting demons for the Ministry even though he wants nothing more than to retire. It was created by Mark Little, who also writes the series and voices Gary, and it ran for two seasons and 26 episodes of roughly 11 minutes each between 2018 and 2023.¹^•²^•³

Key fact	Detail
Format	Adult animated comedy, TV-MA, about 11 minutes per episode²
Run	Season 1 premiered April 15, 2018 (16 episodes); season 2 premiered October 6, 2022 (10 episodes); 26 episodes total³^•⁴
Premise	Gary, a 45-year-old demon slayer, is ready to retire but his boss cannot find a replacement, so he must keep fighting demons whether he likes it or not⁵
Creators	Mark Little and Mark Satterthwaite; season 1 directed by Lou Solis, season 2 co-directed by Josh O'Keefe and Mark Little⁶^•⁵
Production	Look Mom! Productions with Blue Ant Media; season 1 animation by Solis Animation⁷^•⁸
Reception	IMDb 8.0/10 from about 2,300 users; Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer 89% from a single review⁶^•³
Awards	2020 Grand Prize and Best Web Series at the New Media Film Festival⁹

Spoilers

Premise

Gary has spent 30 years as the demon hunter on whom humanity's survival depends, and the first episode, "Still the One," opens with him looking forward to retirement, only to learn that his boss at the Ministry still has not found a new Chosen One.¹⁰ The distributor's synopsis puts his age at 45 and frames the central joke: just when he thinks he has chased his final demon, he discovers he will be forced to keep fighting demons for eternity, whether he likes it or not.⁵ He is backed by a team of specialists he cannot relate to, including his uptight boss Leslie (Kayla Lorette) and the younger Hanley (Kyle Dooley).¹

The series inverts the standard "chosen one" fantasy: the hero is burnt-out, grieving the death of his fiancée Janine, and ambivalent about his sacred duty, and the comedy comes from treating demon slaying as a dead-end job.¹¹^•¹² Episodes mix workplace comedy with horror premises, such as a tryst with Bloody Mary, an undercover stint at a high school where teens overdose on a demon-derived drug, and a family dinner with Gary's annoyingly perfect brother Steve.¹³

Season 2's changes in approach

Little described season 2 as a deliberate shift. Where season 1 was, in his words, "so cynical and so dark," the second season took a more lighthearted and optimistic approach to Gary's journey, influenced in part by endearing fan messages received after the first season's release.¹¹ Structurally, the ten episodes were written as a serialized story, which Little described as treating them "like a ten-episode movie," digging deeper into Gary's emotions and building toward a Demon Revolution in which an ancient demon named Ryndok rises and the Ministry struggles to save humanity.¹⁶^•⁴ The 11-minute format constrained this ambition: an episode of lore about how the Chosen Ones came to be and how demons and humans once coexisted had to be cut, with its content reduced to dialogue nods.¹⁷

Production and broadcast history

Origin. Mark Little, an award-winning member of the Halifax-based sketch comedy group Picnicface and a writer and voice actor on other animated series, pitched the show to Josh Bowen at Blue Ant Media, rattling off five quick ideas in a hospital waiting room after breaking his ankle; one was about a demon hunter who cannot retire because the company has not found a replacement.¹¹ Blue Ant International announced the series in March 2018 as its first original scripted series, sold as 8 x 30-minute or 16 x 11-minute episodes.¹⁴

Season 1 (2018). During summer 2018, the show's first season was released weekly on VRV in the United States; Syfy picked it up in 2019, and the El Rey Network broadcast it within the Mondo Animation Hour block. In Canada it streamed on CBC Gem, Comedy Central aired it in the United Kingdom, and in Australia it was added to ABC iView and premiered on ABC Comedy.¹¹ Season 1 was directed by Lou Solis, known for his work on Ugly Americans and Moonbeam City, and used Flash animation to capture the show's improvisational spirit.⁵^•¹¹

Season 2 (2022). The second season took four years to reach the screen. It was in production with another company when the funding fell through, after Blue Ant had already put money into the writers' room and scripts and some voice recordings existed. Josh Bowen then secured a connection with Prime Video, and the season was revived with only six months between announcement and release. Little decided to rewrite the entire season's scripts, which he called the biggest hurdle in making it happen.¹¹ Season 2 premiered on Prime Video in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand in February 2023, and all ten episodes aired on October 6, 2022 in listings.⁵^•⁴ Josh O'Keefe, creator of Doomlands, co-directed the serialized second season alongside Little and rebuilt the visual style in Toon Boom, adding a wobble to the line work to preserve the loose look of the Flash-era first season.¹⁵^•¹¹

Later distribution. In May 2023, Blue Ant International licensed the US rights, and both seasons launched simultaneously on Amazon Freevee on July 7, 2023.⁵ The series is also available on Amazon Prime Video with ads in the United States and on Amazon MX Player.²

Reception

The series holds an 8.0/10 rating on IMDb from about 2,300 users.⁶ On Rotten Tomatoes the season 1 Tomatometer stands at 89%, but from a single critic review, with fewer than 50 audience ratings; the sole listed critic review, by Charles Pulliam-Moore of io9.com, wrote that the show "can be depressing, but there is a bit of hope shot through the series that makes its overwhelming darkness bearable."³ Reviewers of the second season praised its smoother animation and deeper character work while noting that fewer of its jokes land than in the first season; Bubbleblabber's season review scored it 9/10 and highlighted the final two episodes as standout adult animation.¹⁸^•⁸ Little has said a third season is written in his head, though the series is listed as ended.¹¹^•¹

References

Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Scripted television and comedy series › Animated television series (individual series) › Adult animated comedy series

Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026

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