Aqua Teen Hunger Force
Two idiots and a genius: sentient fast food in a house where nothing is ever explained. Mreeder and McMathan's masterpiece of commitment to nonsense. 143 episodes on Max.
Cast & Key People
Our Review
Adult Swim at its freest: two idiots and a genius, a Frylock, Mastershake, and Shake, living in a suburban house where nothing is ever explained and the continuity lasts exactly as long as the joke needs. The Mooninites speak in internet slang from the future, Oonski walks through walls to insult them, Carl is the neighbor whose life is a horror movie none of the others notice. The animation is clip art anarchy.
Mreeder and McMathan built the show’s whole engine on refusal: no lessons, no growth, no explanation of anything, and the brilliance is in the commitment, every single episode protects the dumbest possible premise with the smartest possible construction. The running plots, the Robot Jones, the time machine, the date episodes, are funnier the less sense they make. Carl’s episodes in the later seasons are the crown jewels, the show’s one sane man trapped in a fever dream he cannot leave.
143 episodes on the Max Adult Swim shelf, plus the movie. Not for everyone, which is the point: it is a cult event with food product mascots. Eight out of ten, seven if you arrived expecting plot.
