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<br>
<br><font size="+2" face="geneva, arial"><b>OUTRAGEOUSLY FUNNY CARTOONS</b></font><br>
<font size="-1" face="geneva, arial">why <b>The Simpsons</b> and <b>South Park</b> are the best things on TV</font><br><br>
<blockquote>
<font face="geneva, arial">
The only television shows I'll watch anymore — I mean really sit down and watch — are cartoons. I do have a soft spot in my heart for the Spelling-esque psychodramas, and I still enjoy The Daily Show and its less irreverent late-night brethren — but when it comes to thick and meaty stories that I can really wrap my brain around, nothing works like a good, well-written cartoon. To me, they're like great literature. Or mythology. Or Aesop's Fables on acid.<br><br>
Cartoons have the luxury of purveying an entirely alternate universe where, say, a pig and an elephant could cross-breed and create a pigephant. Or you could eat some incredibly hot peppers at a Chili Cook-Off and go on an extended visionquest to find your soulmate. Cartoon reality is only as limited as the imaginations behind it. The truly brilliant ones take real reality — the one we're all dealing with here in the third dimension, throw two scoops of irony on it, hurl out some sidelong cultural commentary, and crack you up in the process.<br><br>
A couple years ago, MTV aired a cartoon version of Sam Keith's comic book series, <b>The Maxx</b>. It was sort of a <b>Beauty and the Beast</b> meets <b>Yellow Submarine</b> tale about a girl named Julie, and The Maxx, an enormous purple creature with monstrous teeth and rage-activated claws. By day, they lived in her tiny dark apartment, but the two were so intertwined in each others' lives that they played out elaborate dramas in each other's fantasy worlds, he in her Jungle and she in his Outback.<br><br>
Narrated by the omniscient Mr. Gone, this short series was a wild phantasmagorical dream world, with lush visuals and a stack of metaphors that would make Freud proud. It was one of the coolest love stories I'd ever seen. At the end, Julie realizes that their whole relationship — indeed her whole life in The City — might be a figment of her imagination, and she leaves. A love story that ends with the realization that the whole thing might have been a fabrication of her own mind? And they seperate? How much more real can you get?<br><br>
*sigh*<br><br>
Okay, well it didn't crack me up, but <b>The Maxx</b> sure fit the rest of my criteria. Very meaty.<br><br>
The newest addition to my regular TV diet is <b>South Park</b>. Currently basking in full-fledged media darling status, it's truly one of the most innovative, idiosyncratic, and, yes, scatological shows on television.<br><br>
First off, if you can get past the visuals without chortling, you either need glasses or you're dead. These computer-generated, yet nonetheless lovable creatures look like they came out of the scrap book of a demon child — a lo-fi cut and paste construction paper art project perhaps, and animated in a herky jerky assemblage of snow, blood, poop, and vomit.<br><br>
But all the bodily excretions, anal probes, and flaming fart jokes for which <b>South Park</b> is so famous (infamous?) belie the real soul of this show, which takes a triple dose of irony to truly appreciate. When Satan comes to town in a recent episode to challenge Jesus in the Final Apocalypse — an entirely irreverent notion right there, as Jesus is depicted as the wussy host of a South Park cable access show called "Jesus and Pals" — the battle for "your spiritual leader" is on.<br><br>
Meanwhile, Cartman (who could be considered the Seven Deadly Sins incarnate) has a tantrum when his pals consider attending the Big Fight instead of his birthday party, which is scheduled for the same day. That's Saturday, for all you Bible students.<br><br>
Anyway, the fight turns into a huge media event available only on Pay Per View, as the townspeople place their bets on who's gonna kick whose ass. Turns out in the final hour, nobody has any money on Jesus, save for one lone person, and despite Jesus's attempts to convey the severity of the situation.<br><br>
The Big Red One is indeed kicking Jesus's ass when Kyle, Kenny, and Stan arrive. Cartman is staying at home to eat more pie. After a semi-inspirational speech from Kyle, Jesus finally removes his halo and takes a beleaguered swing at Satan who drops to the mat in a heap. Jesus is pronounced victorious, and the townspeople are aghast.<br><br>
