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Description

"Is he going to able to chase us? ‘Cause if I woke up lookin’ like that, I would just run towards the nearest living thing and kill it"

-Master Shake(Total Re-Carl)

Oh yeah, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, this is a show that has been straight up made for me and my weird senses of humor. My first experience with this show's existence happened years ago by seeing some ads on TV. Despite looking like your typical Adult Swim’s mediocrity, my interest was big enough to give it a shot with the first few episodes, ever since Rabbot I take all my words back at how debate Aqua Team could be, as it’s made me laugh hard by each single second of it. After this pilot I checked out several other S1 episodes, they were, while not as gut-bustingly funny, still gave me a lot of great laughs. And with having a big admiration towards this show ever since the first few episodes I wanted to watch more and more of Aqua Team, but with this big amount of seasons(even if all of them after S2 are very short) I didn’t go to that this quick. I came up with the idea of watching random episodes at random order, some episodes keeped being hilarious, some not much, but my love for this show just grew as time went on. And with 2019 times, I finally decided to watch this show from start to finish in the right order, as well as to make one big scorecard to this show for the full picture. After finally rating every single episode I can gladly say that this is one of my favorite shows, so much about this show did a lot to me that the others, that either went into entirely different directions or failed at the similar task. But wait, what is even good about Aqua Teen? What makes it this nearly 100% consistent throughout 11 seasons of the run? Let’s finally talk about this show for a minute or two.

Let’s start with the weakest aspect of the show first, and it’s animation. It’s not easy to notice that this show looks pretty cheap and limited, but I think that even this quality Aqua Team handled very well. For first, this show’s basic shitpost tone never requires characters doing anything beyond impossible other than talking or at times rising hands up, which doesn’t make the lack of extra animation look that needed. And besides, I think this show looks actually really pleasant when it comes to artstyle. This is especially noticeable by a background art of the show, at season 1 it was a bit off, since from time to time it ripped some of those from random Hanna Barbara shows, but after that it got consistent. So even with the worst part of general show’s quality I can say more good things about rather than bad, ain’t it lovely?

For toolazytoread: Despite having a very low amount of budget for each episode. Show uses it’s cheap animation wisely by having the right tone and actions that doesn’t make lack of budget look out of place. But beyond that it still looks appealing nonetheless.

The characters in other hands are a whole new other bar. Everyone who interacted with me at least for 5 minutes would know that I absolutely LOVE Master Shake, as well as some of my favorite cartoon characters in history. He’s just got everything, he’s sense of fair laziness and egoism that is combined with the want to rant, or overall spit a word about anything he sees. never fails to make my day. But for not overpowering his behavior, the show always knows how to place him in the right spot of justice by everyone calling him out each time. That is why it’s also as funny whenever he gets beat up every second time by how far the plot went. This is a good balance of anti-hero character, that despite being a flat out asshole is still lovable and hilarious. Coming up next, Meatwad. With all his kindness to everything, that always gets into the punchline of some sick joke that is usually caused by Shake, which is as sad as it’s hilarious. What is interesting about Meatwad is that there was a good amount of time when he portrayed the more cynical side of him, this is actually justified each time like the manipulation of other characters, but also doesn’t feel out of his child-like characterization by not making him into an absolute jerk. Frylock isn’t as funny as the previous two, but I like him nonetheless. What I appreciate about him the most is that instead of being a generic smart character, he also has a trait of wanting to be pretty friendly to nearly everyone, which of course gets him disappointed but what a circle of idiots he lives in. Carl is especially the goldmine of a character, he can’t never disappoint with the countless amount of anger and despise he has towards his neighbors, as well as basically any other average life routine that keeps bothering him during the episodes. The chemistry between all 4 characters works, works like a fine clock. Show has a lot of secondary characters and the amount of them got bigger with the next episode, and they are all great, from the more iconic Mooninites to more one note like Rubberman and Ezekial. Nearly every episode has a one-off with his own trait and designs, and because of that, a lot of episodes have more things to show, leaving jokes to spray out from the whole time slot.

For toolazytoread: The chemistry between main four characters is brilliant. By also having a lot of one-offs in majority of episodes show doesn’t feel hollow and prepare viewer to something new each time.

