On Thursday, Trash City hosted the Charles Band Full Moon Horror Roadshow at the MADCAP Theaters in downtown Tempe, and a crowd of about 150 enthusiastic fans enjoyed an evening of anecdotes, clips, props, audience participation and rampant consumerism. It’s the third time we’ve been involved with the event: after hosting it the first time Band came to Phoenix in September 2006, Chris was brought on board to find other venues, nationwide, for the tour in both 2008 and 2009.

I can’t come up with anything that’s quite like it. It seems to hark back to the early days of carnival cinema, when a showman would travel town-to-town, setting up his tent and showing some luridly-exploitational title such as Sex Madness, with separate showings for men and women, naturally! He’d sell some merchandise to make additional cash, then leave town before the authorities could react to the potential moral corruption in their midst. While other directors have done one-man shows – Kevin Smith and John Waters come to mind immediately – they don’t bring quite the same sense of showmanship. Think of it as a one-night FullMoonapalooza [next year, we would perhaps like to tie it in with some movie screenings in the afternoon]

Band is among the most prolific film-makers of his time, and the son of Albert Band, who made films in his own right, including the marvellously-titled I Bury the Living. Charles has 241 production credits on his IMDb page at time of writing, going back to his debut in 1973 with Last Foxtrot in Burbank. He gave Demi Moore her first starring role in in 1982’s Parasite, and has been involved with the likes of Klaus Kinski, Lance Henriksen, Bill Maher and Oscar-winner Gary Busey. Sci-fi, horror and soft-porn have been his bread and butter for over 30 years, and he survived the implosion of his theatrical venture, Empire Pictures, in the late 1980’s.

Long-running franchises like the Puppet Master series have been the staple of video-store shelves forever. The upcoming Puppet Master: Axis of Evil will be the tenth film to bear the name since the original came out, two decades ago, and if there’s a horror movie with dolls, puppets or other tiny terrors in it, there’s a good chance Band is involved. We’re not talking great art, let’s be honest. However, they can be great fun, and are a refreshing blast of nostalgia from a kinder, gentler genre era, before the advent of torture-porn. Much like Troma head Lloyd Kaufman, Band has stuck to doing what he wants, has survived and is still in the business. Such tenacity can only be respected.

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Like any showman, Band makes full use of a good title. Here are my favorites from among the 200+ in his career:

1. Gingerdead Man 2: Passion of the Crust
2. Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death
3. Teenage Space Vampires
4. Virgins of Sherwood Forest
5. Mutant Hunt
6. Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama
7. Evil Bong II: King Bong
8. Robot Holocaust
9. Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000
10. Kraa! The Sea Monster

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As you can imagine, there’s no shortage of anecdotes available to him for the Roadshow, and that forms the focus of the show. He’ll sometimes bring special guests with him, such as Tim Thomerson, star of the Trancers series: at the first Phoenix event, we met Phil Fondacaro, a 3’6″ tall actor, perhaps best known for playing the only Ewok to die on screen in Return of the Jedi [“It’s a start…” mutter many Star Wars fans on reading that!]. The second show was also notable for the full-size guillotine on stage, used to carry out the live decapitation of an audience member, complete with severed head flying into the crowd. Cool. There was also the Boner-Meter, an eight-foot phallic-shaped piece of pseudo-scientific equipment; in 2009, it was an electric chair, complete with sound effects and flashing lights – I’ll get to its purpose in a moment.

Participation is a vital part of the show, not least when he gets attendees up on stage to act out a scene. This involves “auditions” for the various roles – straightforwardly described as Hero, Monster, Damsel in Distress, etc. – with the title [in 2008; I missed that section this year] generated by pulling random words from slips of paper supplied by the audience. It usually ends up as being Revenge of the Teenage Zombie Cheerleaders, or something of that ilk. The requirements are straightforward: the largest guy who can roar loudest, is the monster, while the female roles similarly go to those with the most convincing scream. Oh, and especially those prepared to take their tops off in exchange for merchandise. Ah, yes. The usual Mardi Gras cry of “Beads for boobies!” was supplanted by  “Box-sets for breasts!” here – and surprisingly effective it proved, too.

