TheGuyThatEveryoneHates
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- Aug 22, 2020
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A while ago, James Rolfe made a video review of the classic animated show Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The review kinda bugged me because he seemed to misunderstand the show like many other reviewers misunderstood the show.
The thing about ATHF is that it isn't necessarily just a goofy show about fast food items going on wacky adventures. It seems that way at first, and it is fairly funny, but there's a level of depth to it that is very easy to miss.
It helps to understand that the people who created the show had just spent nearly a full decade working on Space Ghost: Coast To Coast, which is arguably the show that codified many of the tropes associated with adult animation these days and might have been one of the most influential cartoons ever made. They had done the 'stoner-humor' thing for years, and they seemed to grow a bit resentful of the college-kid demographic they had been appealing to with Space Ghost.
The main characters of ATHF don't know their age, and it seems that their ages are not consistent episode-to-episode. However, they are pretty much always depicted as being in their 30s or older, while Carl is depicted as being old enough to be retired, or semi-retired. This is significant in understanding the brilliance of the show. Basically, every character in the show is older than 30, with no real achievements in their lives. They live in the cheapest house, all of their possessions are trash, and they don't have any friends they interact with outside of their depressing bubbles.
It's a very depressing show if you look just a bit below the surface-level, and that's why it's so great. Pretty much every joke in the series in punctuated in some way by the depressing reality that these characters live in. From the extreme lengths that Master Shake will go to in order to lose his virginity (again, he's at least 30 years old), to the feeble mental-state of Meatwad (he's cute and funny because of a mental disability), to the fact that Frylock lives in a literal slum despite the fact that he could be very successful if it wasn't for, well, racism (people won't hire him because he's a french fry).
An episode I like to point out that perfectly showcases why people miss the subtext in the show is the notorious Hand Banana episode. It is an episode featuring Carl being raped by a dog multiple times. If you don't want to look beneath the surface-level, you could just leave it at that, and just see it as an episode filled with gross-out humor derived from a taboo thing happening. But, that's not the real joke of the episode. The REAL joke is that Carl is a fat, hairy, old man that no one would ever find attractive, except for Hand Banana the dog, who finds him irresistible, and for some reason genuinely cares about him even though Carl has such an abrasive personality. Hand Banana is a kind-hearted, talented dog who, for some bizarre reason, is so overcome by his lust for the disgusting ogre known as Carl that he becomes a dark creature who is completely unable to resist the temptation to ravage Carl's gross body.
The thing is, I think that people misunderstand what 'depth' is these days. If a character is literally saying (or being told) "I'm/You're depressed because (insert monologue about the person's psychology, written by a psychology student, and/or copied from Wikipedia)" that isn't necessarily depth because there's really only a single layer to that. There's nothing 'deeper' than the surface-level in that scenario. Sure, that kind of stuff is 'important', but it isn't deep. Anyone from your 5-year-old nephew to your 75-year-old grandmother could understand it because there's no subtext that they might not understand.
However, with ATHF, it's so easy to miss the subtext and completely misunderstand the show, in the same way that it's easy to misunderstand the first Postal game (trust me, it makes more sense when you realize the voice you're hearing is actually the voice in the Dude's head telling him to kill people, rather than it being his own voice).
I think that, as writers, it's important to remember this kind of thing and take lessons from it. What lessons you chose to take are up to you, because that's how you develop a unique style.
Anyways, that's all I wanted to say this time.
The thing about ATHF is that it isn't necessarily just a goofy show about fast food items going on wacky adventures. It seems that way at first, and it is fairly funny, but there's a level of depth to it that is very easy to miss.
It helps to understand that the people who created the show had just spent nearly a full decade working on Space Ghost: Coast To Coast, which is arguably the show that codified many of the tropes associated with adult animation these days and might have been one of the most influential cartoons ever made. They had done the 'stoner-humor' thing for years, and they seemed to grow a bit resentful of the college-kid demographic they had been appealing to with Space Ghost.
The main characters of ATHF don't know their age, and it seems that their ages are not consistent episode-to-episode. However, they are pretty much always depicted as being in their 30s or older, while Carl is depicted as being old enough to be retired, or semi-retired. This is significant in understanding the brilliance of the show. Basically, every character in the show is older than 30, with no real achievements in their lives. They live in the cheapest house, all of their possessions are trash, and they don't have any friends they interact with outside of their depressing bubbles.
It's a very depressing show if you look just a bit below the surface-level, and that's why it's so great. Pretty much every joke in the series in punctuated in some way by the depressing reality that these characters live in. From the extreme lengths that Master Shake will go to in order to lose his virginity (again, he's at least 30 years old), to the feeble mental-state of Meatwad (he's cute and funny because of a mental disability), to the fact that Frylock lives in a literal slum despite the fact that he could be very successful if it wasn't for, well, racism (people won't hire him because he's a french fry).
An episode I like to point out that perfectly showcases why people miss the subtext in the show is the notorious Hand Banana episode. It is an episode featuring Carl being raped by a dog multiple times. If you don't want to look beneath the surface-level, you could just leave it at that, and just see it as an episode filled with gross-out humor derived from a taboo thing happening. But, that's not the real joke of the episode. The REAL joke is that Carl is a fat, hairy, old man that no one would ever find attractive, except for Hand Banana the dog, who finds him irresistible, and for some reason genuinely cares about him even though Carl has such an abrasive personality. Hand Banana is a kind-hearted, talented dog who, for some bizarre reason, is so overcome by his lust for the disgusting ogre known as Carl that he becomes a dark creature who is completely unable to resist the temptation to ravage Carl's gross body.
The thing is, I think that people misunderstand what 'depth' is these days. If a character is literally saying (or being told) "I'm/You're depressed because (insert monologue about the person's psychology, written by a psychology student, and/or copied from Wikipedia)" that isn't necessarily depth because there's really only a single layer to that. There's nothing 'deeper' than the surface-level in that scenario. Sure, that kind of stuff is 'important', but it isn't deep. Anyone from your 5-year-old nephew to your 75-year-old grandmother could understand it because there's no subtext that they might not understand.
However, with ATHF, it's so easy to miss the subtext and completely misunderstand the show, in the same way that it's easy to misunderstand the first Postal game (trust me, it makes more sense when you realize the voice you're hearing is actually the voice in the Dude's head telling him to kill people, rather than it being his own voice).
I think that, as writers, it's important to remember this kind of thing and take lessons from it. What lessons you chose to take are up to you, because that's how you develop a unique style.
Anyways, that's all I wanted to say this time.