But now I've finally reached the point of the core, the show’s overall writing and structure that made everything work as it exists nowadays. I love the show's writing, and I love it a lot. I think this is very hard to make anti-humor funny and right, especially to the point where it’s the show that runs on it for 11 seasons. The premise of the show is literally nonexistent, or the one that was introduced ended up being fake that was abandoned a few episodes after, which makes the show even funnier on this fact alone. But what actually helps to field up this nothingness to begin with? Because of nonexistent premise and rules, the plots can go absolutely anywhere in every episode, and much as it could sounds both genius and stupid at at the same time. Get frozen in the middle of nowhere? Sure, why not. Every main character got destroyed in the middle of nowhere? Go ahead. Blow up the whole universe? Don’t forget to take garbage outside while you at it. The main source of substance in Aqua Team is built up from the conversations that happen a looooooot in episodes. The dialogues in the show are simply excellent, they really make episodes being a gem each time, the interactions of main trio over their insane world (or just over themselves if anything) is simply works because of well balanced sense of irony that usually gets aware by right chosen characters like Frylock, by irony this pure you also get over-exaggeration of situations that grow with each minute, making it up to the episode live it’s own direction, where even if episodes seemingly ended up having no resolution or having brand new problem, it’s get genuinely funny and left great spot for an subversion, instead of random and lazy. 11 minute format is also earned to be credited for, it's just perfect for the show's formula of structure, by not being long enough to get old but also having much space to escalate a lot with the inadequate amount of gold. Look arc Rabbot once again. Just the first minute alone field with gag after gag that came from simple dialogue about Carl’s damaged car. By each next step it continues the rapid of the jokes that leads to having the rightful way to simply not solve its problem, making the episode even funnier. T-Shirt of the Living Dead is another example of an episode that got escalated with its own shenanigans by each next minute, leaving everything by an absurd, but justifying ending. Something like Broodwich made 1 minute(at extended version even 2 and a half) that is dedicated to entirely irrelevant conversation about skulls in a jar, and it also could work as easy because of the depth that such a simple convo got. Love Mummy, Interfection, Super Hero, The Clowning, Video Ouija, Boost Mobile, and so many other stellars have been born because of this functional structure.

But on the lower side of the last statement, this is a reason why the show's Movie is relatively underwhelming by the Aqua Team’s standards. I still do like it, and it’s shared some of classic bits that are easily classified as one of the funniest moments of the series(Such as opener, where you've been warned that if you film the movie you're not going to see daylight ever again, absolutely beautiful). Even has a good origin story for the main characters to show. So what is even wrong? The whole thing doesn’t feel like it should’ve been a movie in the first place. Aqua Team’s comedy style is perfect for 11 minutes, but this craziness going for a good 90 minutes could damage this charm for one or two bits. It feels dragged a lot of times. A lot of those jokes could be easily cut and divided into regular episodes without changing anything. So in general the movie looks more like a compilation of the jokes rather than a movie. Good one at that at least.

And after all that, something happened that forced me to finally start talking negatively about Aqua Team, but here I go.

Season 5 is a fucking T R A S H. It’s entirely misunderstood the point of show’s humor and instead most of it dedicated on low quality shock humor, and as we all know, this is the lowest hanging fruit in adult animation that you can reach. Yes, it’s isn’t a secret that other seasons had own dose of violence in it, but it’s significantly more restrained with this matter in any other season. Not to mention, that was never the highlight of the joke, it was always an element that leaded to the reaction of characters that pull show’s well know dialogue humor, making usage of gore to be entirely respectful. S5 is nothing like that, episodes like Sirens or Dummy Love been made for you to cringe as hard as you could. Some do the same thing but wish wasting legitimate great premises such as Hoppy Bunny or Laser Lenses. Reedickyoulous is the biggest offender of all of those, it doesn't even feel like an episode of Aqua Team even by the season’s standards. 11 minutes of unintelligent, aimless nonsense that wastes your time for nothing but embarrassment. This season also tried to had some story arc at the very beginning, but I couldn’t care less when episodes this repetitive with its comedy. Very sad picture here. I do really like 2 episodes from this season(even if one of them isn’t even finished in production)that does feel like they have the same charm that previous seasons had, but they aren’t enough to cover up the failure that S5 and it’s shock value was back then. How did that even happened? Not that I want to defend this season by any means, but I do feel like the quality of it was influenced by the movie that was in production by the same time. That would make a lot of sense to crew either paying more attention to the bigger project rather than regular season OR having no much of footstep after finishing said big project. I have my own gripes about the movie, but it definitely had more passion than the entirety of S5, making looks like this show went for its burnout... But that was over quickly! As S6 got everything back to track. I heard that some people combine this season in the same group next to S5, but I disagree, because it’s noticeably less edgy for no reasons and instead focus on the show's good old characters interactions. And S7 was my favorite season of the whole show. It has most of my all time favorites such as Hands On a Hamburger, Multiple Meat, and of course One Hundred, some of the most hilarious cartoon episodes ever made in my opinion, as well as possibly the most clever usage of meta humor.