Satan, faker that he is, suddenly springs back to life and bellows, "Fools! Don't you see? Who do you think was the one person who bet on Jesus to win? Me, you idiots! And now I will take all your hard-earned money and return to Hell a much richer Prince of Darkness and buy some real estate."<br><br>
Ha ha. Nice Monty Python reference there, but this episode got me thinking: If in fact the apocalypse were to happen today — just for the sake of argument — is this at all that far-fetched? Man, they really nailed America's diabolical trinity of media, money, and Beelzebub himself in this one — all in one short half hour. It'll be interesting to see if <b>South Park</b> can maintain it's surreal genius in the aftermath of the hype machine. God, let's hope so!<br><br>
If, however, there was ever any doubt that a television show <b>can</b> survive enormous commercial success, allow me to introduce as evidence Matt "Life in Hell" Groening's <b>The Simpsons</b> — the most consistently topical, media parodying, subversive, brilliantly written show on the air, ever, in the history of television, no questions asked, and complete with a full line of ancillary merchandise. And it's still kicking ass in its ninth season on the air.<br><br>
In a recent jab at the comedy glitterati, Krusty the Clown decides to hang up his career after his low-brow act bombs at a benefit show with Jay Leno, Janeane Garafalo, Bruce Baum, Bobcat Goldthwait, and Steven Wright. As he's making his bitter farewell speech at a press conference, one intrepid reporter asks why he's quitting, and Krusty cites how lame mainstream comedy has become: "These comics today...'Oooh look at me! I can't set my VCR. I can't open a bag of airline peanuts. I'm a freakin' moron!"<br><br>
This elicits a real subversive charge from Krusty's audience of reporters, and he opts not to quit just yet. Reinvigorated by "observational" humor, his new act spews invective against the Madison Avenue marketing machine that uses 'dead' celebrities to hawk their products. Ironic, considering Krusty has sold his likeness to everything from Krusty Personal Cleaning Swabs to his own propitary Radon Detectors. (Not to mention that the Simpsons themselves are smiling off of beach towels, calenders and coffee mugs at this very moment.)<br><br>
Anyway, in protest of the entertainment/product placement machine, Krusty burns a dollar bill right there on stage during Moe's Brew Ha Ha night, and his audience is so worked up in agreement that they follow suit. Sensing a man who knows how to get people to part with their money something fierce, a couple of marketing suits try to lure Krusty into sponsoring their Canyonaro sports utility vehicle, which he, of course, does. "It ain't comedy that's in my blood," he says to Bart as they're leaving, "it's selling out."<br><br>
Krusty gets his new truck by saying things that his audience wanted to
hear. Reality (or "observational humor") sells big, presumably because we
like it when bullshit is exposed for what it is — whether it's a
confounding set of VCR controls or a corporate bloodwagon designed to sell
us more crap or the fact that some comedians are just plain morons.<br><br>
Feeding off media clichés like (*cough*) news reporters on a philandering President, <b>The Simpsons</b> is an excellent antidote to the ubiquitous
lie-spewing ether of the information age. Indeed, Simpsons supervisor
Mike Reiss once admitted to writer Douglas Rushkoff, "The overarching point [of the show] is that the media's stupid and manipulative, TV is a narcotic, and all big institutions are corrupt and evil."<br><br>
That TV is to the point where it can deliver that message and still get
paid handsomely for it is the best news of all.
<br><br><hr><br>
<font size="-1"><b><a href="http://MAILTO:betty@fucker.com">J. Betty Ray</a> </b> is an antlered writer who revels in the incestuous relationship between the teeming mass of media to itself and to the world at large. She sharpens her rack as editor of Fucker Dot Com and resident empath for the The Chankstore. A cathode junkie to the core, Ray spends most of her time basking in the soft warm glow of monitor and TV screen simultaneously, in pursuit of that ever-elusive state of mind that can only be described as, "You're soaking in it."</font><br><br>
<center><font size="-1">© 1998 by J. Betty Ray and Tripod, Inc. All rights reserved.<br><br>
THE SIMPSONS Trademark and Copyright FOX and its related entities.<br>
SOUTH PARK Trademark and Copyright Comedy Central.</font></font></center></blockquote>
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