"New York's third most popular early-morning cable-TV film critic," 36-year-old Jay Prescott Sherman is the host of Phillips Broadcasting's Coming Attractions and the main protagonist of the short-lived sitcom The Critic. His catch phrases include his exclamation of surprise ("Hotchie motchie!"), his common putdown of sub-par films ("It stinks!") and his distinctive cough/sneeze ("Achhum!"). He is known for his surly and sarcastic putdowns of nearly every film he sees (an act that has earned him disdain from the public and rather low ratings). His favorite films are usually Golden-Age classics and foreign films such as The Red Balloon, Citizen Kane, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. He often uses the "Shermometer" to measure the films he reviews, or a list of diseases he would rather have than see a movie. He has been known to rate films on a numerical scale, in which his highest score is seven out of ten. Most of his dislike for films comes from a love for cinema that has been disillusioned by seeing the commercialism that has overtaken the film industry.
Jay is the adopted son of wealthy New-England socialites Franklin and Eleanor Sherman, who originally thought he was a monkey. He is Jewish despite his WASP upbringing. In preschool, he was given LSD-laced Kool-Aid by guest speaker Timothy Leary (he claimed afterwards, he "was down at the hungry i, jamming with Dylan"), and was mistakenly sent to Attica Prison instead of summer camp as a child in the summer of 1972. He has a teenage sister named Margo and a young son named Marty who visits often when not staying with Jay's ex-wife Ardeth.
Jay has also held several other jobs in his time, including a truck driver, speech writer for Duke Phillips' presidential campaign and a writer for the film Ghostchasers III (renamed Ghostbusters III during the final episode clip show.)
Jay has won a string of prestigious awards for his career: two Pulitzer Prizes for criticism, a People's Choice Award, five Golden Globes, an Emmy Award, a PhD in film, and a B'nai B'rith Award.
Jay blames his weight problem on the fictional disorder "vitilardo", a word-play on the skin pigmentation disorder vitiligo. His weight is suggested to be greater than a tank, as a helicopter that was originally designed to lift tanks was unable to even get him off the ground. He was also shown in a file photo on a news report as "weighing more than the entire band Los Lobos," in which he is sitting on a see-saw, lifting the entire band into the air. When he exercises, Duke often uses Jay in place of a set of dumbbells when lifting weights. His weight led to the death of a horse when he was a child, crushing it to death when Jay lied to the horse trainer about his weight so he could sit on it. Jay's stomach seems to have a mind of its own, often giving him commands that he obeys out of fear, going so far as to call it "Master." Acting on the advice of a quack public-relations expert, Jay once gained so much weight that he had to have several months' worth of liposuction.
Duke frequently makes patronizing comments to suggest that Jay is gay; Jay maintains that he is straight. It is also strongly hinted in the episode "Eyes on the Prize" that Jay has Bipolar Disorder, when he tells a class of cab drivers that the only thing that gets him through the day is lithium.
He also has an alter-ego in "Ethel." His Ethel persona is an elderly woman, whom he often pretends is his assistant, and therefore assumes her persona when answering the phone. "Ethel" only appears in the first season.
In the second first-season episode "Marty's First Date," in desperation to retrieve his son from Cuba, Jay goes to Mexico City's "Linda Ronstadt International Airport" and marries a Mexican woman in order to travel there. She then admits to him that she is only marrying him "for citizenship" and then openly states "I plan to divorce him and take half his money." It is a possibility that this may be the "second divorce" Jay mentioned in the first webisode, but was never made clear.
In the second season, Jay's character was given a renovation. He received a rounder head, bigger pupils for his eyes and a warmer personality. He also begins a long-term relationship with Alice Tompkins, a Tennessee woman living in New York whom Jay meets on the street and later hires as his personal assistant.
In the opening sequence for every episode, Jay is awakened by a disquieting phone call or radio news brief. At the end, he is seen sitting in a movie theater, eating popcorn and drinking soda as the closing credits are shown on the screen. When the credits end, an usher approaches and says, "Excuse me sir, the show's over." Jay then delivers one of the following four responses:
- "Get away, zitface!"
- "Is the snack bar still open?"
- "But I have nowhere to go."
- "I'm stuck in the chair!"
Additionally, Jay shares a fifth response with Alice in the second season:
- Usher: Excuse me, the show's over.
- Alice: Get away, pipsqueak!
- Jay: (to the camera) That's why I love her!
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