Of course, this was strictly nudity necessary to the plot: this time, it was because exposed bosoms were the only thing which could calm the savage killer after he escaped from his electric chair [See? I told you I’d get to its purpose!], because they reminded him of his childhood. Brilliant! Makes perfect sense to me, anyway. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why the silver-tongued Band has been producing movies in Hollywood for more than thirty years. Mind you, this year’s show was a great deal more restrained than last, where there was at least one participant who had to be talked into keeping her clothes on until the appropriate moment. That’s likely because this time, it was  taking place in a cinema rather than a bar, with a selection of alcohol limited to Bud and Bud Light. To quote a work colleague, why is American beer like having sex in a canoe? Because they’re both fucking close to water. We will be correcting this shameful omission next year. Trust me.

Merchandise is also an important part of the event – I would say between the DVDs, CDs, prints, T-shirts and the models which are offered for sale, it probably generates more income for Full Moon than the ticket sales. I worked the stalls at the first two shows, and can attest to the feeding frenzy which erupts after the show is over. We had learned from this, and had recruited minions from Full Moon fans prior to the event to help out Scott, Brent and Harlan (the last being Charles’s son), the roadies for the tour.

Charles sat at one of the end tables and patiently signed anything put in front of him, chatting with a long line of fans, as shown in the picture atop this article. I’ve seen other celebrities show up at these kind of events, and it’s more like a production line, as they hurry you through, so the star can escape the unwashed masses as soon as possible. That wasn’t the case here at all, and kudos to Band for his unhurried patience: he didn’t leave until the last fan in the line had been met, greeted and dispatched on his or her happy way. Indeed, Band was one of the last to leave the venue – we know this, because we drove him back to his hotel on our way home.

Like most such events, the work involved behind the scenes is (or should be!) invisible to the participants. We dodged a bullet this time, as last year’s venue closed abruptly last month – fortunately, our Spidey senses had been tingling, and we had already moved the show to a new location in downtown Tempe. When it’s over, the reaction – as with all such events – is inevitably, “Thank God.” But it’s the kind of event we would love to attend as a fan, and when it’s a success, the sense of satisfaction which results is all the greater. We look forward to being a part of the Horror Roadshow again in 2010. Just as long as we can sort the whole beer thing out.

One thing I’ve noticed in my eight years here is the fondness the United States has for taking history and re-inventing it, in order to make it ‘better’ – which can mean anything from ‘more palatable’ to simply ‘more fun’. A simple if unscientific study shows what I mean here: if you Google the term ‘America lost in Vietnam’ you get just over six million hits. If, however, you search for ‘American won in Vietnam,’ that number soars to somewhere above thirty-eight million. Looks like Arizona native John Rambo was right when he asked, “Do we get to win this time?” though perhaps even more disturbingly, “America won World War Three” gets 693 million hits.

The Renaissance Fair, while not uniquely American, is certainly largely so, and seems to me another example of that strange trait. We in Europe have little or no interest in recreating the Middle Ages as a group. We’ve been there, done that, lanced the buboes. But America didn’t exist at that point – okay, I know a few Native Americans would argue with me on that, geographically, but I mean as an independent country. It’s as if the United States feels the need to make up being late to the national party, by going back and rehashing all the centuries on which they missed out. Historical accuracy is more an afterthought at a Renaissance Fair: suspension of disbelief is rendered almost impossible, when the crowd are less likely to be dressed in tights and chain-mail than jeans and chain-mall attire.

What started as a class activity at the home of a Los Angeles schoolteacher, Phyllis Patterson in the early 60’s, has become a good deal more. Patterson’s backyard endeavour is now the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, which has over two thousand costumed performers, seven parades per day, fourteen stages of entertainment and around 150 artisans. Who knew the Middle Ages were so much fun? [It’s also helped spawn quite a few names. Charlie Sheen, Rosanna Arquette and Penn Jillette are among those who have worked at it]

And it’s far from being the only such event. Virtually every state in the country – even Alaska – now has them in a variety of shapes and sizes, from one-day events all the way to monsters like the Texas Renaissance Fair. That takes place over the best part of October and November, and has pulled in more than 370,000 visitors. Right up in the top rank – probably among the five biggest, nationwide – is the Arizona Renaissance Festival, which first took place in 1989 and now occupies a 30-acre site so far out to the south-east, it’s beyond even the suburban sprawl of Phoenix. It’s clear that entertainment comes first and foremost: the official press release describes the festival as “a Monty Python movie come to life.” And they clearly don’t mean the one about Brian, either. It goes on: “enjoy the pleasures of a simpler time in a storybook town… continuous music, dance and comedy shows, shop for wonderful arts and crafts, plus games, rides and a feast of exotic food and drink.” What? No killer rabbit? Not very like a Monty Python movie after all then, is it?

