There was more to MTV than just music. For the sake of appealing further to youth culture, we got a glut of cartoons that were either objectively good, or flawed but at the very least bearable to watch.
MTV was where many creators got their start, Mark Hentemann of Bordertown fame(?) got his start with 3 South, minding whatever work he did for Family Guy either before or after, John R. Dilworth's work appeared three times in different animation showcases on the network, Lord and Miller got their start with the beloved Clone High, Chris Prynoski before Megas XLR got his start with Downtown, the creators of Golan the Insatiable got their start with DJ and the Fro (plus some crappy Comedy Central show.) and Danny Antonucci got his start... continue on.
Background
Before creating what many consider to be the greatest cartoon of all time, one so great I actually managed to get back into it even after I said I hated it for some reason, Antonucci was just an independent animator. Around that point he created content for commercials like Foot Locker and Converse, even creating Lupo the Butcher for that purpose, who landed in the latter spot as well as two MTV bumps. Structured like that for the sake of flow.
Because his style fit the nature MTV was going for at the time, Antonucci had MTV down for some further contributions, notably another bumper which centered on three grotesque albinos taking a shit. We're adults here, we gotta look at something like that objectively, I mean they heavily imply that's what happened, see for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrXbZMNVb8k
Apparently either the bumper was that popular or Antonucci seized an opportunity to get into the television business, and that bumper became the basis for a cartoon series, The Brothers Grunt. Even in its prime, the show wasn't that warmly received. It came out during the heyday of Beavis and Butthead's popularity.
A scheduling practice led to both shows alternating timeslots on a particular day, and think of it like this, people came to MTV for music and Beavis and Butthead, no exceptions. I'd say it was all because of the network underestimating the popularity of their staple at the time, or because of indirect exploitation of a slot people would be tuned into, only to get this.
People were dumb enough to call this a rip-off of Aaaah! Real Monsters, something the creator of it rejected. Thank you Garbor Csupo, mad respect.
Plot (or something)
The idea behind this is that there is a civilization of humanoid creatures called grunts (basically pale veiny things wearing underwear), and one who is identified as the chosen one, Perry, winds up fleeing for civilization, with five others (Frank, Bing, Sammy, Tony and Dean) setting out to find him.
Now keep in mind, the plot isn't so much an important detail, rather a suggestion for why anything is happening. To best sum up this show, it's a bunch of surrealistic non-sequiturs. Surrealism is cool... if done properly. Here it feels like stuff happens just for the sake of it happening. While Perry is seen, it's rare for the other grunts to see him and try to get him back, so while the overarching story is wasted, it isn't in a way that it feels painful.
Gotta admit something, I had seen the show online a long time ago, and only got back into it now, somehow I was able to guess the names of the significant characters quite easily. They certainly look visibly distinguishable, so let's have a little fun trying to single out their personalities.
Bing seems to be the ladies man, based on his build and most visual gags, then apparently he died and went to hell. Tony seems to be the most interested in finding Perry, but is also the most neurotic, Dean is the well meaning of the grunts, so I believe, I have only seen Frank once so I assume he and Sammy are more into the human world than the task at hand.
This was with a paltry amount of episodes I managed to catch, so I may be missing something.
Then there's the gross out factor. Beyond the appearance of the grunts, there are plenty of moments furthering it like drinking sweat and some other things I don't remember too well. If I had to say anything nice, it wasn't as forced as Ren and Stimpy Adult Party Cartoon, not to mention this didn't have any expectancies to uphold to start with.
But let's put it into a different context. This came out in 1995, around that time Beavis and Butthead was in its prime, and we also got shows like The Head, Æon Flux and The Maxx. Each show had a stable story structure, the latter three were dark action shows. While this can at least stand out in terms of visuals and structure, it wasn't anything to write home about all things considered.
But honestly, I don't think there could've been anything done about it. I'd say knock the Perry details and just have it be a surrealistic anthology program, but perhaps try to provide bigger meaning to most of the segments for the sake of a purpose. Our imaginations can only go so far on fumes, and I feel the biggest sin this show had was a lack of true purpose.
Style
Ed, Edd n' Eddy is perhaps best known as one of the last shows to make use of cel animation. Here, it seems like they went for the more traditional route (at least based on what I could tell.) The overall design takes what should be a surrealistic world and somehow makes it mundane. This is the norm for the show, so at best you just have some ugly guys dinking around a world full of stupid people, along with whatever shenanigans are going on.
It worked better in Ed, Edd n' Eddy because it was technically more grounded, and the more surrealistic aspects always came out of nowhere. Here, anything is possible and the mystique is missing in action. The grunts can be summed up as those lazy bums who like cheese and martinis.
Overall
Antonucci had agreed this was a failure, but not like something he wished never happened. In a way I can see what he means. It helped to get his company out there, this was the first production of a.k.a. Cartoon, and thanks to some further experience with television production, got the confidence to do Ed, Edd n' Eddy later down the line.
Hard to believe Danny did that mostly out of spite, but hey, when we do something we hate, we get the provocative to try and make it bearable for us to do, and we wind up not only making it good for us, but something enjoyable for the public. Funny how that was malice-based, but this was not, for the sake of irony.
Honestly, even before then MTV cartoons had class, so this would've been easily cast aside regardless. Where does this even fit in the world of the youth of the 90s? It's already so surrealistic that not even weed could make it interesting. It's safe to say this is technically MTV's worst animated series, no cartoon since has ever come close to dethroning it.
If you're curious, it's best seen piece by piece, each segment is only a little above four minutes, take it or leave it.
No comments:
Post a Comment