[adult swim] Redeems Itself! - ATHF, Assy McGee, Frisky Dingo

Okay, so most of us here to The Rundown have been lamenting the demise of our once favorite (well, except for Mayren's) [adult swim] show, Aqua Teen Hunger Force (ATHF), as of late. Especially since we waited something like 2-3 years for this new season, as well as the second season of Venture Bros., and that was only like 6 episodes, so we had every right to be a little cheesed.

Well, I'll lay it down and give it up for, give a shout-out to, buy a round for - or whatever it is all the hip-cats and school kids are saying these days - the guys over to Williams Street because last night's ATHF was rocking! Granted, by this point, even watchable is a step up, but last night's episode was actually as good as just about any of the earlier seasons'!

At first, I wrote a numerically-pointed chart, listing the reasons why this episode was good and the preceding ones were not, but it boiled down to one thing: the magic was in this one. There was no gimmick, the characters acted in a manner consistent with their established character, the dialogue was funny and all the lengthy pauses were in place - it was Aqua Teen Hunger Force, and the episodes up to this point simply were not. They were just... crap.

And I sincerely hope someone knocked on their door and said something along the lines of:

"We just spent a few million dollars on billboard advertising for your little dog and pony show you got going on here, and we just gave you the last few years off to make an as-yet-unreleased movie, because this is one of our flagship shows. And for that, we thank you. Can you... excuse me, can you put the bong down for a second while I'm speaking? Yeah, thank you ever so much - really. But we, along with your legions of fans - for they are legion - have noticed you aren't even bothering to phone this season in. 

It's like you've got a chip on your shoulder about the fact that people like what you're doing, so you decided to go on and cock it all up, maybe just to see if people would still watch because you think they're all mindless morons who will blindly accept whatever crap you serve them, maybe because you wanted to see just how far the network would let you go, maybe because you banged a stripper once and suddenly thought you were some kind of rock stars - I don't know - but I do know this: 

You either get your shit together and start delivering some good shows, or you'll be doodling your little snackpack cartoons on the backs of your fucking unemployment checks and working the con circuit for the rest of your natural born lives, got it, hippies?! GET THE METH OUT YO BRAIN AND SOME SKETCH ON THE PAGE, OR I'LL RIDE YOUR ASSES 'TIL I SEE ONE OF YOU TAKE A SWAN DIVE OFF ONE OF THOSE EFFING BILLBOARDS I JUST PAID FOR, GOT IT, HIPPIES? GODDAMN HIPPIES!"

I'm not exactly sure how Cartman got a job as a TV executive over to [adult swim], but it could happen. Either way, welcome back to the fold, ATHF!

At any rate, did you catch last night's Frisky Dingo? Man, I laughed so hard, I nearly went blind! In fact, I had some company over last night that has watched [as] casually, but are not regular viewers, and we were all rolling on the floor! What a great show! Too damn funny.

And since [as] bumped that they wanted to know what, exactly, we dig about it aside from little Miss Antagony (and yes, I freely admit, that girl's a real selling-point), let's give 'em the rundown:

• Frisky Dingo got The Funny.
• The dialogue is crisp, true to character, hilarious. Someone wrote jokes -- funny jokes! -- which is not exactly a prerequisite for a lot of [as] shows... I'm just saying.
• Easily the best artwork since Venture Bros. and Oblongs (which I'm glad to see back!).
• Brilliant voice work. Too good, too good.
• The juxtaposition of the Haves and the Have-Nots and how an unbalanced division of finances leads to a societal rift in which the Have-Nots end up being victimized by the Haves for the latter's mere pleasure, to the point that the Have-Nots want to glue a wig to the Haves' heads and mouth-rape them. I believe it was Descartes who noted that while Zero has value, the value of Zero is Nothing, which can be philosophically applied to both... um, did I mention The Funny?

Assy McGee was actually not bad last night, either. You have to admit, it's visually funny, if nothing else. I had a feeling that it must be pretty good for them to allow it to go so far, but the premiere wasn't exactly explosive. Still, it wasn't bad, and I have a feeling it's going to get in a few good turns as it goes along.

Tim and Eric are coming back with something called The Awesome Show, and while I skewered Tom Goes like my name was Handbanana when it first came out, it won me over before it ended, so I'm looking forward to checking it out. There's also Saul and the Mole Men, but I haven't seen another episode of Lucy: Daughter o the Devil since the first one (which wasn't all that great).

All in all, last night's [as] was as good a block as any I've seen in the last year or more, and I thank all involved for a truly enjoyable night o TV-viewing! If I weren't so jumpy, I could almost get used to it!