french fries; a giant, self-important milkshake; and a talking wad of meat who gore. And, naturally, that's exactly what has made "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" a The TV cartoon is a bizarre, even subversive series that draws a geek-squad fan base, inspired a theme song by vintage rapper Schoolly D and voice cameos by Sarah Silverman, Todd Field and Ozzy Osbourne's lead guitarist Zakk Wylde, among others. And, until recently, it was virtually unknown by the general In January, "Aqua Teen" officially entered the cultural lexicon after plot.
Police shut down the city for what turned out to be lighted silhouettes of a show character holding up his middle finger. Soon, even buttoned-down On Friday, the TV series makes the leap to full-length feature film with "Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters," a virtually plotless, often gory and hallucinatory experience that pokes as much fun at themselves. Those would be the more than 1 million viewers, most of them 18-to-34-year-old men, who take this absurdist show far more seriously than The movie is strictly low-fi, two-dimensional animation, but took more than two years to complete, inspiring endless speculation among fans.
At one point, clips were released online, feeding hopes that the movie would give meaning to "Aqua Teen's" otherwise meaningless premise, a non-linear collection of random acts of mayhem. Instead, fans will get 75 minutes of material so unhinged it makes the TV show look like the "MacNeil-Lehrer Report." their spare time and then asked Adult Swim, a Turner Broadcasting System network that shares nighttime channel space with the Cartoon Network, to help fund its completion.
Ultimately, it cost $1 million. First Look Pictures was interested even before its executives saw the finished film. Studio staffers polled their teenage children, realized they had a potential hit and took a Though it might sound like a risky venture, skeptics should note that the Maiellaro and Willis use their movie, which they wrote, directed and co-produced with Jay Wade Edwards, to offer a tiny shred of reason behind the comic horror fantasy they launched in the wee hours of Sept.
2, 2001. Back then, the show, which unfolds in 11-minute episodes, six days a week, launched with no back story. There were simply three roommates in New Jersey -- Frylock, Master Shake and Meatwad -- and their neighbor Carl, a regular guy and classic-rock-loving Jersey stereotype.
There also was a psychopathic scientist named Dr. Weird who seemed to have no connection to the others. Absent any context, fans of the show conjure their own meaning in chat rooms and on fan sites.
And that's just fine with Maiellaro and Willis. They aim for the greatest degree of nonsense, writing out plots, then skipping key points entirely just to confuse the audience. "It's absurd, like The movie ultimately reveals the origin of the characters, a tangled story of shared brain matter, a talking watermelon slice, Rush drummer Neil Peart's "drum solo of life" and a buxom nine-layer burrito voiced by Tina Fey.
But it's virtually incomprehensible. Long before any revelation, kittens are exploded, a giant killer exercise machine wreaks havoc, the main characters a man's body. Oh, and Phil Collins' 1981 hit "In the Air Tonight" also plays a To an outsider, this is either self-indulgent bad writing or fodder for Fool's Day, though mostly in thumbnail size -- posted online by amateur film critics have been pretty brutal.
On aintitcoolnews.com, one reviewer proposed the filmmakers "scrap the film and start over." Cartoonbrew.
com called it the "worst animated film of the year." The show originated as an unaired episode of another Adult Swim hit, "Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast," for which both Willis and Maiellaro worked as writers. order at a fast-food restaurant.
In lieu of money, the chain demanded that its own promotional superhero mascots appear on Space Ghost's show. Frylock was a wizard who shoots rays from his eyes. Meatwad was a shape-shifting blob of Master Shake had no real powers.
And aside from the word "hunger," the show None of this back story made it to the show, though there's a hint of this Instead, Frylock, Master Shake and Meatwad started out as detectives, but that, too, was quickly abandoned in favor of less linear stories. Long Beach fan Chuck Warren, a 24-year-old psychology student, has watched He even met his girlfriend Rebecca, 26, on a fan site and their "Aqua Teen" "It's a polarizing show," Warren said. "You either love it or you hate it.
" experience. A disclaimer on the film's production notes states, "Pretty much Wikipedia." It's true.
It was. Most famously, the show in January became the ultimate absurdist comment on of the Mooninites, characters based on 1980s-era video game icons named Ignignokt and Err. Unsure of what they were, people reported them to police.
Consequently, the city's highways, bridges, waterways and subway service were Then it got even weirder. Video artists Peter Berdovsky, 27, and Sean Stevens, 28, were arrested for placing the 38 placards. (They filmed their late-night high jinks and posted it on zebbler.
com, Berdovsky's Web site.) The next day, they held a news conference. MSNBC and Fox News carried it live.
of very earnest reporters, the two men adamantly refused to answer any questions that did not pertain to "hairstyles of the '70s." This ridiculous episode, which is still on YouTube.com, is now part of the "Aqua Teen" lore.
That kind of publicity could work in the movie's favor, drawing a broader audience. "Aqua Teen" lovers like Warren, however, are calling the film a "fan movie." He and his girlfriend arrived 7 1/2 hours early to see a special MySpace.
com-sponsored screening of the film in San Diego last month. They were second in line, in front of about 700 others. Aside from the band of drunk frat guys next to them, Warren said the crowd response was pretty tame.
As far as the film itself, Warren considered it just another poke in the ribs from "It's them saying it doesn't matter," he said. "As a fan, I kind of liked that. They threw it all in your face and you had to take what you wanted.
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