Aqua Teen Hunger Force Review

A review and analysis of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, by Julia Houston. She tears down sitcoms and reviews how Aqua Teen Hunger Force breaks the rules of traditional TV.

One of the oldest genres on TV is also the most contrived: the sitcom, small rooms of three sets where, despite the actors' aging faces, characters keep not graduating, not getting promoted, not getting married, not moving on.

Night Court and The Simpsons are early stand-outs in the anti-sitcom. Rather than ignoring the contrivances of the genre, they embrace the "reset button" and unchanging environment.

Take it a little farther, and you get South Park, where Kenny used to die every episode, and in ten years the kids have managed to make their way from third to fourth grade.

Take it about as far as it will go, and you get Aqua Teen Hunger Force, the ten-minute breakout hit of Adult Swim on Cartoon Network.

For our situation, there are three males sharing a familiar, semi-family dynamic in a New Jersey suburb complete with an interesting neighbor. For plots, new and old acquaintances come by the house, and hijinks ensue.

But in this case, "Dad" is a large order of fries with laser eyes who can fly. The "rebellious son" is an amoral vanilla milkshake. The "baby" is a meatwad who can take the shape of an igloo and a hotdog.

Or maybe Meatwad is just retarded. I haven't been able to figure it out. Anyway, the neighbor's name is Carl.

The choice of fast-food for characters is a brilliant (yes, I said it) symbol on TV for America's disposable society. Frylock, Master Shake and Meatwad have no background (though the upcoming movie promises some sort of origin story). They have no ethnic or political affiliation (though Shake once referred to Frylock as "black," much to Frylock's annoyance). The episodes end with one or more of the characters dying, or losing their bodies, or becoming zombie slaves, or being damned to eternal suffering at the hands of a stick-figure with a meat cleaver. Sometimes people die in the middle of the show. It doesn't really matter.

For added kicks (because there's only so many times we can go over to Carl's house to catch him watching porn), the Plutonians Oglethorpe and Emory (who speak like Hans and Franz and look like spiky cones) cause trouble.

In probably my favorite episode so far, Frylock follows a wire running from his TV set to an ornate stone ring. He goes through the ring's water-like event horizon to the Mooninites' spaceship, where they are using the device to steal cable. When Frylock questions why they're using a Stargate for something so stupid, Hans insists, "It's not a Stargate! It's a Fargate!"

There are many other characters, from the Mooninites, to Happy Time Harry (a suicidal action figure) to the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past from the Future, to Mr. Wongburger, a phallic-shaped alien who's stealing penises to build a giant "dick ship" to return to the "dick planet" and is himself reported to be a "major dick."

The only true constant is also the very best part: no one ever "learns" anything. There are no tender moments, no ingratiating smiles, no group hugs. Everyone on the show (with the possible exception of Frylock) is only interested in their own petty concerns and over-inflated self-image. We are never treated to whimsical wisdom, gentle piano music, or a single reaffirmation of faith. The only really important thing is that we get to laugh our asses off.

Which is all proof positive that the universe truly is circular. In this fiction of a talking order of fries, milkshake, and meatwad, we get perhaps the most realistic treatment of life TV has ever seen.