We had free tickets this year, including the Pleasure Feast, a six-course banquet, which was as much a variety show as a culinary experience, but worked pretty well as both. The food was certainly better than the average dinner theatre, I found myself thoroughly entertained – though any show where they keep coming past and filling up your tankard with more beer, is likely to skip fairly easily through the doorway of my critical acclaim. Stuffed to the gills, we rolled out of the banquet hall and began wandering around the fair. Or faire. Or fayre. For antiquated spelling is just about mandatory, with “Ye Olde [insert product] Shoppe” being par for the course.

Inhabiting the grounds are a large number of characters, though it was hard to be sure who were actually employees and who were paying customers, being a bit more extrovert than they should. This is where I begin to find things a little creepy: an interest in the past is fine, but when you feel the need to take on an entire independent character from a different time period… Here, the RenFest begins to occupy much the same ground as the Society for Creative Anachronism which, curiously enough, also started during the 60’s in a Californian backyard [likely not a coincidence: as they say, if you lived in California and remember the sixties, then you weren’t really there], who re-create the Middle Ages “as they ought to have been.” Chris used to be a member, and attended Pennsic War, their central event which draws 10,000+ each yet to Pennsylvania. She, however, opted to stay in hotels, an eminently sensible choice and is no longer a member – our review of the film Darkon gives some more insight into this general field of human activity, if you’re interested.

I have a theory about such groups and those who choose to inhabit an alternative persona: basically, it’s because they’re more or less unhappy with their actual lives. I don’t really want to go into this in depth, since I recall getting into a lot of flak in the anime community when I put forward much the same hypothesis about those who take part in cosplay. Though if I recall, I was somewhat less diplomatic about expressing myself. [The line was somewhat alcohol-fuelled, and went something like “I stopped playing dress-up when I was eight.”] I certainly acknowledge the importance of escapism as a release-valve, but the principle expressed by Roman playwright Terence in the second century B.C. applies: Ne quid nimis or, “Moderation in all things.” But if you’re not a professional actor, then it seems a legitimate question; what exactly are you escaping from, by turning yourself into another person? However, it’s been a long time since I saw so much cleavage in one place, though the quantity was not necessarily matched by the quality, it has to be said.

Thoroughly unqualified psychological analysis aside, and back at the RenFest, we headed over to the jousting, being big fans of theatrical, staged violence. Did they really have cheerleaders in medieval times? They did here, with four knights, each assigned to a section of the crowd, and each with a rabble-rouser – us being the rabble – to ensure that we gave full support to the knight of our choice. Was this historically accurate? Or more something inspired by A Knight’s Tale? Painstaking research – literally, minutes spent on Google – were unclear on this. And what the hell was a pirate doing taking part in the joust? Johnny Depp has a lot to answer for, but since there are a couple in IZW too, we are hardly in any position to be critical.

Sadly, we had to leave before the Fight to the Death, scheduled for 5pm. Still, having got our fix of senseless mayhem, we headed back, passing the giant turkey leg stall [obvious question: what do they do with the rest of the giant turkey?], the belly-dancers and the ax-throwing, as well as less traditional features such as the photo booth or ATM – sorry, Ye Olde ATME – and returning to the modern world in the thoroughly authentic recreation of a 20th-century car-park. While amusing enough, I can’t say I’m too sorry to be back and definitely prefer the land of high-speed Internet, satellite television and microwave popcorn to the Middle Ages. Or even the Middle Ages as they ought to have been…

Plaza Hotel, Las Vegas,
April 15th-17th, 2004

Where do old wrestlers go? Not a question that’s exactly been on your lips, I imagine, and perhaps that’s no surprise. Whether you feel wrestling is sport or entertainment (my position would be that it is a sublime and unique mix of the two), it’s an industry that has never given its veterans the respect they deserve. The Cauliflower Alley Club, established in 1965, is trying to rectify that, as part of its mission to celebrate and recognise fellowship within the wrestling world.