S8-11 however, is a more interesting case to remark. Despite still being as insane as previous seasons, they also have a bit of down-to-earth feel, and in general feel a bit more polished than any other season before. I don’t think that this is a bad case at all, if anything it’s only impressive how the show managed to have changes in tone, yet not changing overall. Those seasons are still funny thanks for the reasons I mentioned since the beginning, although unlike those ones, S8-11 has its duds at times. Jumpy George is a generic fight over love trope that doesn’t even have usual ATHF’s style. Rocket Horse & Jet Chicken feels like a lost S5 episode even if admittedly scenes with Shake are funny. Totem Pole is the most forgettable thing that show ever did. Banana Planet mostly repeats the same unfunny gag over the whole thing. And I have no idea what Spacecadeuce was at all other than it’s pretty lame. But with all the style changes and occasional bad episodes, I still respect the show for keeping experimenting. With that, those seasons hit their own top tier material such as Last Dance for Napkin Lad, The Granite Family, Muscles or Mouth Quest and others. Not only that, S11 even managed to create the proper series finale, and when you make a full thought finale for a show about nothing, you did one hell of a great job.

For toolazytoread: S5 Bad S1-4/S6-11 gud.

Aqua Team Hunger Force is a very special show in many ways. The existence of it proves that by having legitimately no aim or proper budget, you still can create the near masterpiece. Who knew that all you need is the brilliant work with the dialogues and voice acting that keeps support show’s bizarre nature without getting out of the place, that also leaves you a long road of charismatic characters in every second step. I see a lot of reasons why I wholesomely consider the show about Alive Fast Food being the classic of adult animation. Yes, I trashed S5 a lot, but it’s only a single, short season that didn’t even leave much of its mark on the show as it quickly got redeemed, so having one bad season and 10 quality ones as an exchange sounds like a fair enough deal. And in general, as long as this series went over, I still impressed how it never went out of steam throughout the whole run, leaving offering something new each time by experimenting with the format. This show is very easy to keep on track with, that is why most of the episodes have a lot of rewatchable value. This piece of platinum just can’t be substituted by anything else. This is something that happens once in lifetime, and I appreciate it as much as I could for that.

Ultimate Ranking: 7>1>6>4>2>3>9>11>10>8>lol>looooooooool>5

Description

"Is he going to able to chase us? ‘Cause if I woke up lookin’ like that, I would just run towards the nearest living thing and kill it"

-Master Shake(Total Re-Carl)

Oh yeah, Aqua Teen Hunger Force, this is a show that has been straight up made for me and my weird senses of humor. My first experience with this show's existence happened years ago by seeing some ads on TV. Despite looking like your typical Adult Swim’s mediocrity, my interest was big enough to give it a shot with the first few episodes, ever since Rabbot I take all my words back at how debate Aqua Team could be, as it’s made me laugh hard by each single second of it. After this pilot I checked out several other S1 episodes, they were, while not as gut-bustingly funny, still gave me a lot of great laughs. And with having a big admiration towards this show ever since the first few episodes I wanted to watch more and more of Aqua Team, but with this big amount of seasons(even if all of them after S2 are very short) I didn’t go to that this quick. I came up with the idea of watching random episodes at random order, some episodes keeped being hilarious, some not much, but my love for this show just grew as time went on. And with 2019 times, I finally decided to watch this show from start to finish in the right order, as well as to make one big scorecard to this show for the full picture. After finally rating every single episode I can gladly say that this is one of my favorite shows, so much about this show did a lot to me that the others, that either went into entirely different directions or failed at the similar task. But wait, what is even good about Aqua Teen? What makes it this nearly 100% consistent throughout 11 seasons of the run? Let’s finally talk about this show for a minute or two.

Let’s start with the weakest aspect of the show first, and it’s animation. It’s not easy to notice that this show looks pretty cheap and limited, but I think that even this quality Aqua Team handled very well. For first, this show’s basic shitpost tone never requires characters doing anything beyond impossible other than talking or at times rising hands up, which doesn’t make the lack of extra animation look that needed. And besides, I think this show looks actually really pleasant when it comes to artstyle. This is especially noticeable by a background art of the show, at season 1 it was a bit off, since from time to time it ripped some of those from random Hanna Barbara shows, but after that it got consistent. So even with the worst part of general show’s quality I can say more good things about rather than bad, ain’t it lovely?

For toolazytoread: Despite having a very low amount of budget for each episode. Show uses it’s cheap animation wisely by having the right tone and actions that doesn’t make lack of budget look out of place. But beyond that it still looks appealing nonetheless.

