Post #5: Aqua Teen and Squidbillies; Absurdism at its best

    A school of art that has constantly aimed to turn the others on their heads is surrealism; the focus on surprise, randomness, and the combination of seemingly unrelated objects or concepts.  Dali and Breton are just a few that pioneered and raised surrealism to the level of notoriety that it now has today.  Surrealism takes its ideas from the philosophy of Absurdism and translates them from thought to depiction, in order to reach out to more than just a school of philosophers.  Absurdism is a less depressing form of nihilism, I'd say, but both seem focused on the fact that life is meaningless and illogical, but nihilism is a more negative view, and absurdism is one that embraces the ridiculousness of it all.  That being said, while some people feel that Adult Swim is littered with stupid, random cartoons, I believe that shows like Aqua Teen Hunger Force (ATHF) and Squidbillies simply embrace absurdist principles and find humor in the randomness of it all.

                

    Anyone that has seen ATHF knows the three main characters, Shake, Frylock, and Meatwad, a trio of questionably intelligent (except for Frylock) food items.  The bulk of the show takes place in their house and the house of their neighbor, Carl, who is a porn-addicted balding grease ball that doesn't really like any of them.  Like any great Adult Swim show, ATHF gives itself the luxury of not having plot lines that carry from episode to episode.  Some would argue that they don't have plot lines at all, but I disagree; they're just very basic and outlandish, leaving room for plenty of jokes.

    I understand that absurdist and surrealist humor is not for everyone; too "useless" and non-sequitur for some, and just stupid for others, but my brain just works in a way that I get it all perfectly and love every minute of it.  Obviously, I'm not the only one, but since most Adult Swim shows are animated via graphic design and have a 11 to 12 minute time slot, the viewer quota is undoubtedly much lower than some other channels.  This style of humor relies on nonsense, bizarre situations, and the combination of ridiculous events with normal locations, or vice versa.  For example, two of the ATHF's biggest enemies are the mooninites:

 

two 2D pixelated squares of villains from the moon that are throwbacks to the beginning of video game animation.  One of their running gags, outside the robbing, cursing, and downright awful behavior, is to shoot their laser at people.  

    The thing is, their laser has the same physics as an old video game, moving very very slowly as a red block across the screen.  It moves so slowly that other characters can easily walk out of the way, so they never really threaten anyone.  Despite how terrible this weapon is, their ship is pretty advanced, as they can fly around and land wherever they please.  It's this random dichotomy that the humor comes out in.  Their other villain is an entity from hell that keeps coming back in a different from with a different scheme to become rich and keep himself out of hell, but of course this never works.  Since they don't need to really worry about continuity, there are episodes where Shake is cut up and throw into a swimming pool, or Meatwad is shot with a shotgun, or brainwashed and must be stopped.  With the free range that surrealist humor allows, it takes a different mind, and I would argue a greater one, to keep the show as fresh as it is.

    Squidbillies is a show about a family of most likely inbred, backwards redneck squid deep in the heart of the Georgia country.  This show is a little more specialized, more aimed at those with an open mind to ridiculous surrealism and those that grew up around a place like that.  The fan base is smaller, but i feel that Squidbillies is a better show than ATHF.  I grew up in the country, so I've seen my fair share of rednecks and how they operate, and some of the actions in Squidbillies may be pretty extreme, but the attitude of the town isn't far off at all.

 

    The Cuyler family consists of the father, Early, Granny, Early's son Rusty, and Aunt Lil.  The main villain is a... thing named Dan Halen, who is very very evil and very very rich, though we don't know how he got it all.  The show gets its humor from the schemings of Dan Halen, and the drunken rants and ideas of Early, who is flat out stupid, illiterate, and self indulged as they come.  The personalities of these characters are spot on:  Granny is a horny old woman, perverted and weird; Rusty is more stable than the rest, and more intelligent, so he usually provides the ethical dilemmas that the other characters feed off of; Aunt Lil is an aging textile-working whore, who in later seasons is almost always passed out on the floor; Dan Halen is a Corporate mastermind that tries to make money off of the poor people of the Squidbillies town;  The sheriff is a chainsmoking lawman that looks the other way, and copies of him are grown in a cornfield, so one can be picked to replace one that dies (very meta-surrealist humor); and Early is a alcoholic, chainsmoking, store-robbing ex-con with no regard for anyone but himself.  

    These are all perfect caricatures of depraved persons in the South, so the show operates its humor off of their reactions and actions in the ridiculous situations they're put in.  Usually, Early will beat his son, but to the extreme, skinning him, stuffing him, shooting his face off, that sort of thing.  Since it's animated, and crudely, to underline the poverty of its setting, the creators can get away with a ridiculous amount of gore, and they certainly do.  Dan Halen in one episode corners the market on corn, but not to make money off of ethanol, to sell corndogs instead.  The humor is random, but socially relevant in this randomness; corporations sometimes do sink money into useless things.  This show and ATHF embrace the fact that they have no logical procession, but that was never their intention.  They aim to show the bizarre and the ridiculous, the illogical and the stupid, in an attempt to get us to use our minds a little more.  Some call these shows stupid, I say to them, sometimes it's hard not being spoon fed your entertainment.

I commented on James Davis' and Scott McCarthy's blogs.

Comments

[Hayleigh Allingham]

As someone who spent their summers running around in Western, Kentucky ATHF definitely pokes fun at Southern culture. From Meat Wad constant sayings of "do what now?" and the fact that they are comprised of grease and lard, I would say that the show is a quasi-parody. I bet its difficult to make nonsensical animations that are driven by insanity over plot.

[Jeannie]

I cannot stand squidbillies but I am a huge fan of Aqua teen. It was nice to see some perspective on the adult animations. I love the mooninites and im surprised you took into the consideration the physics behind their 2-d world and weapons.

[Supra Footwear]

The man who has made up his mind to win will never say "impossible".You have to believe in yourself. That's the secret of success.