When CC Starr, commissioner of the IZW federation here in Phoenix, told us they were having a reunion in Las Vegas, we were intrigued enough to sign up and make the six-hour drive from Arizona. [It’d have been less, but the construction work and security checks at the Hoover Dam made for much idling in traffic] Besides, it was a perfect excuse to hit Las Vegas for my thirty-fnghrrmmmth birthday. 🙂

We were a little apprehensive; while both Chris and I are wrestling fans, we are some way short of being all-knowing on the topic. I grew up in Britain, and while familiar with names like Big Daddy and Giant Haystacks [pause for all UK readers of a certain age to sigh nostalgically!], the only American wrestling we got to see was occasional WWF bouts. Thus, beyond the household names like Andre the Giant, I’d be the first to admit my experience was limited, and we were thus concerned about looking like the total greenhorns we actually were.

We needn’t have worried, largely because a more friendly, warm-hearted bunch of people you couldn’t hope to find. Which is kinda ironic, given their “day jobs” in most cases involved beating the living daylights out of each other. But now, they seemed genuinely delighted by our interest, signing autographs, taking photos and talking to us in an incredibly gracious manner which soon put us at ease – and from which a lot of ‘famous’ people could learn.

A couple stood out in particular, both women wrestlers. Ida Mae Martinez, won the Mexican Women’s Championship in 1952, and is now a yodelling star(!), as well as featuring in an upcoming documentary with the intriguing title, Lipstick & Dynamite, Piss & Vinegar: The First Ladies of Wrestling. Equally as fascinating to talk to, was Ann Casey, who wrestled into her fifties, then became a truck driver. With a life that also includes meeting Elvis, a degree in criminal justice, bounty hunting, poetry and getting shot five times in 1972 while sitting in her car, Hollywood really should do a bio-pic of her – Madeleine Stowe would be Ann’s personal choice to play her role.

Speaking of films, we actually recognised some attendees, less from the ring and more their work in movies. There was George ‘The Animal’ Steele, for example, who played Tor Johnson in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood. Ox Baker, who famously beat up on Kurt Russell during Escape From New York, whose extrovert personality was still capable of filling an entire room [and going by his loud rendition of Happy Birthday, shares mine!] And we’d only just missed Hard Boiled Haggerty, from Micki and Maude, a stalwart of the CAC, who’d died less than three months before.

This was, sadly, another feature of the event: at Saturday’s night banquet, they named the wrestlers who had died in the past year. It was a lengthy list, led by Stu Hart, patriarch of the Hart dynasty which included his sons Bret and Owen. Hard Boiled Haggerty’s daughter also sang God Bless America, her voice cracking with emotion, and even I – who doesn’t believe in God and isn’t American – had to admit it was a moving moment.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom at the banquet, with the guest of honor Japanese superstar Antonio Inoki, best known for his bout against Muhammad Ali in 1976. What stood out for us, however, was co-host Bobby ‘The Brain’ Heenan, one of the most famous managers in wrestling history. The Academy need to hire this guy for the Oscars, and forget Billy or Whoopi. He kept the event moving along with unfailing good humour, even when some of the recipients let their acceptance speeches get away from them. However, even he wasn’t fast enough to stop one recipient from referring to Vince McMahon Jr, the owner of WWE, as a “cunt”. Oops – next year’s ceremony will be on a 7-second delay.

Though it has to be said, crowd disapproval seemed limited to the inappropriate word, rather than any actual argument with the sentiment. The general feeling appeared to be that the antics of the WWE overshadowed the good work being done by independent promoters, that wrestling was going through one of its downturns, and that things were better in the good old days. However, I noticed a prominent phrase on one of the old promo cards which was part of the silent auction, and probably dated from the 50’s: “Huge reserved section for coloreds”. Not everything about the old days was good…

Another notable exhibit was a cast made of Andre the Giant’s arm and foot (right – the hand rattling around inside, feeling very lonely, is Chris’s for comparison). I’d seen footage of the 7’4″, 520 lb man in action, but apart from The Princess Bride, only with other wrestlers, and didn’t realise how big he truly was. Also ongoing was a Cribbage tournament, which may seem like an odd inclusion at the event, but CC told us that it was a favourite pastime of wrestlers backstage, while waiting to go on. Maurice ‘Mad Dog’ Vachon was defending his title – much like baseball players, it seems that wrestlers had much cooler nicknames in the golden days. Though, having said that, I guess there’s still the odd one around who’s old-school in this regard, such as Chris ‘The Rabid Wolverine’ Benoit!