The characters in other hands are a whole new other bar. Everyone who interacted with me at least for 5 minutes would know that I absolutely LOVE Master Shake, as well as some of my favorite cartoon characters in history. He’s just got everything, he’s sense of fair laziness and egoism that is combined with the want to rant, or overall spit a word about anything he sees. never fails to make my day. But for not overpowering his behavior, the show always knows how to place him in the right spot of justice by everyone calling him out each time. That is why it’s also as funny whenever he gets beat up every second time by how far the plot went. This is a good balance of anti-hero character, that despite being a flat out asshole is still lovable and hilarious. Coming up next, Meatwad. With all his kindness to everything, that always gets into the punchline of some sick joke that is usually caused by Shake, which is as sad as it’s hilarious. What is interesting about Meatwad is that there was a good amount of time when he portrayed the more cynical side of him, this is actually justified each time like the manipulation of other characters, but also doesn’t feel out of his child-like characterization by not making him into an absolute jerk. Frylock isn’t as funny as the previous two, but I like him nonetheless. What I appreciate about him the most is that instead of being a generic smart character, he also has a trait of wanting to be pretty friendly to nearly everyone, which of course gets him disappointed but what a circle of idiots he lives in. Carl is especially the goldmine of a character, he can’t never disappoint with the countless amount of anger and despise he has towards his neighbors, as well as basically any other average life routine that keeps bothering him during the episodes. The chemistry between all 4 characters works, works like a fine clock. Show has a lot of secondary characters and the amount of them got bigger with the next episode, and they are all great, from the more iconic Mooninites to more one note like Rubberman and Ezekial. Nearly every episode has a one-off with his own trait and designs, and because of that, a lot of episodes have more things to show, leaving jokes to spray out from the whole time slot.

For toolazytoread: The chemistry between main four characters is brilliant. By also having a lot of one-offs in majority of episodes show doesn’t feel hollow and prepare viewer to something new each time.

But now I've finally reached the point of the core, the show’s overall writing and structure that made everything work as it exists nowadays. I love the show's writing, and I love it a lot. I think this is very hard to make anti-humor funny and right, especially to the point where it’s the show that runs on it for 11 seasons. The premise of the show is literally nonexistent, or the one that was introduced ended up being fake that was abandoned a few episodes after, which makes the show even funnier on this fact alone. But what actually helps to field up this nothingness to begin with? Because of nonexistent premise and rules, the plots can go absolutely anywhere in every episode, and much as it could sounds both genius and stupid at at the same time. Get frozen in the middle of nowhere? Sure, why not. Every main character got destroyed in the middle of nowhere? Go ahead. Blow up the whole universe? Don’t forget to take garbage outside while you at it. The main source of substance in Aqua Team is built up from the conversations that happen a looooooot in episodes. The dialogues in the show are simply excellent, they really make episodes being a gem each time, the interactions of main trio over their insane world (or just over themselves if anything) is simply works because of well balanced sense of irony that usually gets aware by right chosen characters like Frylock, by irony this pure you also get over-exaggeration of situations that grow with each minute, making it up to the episode live it’s own direction, where even if episodes seemingly ended up having no resolution or having brand new problem, it’s get genuinely funny and left great spot for an subversion, instead of random and lazy. 11 minute format is also earned to be credited for, it's just perfect for the show's formula of structure, by not being long enough to get old but also having much space to escalate a lot with the inadequate amount of gold. Look arc Rabbot once again. Just the first minute alone field with gag after gag that came from simple dialogue about Carl’s damaged car. By each next step it continues the rapid of the jokes that leads to having the rightful way to simply not solve its problem, making the episode even funnier. T-Shirt of the Living Dead is another example of an episode that got escalated with its own shenanigans by each next minute, leaving everything by an absurd, but justifying ending. Something like Broodwich made 1 minute(at extended version even 2 and a half) that is dedicated to entirely irrelevant conversation about skulls in a jar, and it also could work as easy because of the depth that such a simple convo got. Love Mummy, Interfection, Super Hero, The Clowning, Video Ouija, Boost Mobile, and so many other stellars have been born because of this functional structure.

But on the lower side of the last statement, this is a reason why the show's Movie is relatively underwhelming by the Aqua Team’s standards. I still do like it, and it’s shared some of classic bits that are easily classified as one of the funniest moments of the series(Such as opener, where you've been warned that if you film the movie you're not going to see daylight ever again, absolutely beautiful). Even has a good origin story for the main characters to show. So what is even wrong? The whole thing doesn’t feel like it should’ve been a movie in the first place. Aqua Team’s comedy style is perfect for 11 minutes, but this craziness going for a good 90 minutes could damage this charm for one or two bits. It feels dragged a lot of times. A lot of those jokes could be easily cut and divided into regular episodes without changing anything. So in general the movie looks more like a compilation of the jokes rather than a movie. Good one at that at least.

