Ever thought cartoons were too sugarcoated and geared toward children? One trip to SPIKE AND MIKE’S SICK AND TWISTED FESTIVAL OF ANIMATION will cure that. These are not cartoons to go with your bowl of cereal on Saturday morning. You would in fact do well to down a few before viewing these digusting little vignettes. This year Spike and the dearly departed Mike included 15 new films and brought back old favorites like NO NECK JOE, HUT SLUTS, and even SLOACHES FUN HOUSE—deemed “the sickest film ever,” by Spike.
JP: This cartoon was just pure fun! Rick and Steve live in Legomania with their gay selves and lesbian neighbors. The lesbians decide to have a baby and enlist Rick and Steve as sperm donors. Legos, the medium used for this film, heightened the hilarity of every scene.
RB: Contains never-before-seen, not-to-be-missed footage of Lego-wanking!
JP: Set to the jiving tunes of the Squirrel Nut Zippers, this little 1930s-esque ’toon of a rodent-like couple who enter a haunted inn totally animated my evening. All of the couple’s movements were in sync with the wailing brass wails of the soundtrack. Clearly a loving homage to the classic Fleischer cartoon, BIMBO’S INITIATION, this cartoon definitely carried its own.
JP: Having seen this film at Cinematexas, the annual short film festival at the University of Texas, I knew what to expect—a series of stick figures bleeding in orifices that aren’t supposed to bleed. These little sick stick guys were hilarious donning silly hats at the expense of others or ripping out each others’ guts.
RB: The fact that these cartoons were commissioned by, then rejected by the Learning Channel just added to the all-around manic fun!
JP: Okay, never try to juxtapose the Mafia with Christmas. It just doesn’t work. Rudolph relates a tale of mob brutality to a group of children in this ineffective, banal animation.
In short, this cartoon should sleep with the fishes.
RB: Fuhgeddaboutit. Really dumb premise, really awful cartoon.
JP: Catchy music couldn’t save this little ’toon. Even though it was really short (its only saving grace), this film had no political, social, moral or any subtext behind it.
JP: A festival favorite, SLOACHES is just sheer sickness spanning 2:53 minutes. If it’s not the pornographic content that gets you, it’s the sickly misshaped clay used to form the figures. This seriously was the grossest comic I have ever seen.
RB: I concur, plus, after, oh, 0:53 seconds of the grainy, underlit images so traditional in porn, it actually got kind of boring.
JP: Two guys walk in a dark alley. Prostitute propositions a blow-job for a dollar. Prostitute does her duty, and then the recipient somehow manages to ingest the prostitute’s unborn fetus which he later expels into a toilet—do you still want to see this now?
RB: In some way, a highlight of the show, for being offensive on every imaginable level. Utterly repellent, but then that’s what I paid $7.50 for.
JP: The greatest catch phrase for the night—STINKY MONKEY! I couldn’t stop saying it without a giggle. Basically, a girl plays with her monkey and manages to throw him into oncoming traffic. Interesting plot narrative and a twist at the end makes this cartoon a must- see.
RB: Tee hee! Stinky Monkey!
—Jennifer Prestigiacomo, with Roxanne Bogucka