All this, and I haven’t even mentioned the show on Saturday, where up-and-coming wrestlers got to do their thing for promoters, bookers and everyone else – difficult to think of a tougher crowd to perform in front of than this one! No folding chairs; no pyrotechnics; no lingerie matches; just traditional wrestling. One yearns for the days when this again becomes the normal perception of the sport, rather than a sputtering flame, barely kept alive by a bunch of die-hards.

We left on Sunday with a whole new appreciation for the wrestling industry, and those who are part of it, using their skill to put their health on the line for our entertainment, day-in and day-out for years on end. In most cases, they don’t do it for glory or riches, but because they love the sport, and a comment from one of the speeches on Saturday really brings this home. Someone once asked a wrestler what he’d do if he had a million dollars; he replied, “Put it in the bank, and wrestle until it’s all gone.” The knowing laughter which greeted this anecdote was proof of truth, and is why we’ll be back in Las Vegas for the 2005 reunion. We’re already brushing up on our cribbage skills.

[Visit the Cauliflower Alley Club website.]

Harkins Cine Capri, April 1st-4th, 2004

As predicted last year, the fourth Phoenix Film Festival found a new home in 2004 – the good news is, the venue was now only 15 minutes from TC Towers. The bad news…well, regular readers will know why the Harkins Cine Capri is not our favourite cinema. Add to this that organizers were now in bed with the Evil Empire of Ticketmaster when it came to selling festival passes – meaning patrons were the ones getting screwed – and the omens weren’t good.

From our standpoint, the timing could have been better. We had foreign friends visiting, and Friday night was spent with them at a baseball game. Then Chris came down with what felt like a 24-hour version of SARS, taking her out on Saturday afternoon and evening. This is why we only got to see four films over the festival, even though it was now extended by an extra day. Hence, we can’t fairly give out the TC Awards, as we’ve done for the past three years; we apologise, and promise to do better next year.

Looking through the program was also a bit disappointing. The opening night – described as the “largest independent film premiere in Arizona history” – starred those icons of indie cinema… Macauley Culkin and Mandy Moore. The closing night starred Pierce Brosnan and Julianne Moore. Half the others felt like an episode of Where Are They Now?, including Jennifer Beals, Kevin Sorbo and Brian Austin Green, while global cinema was represented by precisely one non-English language feature.

As for genre entries, the closest was i died, a real-time movie filmed from a ghost’s point of view. This was initially on our watch-list, but the reports from the first screening were unanimously dire, with a huge number of walkouts. The organizers can’t blame a lack of submissions: I know that The Great American Snuff Film was rejected despite, I strongly suspect, being superior to i died. Wussy “slice of life” dramas were, of course, present in abundance, though Phoenix is hardly alone there; what film festival ever shows horror or cult flicks any respect?

Let’s give praise where it’s due however; while we may disagree on genres, when it comes to specific movies, the selection committee showed excellent taste. The hit-rate among the films we saw was much better than last year, with only one falling a little below expectations. The others were all thoroughly enjoyable, and two will certainly be candidates for the year-end TC top ten.

The post-Superbowl Puritan backlash seemed to have hit proceedings. While useful information, such as the running time, was not listed in the program, each movie had notes on its content: language, violence (broken down into fights, gunshots and blood), sexual situations and – heaven forbid! – drinking. Let’s be honest: if you’re concerned about consumption of alcohol in movies by adults, you need to get a freakin’ life. The information was not even 100% accurate: I was pleasantly surprised by the cheerily gratuitous strip-club sequence in You Got Nothin’, about which the program said zilch. Dozens of Amish attendees were carried screaming out of the theatre, but otherwise, civilization as we know it in Arizona seems to have survived.

From an organizational point of view, there seemed to be few problems, with films starting on time and smooth entrances and exits for audiences. The tribute to Peter Fonda was, however, embarrassingly gremlin-plagued, with a number of technical issues which should have been sorted out beforehand. And whoever arranged for a loud rock band to play just outside during proceedings, should be strapped to the back of a truck and taken for a long drag. [As a side note, it might be worth stopping people from going into screenings after the film has begun; the weekend-pass system seems to encourage irritatingly late arrivals] Other celebrities in attendance included Russell Means, Michael Tolkin and John Landis – his latest film is entitled Slasher, but is actually a documentary about a car-salesman, which is kinda sad.