And after all that, something happened that forced me to finally start talking negatively about Aqua Team, but here I go.

Season 5 is a fucking T R A S H. It’s entirely misunderstood the point of show’s humor and instead most of it dedicated on low quality shock humor, and as we all know, this is the lowest hanging fruit in adult animation that you can reach. Yes, it’s isn’t a secret that other seasons had own dose of violence in it, but it’s significantly more restrained with this matter in any other season. Not to mention, that was never the highlight of the joke, it was always an element that leaded to the reaction of characters that pull show’s well know dialogue humor, making usage of gore to be entirely respectful. S5 is nothing like that, episodes like Sirens or Dummy Love been made for you to cringe as hard as you could. Some do the same thing but wish wasting legitimate great premises such as Hoppy Bunny or Laser Lenses. Reedickyoulous is the biggest offender of all of those, it doesn't even feel like an episode of Aqua Team even by the season’s standards. 11 minutes of unintelligent, aimless nonsense that wastes your time for nothing but embarrassment. This season also tried to had some story arc at the very beginning, but I couldn’t care less when episodes this repetitive with its comedy. Very sad picture here. I do really like 2 episodes from this season(even if one of them isn’t even finished in production)that does feel like they have the same charm that previous seasons had, but they aren’t enough to cover up the failure that S5 and it’s shock value was back then. How did that even happened? Not that I want to defend this season by any means, but I do feel like the quality of it was influenced by the movie that was in production by the same time. That would make a lot of sense to crew either paying more attention to the bigger project rather than regular season OR having no much of footstep after finishing said big project. I have my own gripes about the movie, but it definitely had more passion than the entirety of S5, making looks like this show went for its burnout... But that was over quickly! As S6 got everything back to track. I heard that some people combine this season in the same group next to S5, but I disagree, because it’s noticeably less edgy for no reasons and instead focus on the show's good old characters interactions. And S7 was my favorite season of the whole show. It has most of my all time favorites such as Hands On a Hamburger, Multiple Meat, and of course One Hundred, some of the most hilarious cartoon episodes ever made in my opinion, as well as possibly the most clever usage of meta humor.

S8-11 however, is a more interesting case to remark. Despite still being as insane as previous seasons, they also have a bit of down-to-earth feel, and in general feel a bit more polished than any other season before. I don’t think that this is a bad case at all, if anything it’s only impressive how the show managed to have changes in tone, yet not changing overall. Those seasons are still funny thanks for the reasons I mentioned since the beginning, although unlike those ones, S8-11 has its duds at times. Jumpy George is a generic fight over love trope that doesn’t even have usual ATHF’s style. Rocket Horse & Jet Chicken feels like a lost S5 episode even if admittedly scenes with Shake are funny. Totem Pole is the most forgettable thing that show ever did. Banana Planet mostly repeats the same unfunny gag over the whole thing. And I have no idea what Spacecadeuce was at all other than it’s pretty lame. But with all the style changes and occasional bad episodes, I still respect the show for keeping experimenting. With that, those seasons hit their own top tier material such as Last Dance for Napkin Lad, The Granite Family, Muscles or Mouth Quest and others. Not only that, S11 even managed to create the proper series finale, and when you make a full thought finale for a show about nothing, you did one hell of a great job.

For toolazytoread: S5 Bad S1-4/S6-11 gud.

Aqua Team Hunger Force is a very special show in many ways. The existence of it proves that by having legitimately no aim or proper budget, you still can create the near masterpiece. Who knew that all you need is the brilliant work with the dialogues and voice acting that keeps support show’s bizarre nature without getting out of the place, that also leaves you a long road of charismatic characters in every second step. I see a lot of reasons why I wholesomely consider the show about Alive Fast Food being the classic of adult animation. Yes, I trashed S5 a lot, but it’s only a single, short season that didn’t even leave much of its mark on the show as it quickly got redeemed, so having one bad season and 10 quality ones as an exchange sounds like a fair enough deal. And in general, as long as this series went over, I still impressed how it never went out of steam throughout the whole run, leaving offering something new each time by experimenting with the format. This show is very easy to keep on track with, that is why most of the episodes have a lot of rewatchable value. This piece of platinum just can’t be substituted by anything else. This is something that happens once in lifetime, and I appreciate it as much as I could for that.

Ultimate Ranking: 7>1>6>4>2>3>9>11>10>8>lol>looooooooool>5