Sunday, March 18, 2007

Attacking the Film that Attacked Boston

Jerry Beck doesn't like the Aqua Teen Hunger Force Movie.

Hopefully this will supplant my "Why I Hate Family Guy" post as the animation post that inspires the most angry comments.

I don't have strong feelings either way about Aqua Teen Hunger Force the series (I haven't seen the movie). I think that like a lot of Cartoon Network's stuff, it has that Family Guy problem of thinking that a comedy show needs to have something weird or wacky every ten seconds. (Remember, Cartoon Network is where Family Guy first became a breakout hit, and a lot of its original material is aimed at a similar audience.) Instead of creating non-stop hilarity, it's actually less funny because the funniest jokes -- even in nonsensical, absurdist comedy -- are often the ones you take time to set up, and there's no time for that here.

But as Comedy For Stoners (tm Spike Feresten) goes, it's not bad. And at least it's not smug and annoying (like Robot Chicken). And it didn't start out with a good premise and then decline into pointless absurdism (like Harvey Birdman, which started as a great deadpan Hanna-Barbera parody in the vein of Robert Smigel's TV Funhouse cartoons, but has more or less forgotten its original premise). It is what it is.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You might actually like the earlier seasons of Sealab 2021, since it started off as an incredibly low budget satire that just reused old clips from Sealab 2020, but repurposed them. The show actually kind of had "stories" back then, too.

In general (with some exceptions like Venture Brothers) I'm far more fond of the old AS comedy lineups, with Aqua Teen, Home Movies, Brak Show, etc. Though I guessing you weren't into those either.

Mattieshoe said...

"Wild and wacky" that;s a problem.


It's idiots who think that "wild and Wacky" Means you can do whatever the hell you want without following any rules or being funny.