All criticism aside: we love the Phoenix Film Festival. It keeps getting bigger – 10,000 attendees in 2004, up from seven thousand last year – but the people involved continue to treat all of them, whether paid, press or professionals, as if it’s an honour to have them there. While the volunteers deserve particular credit for their unfailing good humour, everyone involved with the festival is great, and are probably the main reason why the city and Arizona can justly be proud of this event. Now, put us on the selection committee, and it’ll be perfect… 😉

Visit the Phoenix Film Festival website.

Official festival awards

• Best Feature Film: Break a Leg
• Best Director: Philip Angelotti Jr., You Got Nothin’
• Best Screenplay: Philip Angelotti Jr., You Got Nothin’
• Best Ensemble: Black Cloud
• Best Documentary: Up For Grabs
• Audience Ballot Award: Black Cloud

Festival reviews

• The Falls
• Noon Blue Apples
• Up For Grabs
• You Got Nothin’

The Spike and Mike Sick and Twisted Animation Festival grew out of an animation festival run by Craig ‘Spike’ Decker and Mike Gribble, which started in California in 1977.  The “twisted” side started in 1990 with a screening of the adult content animations in the Wheeler Auditorium at UC Berkeley, and grew from there to such an extent that by the start of the new millennium, the original festival was phased out entirely.  In the early days, Spike and Mike – sometimes along with their Scottie dog – would act as “ring-masters” for the show, and would also tour with the films round rep cinemas.

Many notable animators shown at these events would go on to greater fame, notably Bill Plympton and Mike Judge, as well as Trey Parker + Matt Stone. Although Mike died of cancer in 1994, Spike continued with the festival, which lives on to this day [though according to the website, the latest version “contains less monocle-spinning gross-out gags than S&T, and rather focuses on the flat-out best and funniest animated shorts that the world has to offer.”

To some extent, the purpose of the event has been removed, as the Internet now makes it a lot easier for aspiring animators to get their work out there. But below, you’ll see reviews of the four festivals we attended in Arizona, from 1998-2004.

1998

This American Ambassador is writing to inform her European and American fans of Trash City that there is life outside of the pub and strip clubs. That out there you will find what you are looking for. That there is meaning to our dull and dreary existences. And we can find this in trying to put reason or rhyme behind what I just witnessed tonight.

Anyone with a penchant for the sick and twisted, the rude and the offensive will certainly have their needs satisfied after witnessing the Animation Festival I just attended in the small dreary little college town of Tempe Arizona, home of the Arizona Diamondbacks, the Cardinals, the Rattlers and the Coyotes.. And now the dwelling for the next 10 days of Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Animation Festival..

Let’s start with the announcement.. “Anyone who is offended by sick, twisted, rude and offensive material can just get the fuck out and we will be happy to give you a refund”

In the meanwhile, let’s take a peek at what we saw tonight, that might have been misconstrued as such by some — or should I say most? I have never laughed so hard in my life. 24 short cartoons were shown depicting everything from “A to Zits” including such delights as: bestiality, pedophilia, gaseous bodily functions, oral sex, religious offenses. and full penetration (shown for the first time here) along with a South Park episode on the big screen that will stay in my mind forever.

All the cartoons were 5 minutes or less with a 15 minute intermission And although there were a couple of shorts that were extraordinarily offensive (and I mean “gagging to death”), they were mostly very funny and entertaining and I recommend Spike and Mike to anyone who is not:

• a.) squeamish
• b.) religious
• c.) easily offended
• d.) dead
• e.) legless

Following are short synopses of the cartoons shown on this tour:

• “Use Instructions” Does anyone like butts? Asses? Backsides? Anus(es)? (Or is it “Ani” ?), and all manner of things that emerge from them? This is the ultimate butt selective video I have ever seen.. Every imaginable type of ass in all manner of conceivable situations…
• “Jurassic Fart” No description necessary. The sound effects will keep me up for weeks.. It was great.
• “Dirdy Birdy” Ah… the adventures of Dirdy Birdy and Fergurina the Cat in a tree.. This one is excellent.
• “Illusions of Life” Very strange look at the life of a man who totally hates his mother.. Interesting if nothing else.
• “Finger Food” The phrase “Calgon, take me away” will take on a totally different meaning after viewing this one…as well as ever eating at a fast food restaurant ever again… Let’s say zits and french fries in one breath and leave the rest to your imagination…
• “Smoking” Their version of an anti smoking ad and pretty effective if not completely gruesome… also very good
• “Barflies” I thoroughly enjoyed this one.. but I am a Claymation fan from way back in the Davey and Goliath days.. so it may not count, but these barflies were funny as shit and very many of us can completely relate to the antics of two drunk-out- of-their-skins assholes who will do anything for a laugh…
• “Booby Trap” Set in a strip club, it is a complete parody of the general Japan anime genre including the wonderful way the Japanese make us talk in their cartoons and thankfully including a cat fight between a stripper and…I dare not say WHAT she is fighting because it is too gross. But it is worth the watch..
• “Big Top Asshole” No description necessary, except that it is full of gore and I loved the Lion Tamer getting stuck in the Lion’s cage with catnip in the seat of his pants.. hehehehe
• “Little Rude Riding Hood” Yes, the old story with a new twist. No, she won’t swallow and you’ll find out why they call her “red”. Really great and disgusting all in one.
• “Ah L’Amour” This is an excellent pencil drawing animation that is very graphic in it’s depiction of what women want from men. The phrase “I have Money” will take on new meanings… I want this T-Shirt!
• “Hut Sluts” Summer and Tiffany are two California babes with partying in mind and they get it worse than they ever imagined. “yes, I got this tattoo in prison”. I will say no more…except maybe “blueballs” and I loved the fact that the asshole wore a condom (just to promote safe sex).
• “Fast Driver” “Drive, Fast Racer, drive Fast Racer, Drive” This was my favorite I think. Based on a parody of the cartoon “Speed Racer” (I used to love to watch Speed Racer when I was a kid and had the theme song memorized) This cartoon depicted him as a total queer with an even queerer family (or friends.. whatever they were) and the portrayal was excellent in its severe overplaying of the emotions and action typical in anime.
• “Home, Honey, I’m High” Yep, just what you think it is. Donna Reed’s family hooked on drugs. It was great.
• “Sea Slugs” What do you do with a drunken sailor slug? Send him out to sea.. Then watch what happens… Very short, very funny
• “Yes Timmy, There is a Santa Claus” Although my daughter was extremely offended by this piece, it shows how sick and twisted I am cause I was rolling in the aisles laughing at the irony of it all… Poor Timmy… Talk about melancholy and tortured…
• “Baby’s New Formula” This one has everything.. Cats, babies, blowjobs, alien faces, drama. Don’t miss it.
• “HornDog” Anyone who owns a dog understands the dilemma surrounding a dog that is *coming* of age…
• “Sloaches FunHouse” This has to be in my opinion, the sickest, most offensive, incredibly gross piece of claymation I have ever witnessed in my entire life. It was crowned “The Sickest Film Ever Made” and I have to quietly agree with it. It contained almost every possible offensive bodily function you could ever imagine a clay figure doing. Even I was grossed out completely. And that, my friends, is a difficult task.
• “Devil Went Down to Georgia” Action created by the same geniuses (geniiii??) who did “Nightmare Before Christmas” This short was great including performances by Les Claypool and the music of Charlie Daniels. Very reminiscent of “Nightmare” and very entertaining.
• “Lloyd’s LunchBox” This has to be the alltime disgusting animation. Several shorts showing Lloyd doing gross things to himself that I can’t even describe without gagging. The Zit was the worst… or maybe it was the nose pick… I can’t decide, but believe me, it was gross beyond description and definitely worth watching on an empty stomach.
• “No Neck Joe” Just listening to the audience screaming at the top of their lungs “NO NECK JOE” at the beginning of each nailbiting episode of No Neck Joe was worth the time spent trying to figure out why he has no fucking neck in the first place.
• “Spirit of Christmas” The never-meant-to-be-seen episode of South Park, that spawned this killer animated series. Yes, folks, it’s Jesus vs. Santa Claus in a knock-out, drag-out wrestling match to determine who is the true mascot of Christmas. It was great and the fact that it was completely uncensored had me roaring listening to a bunch of primary school children using language that would make a truck driver blush.

I had to get the T-Shirt and bought a couple of the videos they had on sale. Discussed animation politics with the Em-Cee who politely told me that Wallace and Gromit were very big in England and did I know that? (no-duh) But all in all a worthwhile effort and one of the most memorable times I have had in a long time, with the exclusion of the time I almost forgot to “mind the bottle” in London. But that is another story…

[Chris Fata]

2000

Yes, they’re back, bearing another selection of definitely Disney-free dubiety, both old favourites and new candidates — these reprobates screened South Park and Beavis + Butthead well before the mainstream took them on board. The styles on offer are wide and varied, from computer animation to stick figures and Claymation, and the results are equally diverse. Highlights included Die Hard in Under Two Minutes (80 seconds, to be precise), a super-condensation of Bruce’s best from Konstantin Bronzit, and Bowlin’ Fer Souls by Supergenius, an express elevator to hell. The Squirm-Inducing Oscar was tied between Horned Grandma – pretty much what it sounds like – and Tongue Twister, whose moral is best summarised as “don’t lick lamp-posts”.

Most of the films were by unknowns, though Powerpuff Girls creator Craig McCracken weighed in with some (rather disappointing) No Neck Joe ultra-shorts. More satisfactory was Bill Plympton’s Surprise Cinema, a fine showcase for a variety of cruel pranks. Similarly vicious was Billy’s Balloon, an official selection from Cannes last year, whose sparse animation was countered by the inventive psychopathy of the titular inflatable. Overall, there were more hits than misses, and with the longest film coming in at a mere six minutes, you were never far away from something amusing or memorable. Perhaps less ‘sick’ than I anticipated, yet there’s no denying that ‘twisted’ is a highly applicable word.

2002

Spike and Mike return, with another selection of outrageous animation – except, it seems a little tame this year, with few real “Ewwwwww!” moments for the crowd to savour (though discovering why old ladies drive so slowly, will take quite some getting over…). As ever, the range and style on view was unsurpassed. And, as usual, the quality too varied hugely. Especially lame were heavy.com’s Behind the Music That Sucks – oh, my, slagging off Eminem and Britney Spears, how dangerous – which should have been retitled, “Behind the Animation That Sucks”. At the other end, Spumco’s Fuck Her Gently was lushly animated, and S&M regular Bill Plympton’s Eat was his usual elegant yet weird self, but lacked a decent punch-line. At the opposite end, technically, were Don Hertzfeldt’s A Bitter Tale and Rejected, getting a well-deserved repeat runout. Little more than stick-figures, they still raise fabulous observations on love, life and advertising – the line “My anus is bleeding!” has now entered the TC vocabulary. Also worthy of praise: Timmy’s Lessons in Nature from Mark Simon & T.J, and Radar Films’ When Chickens Attack, the shortest film on the program. But as this show proves, animation is truly a medium where size doesn’t matter – not when you have imagination.

Rating: C

2004

TC’s fourth return to the world of S&M, and as ever, it runs the total range from the sublime to the ridiculous (in both good and bad ways), mixing new entries with old “favourites”. Quotes used advisedly: let’s be honest, it’s time for No Neck Joe and Hut Sluts to retire gracefully. While at the crap end of the spectrum, Sickcom proved it is possible for a 3-minute short to over-stay its welcome, Mama, I’m a Thug managed to be even less amusing, and Ninjews took the one joke of its title and stretched it thinly across a lengthy sequence of poor-quality claymation.

Fortunately, among general mediocrity, a few gems stood out – that’s why we keep going. Here are the TC medal-winners among the new entries (Billy’s Balloon remains a favourite otherwise), and a few other worthy contenders.

• Tip of the TC hat: Cane Toad, Peepshow, Stubble Trouble.
• Bronze. Big Abandoned Refrigerator Adventure. Two evil dolls go on a crime spree before meeting their nemesis in the shape of the titular appliance. Imagine Bride of Chucky: The Wonder Years.
• Silver. Happy Tree Friends. A merchandising juggernaut now available at Hot Topic (the screaming pinata particularly appeals…), the shorts depict cute, furry critters meeting death in a variety of brutal ways. Heh-heh.
• Gold. Here Comes Dr. Tran. A fabulous satire on cinematic consumerism, transforming an unwitting Vietnamese kid into the ultimate action hero (right); the 3D sequence alone is worth the admission price. I liked this so much, Dr. Tran now graces my desktop. What higher praise is possible?

Rating: A-E+
Feb 2004