‘Just Bring ’em In From Space’
An Interview With the Creators of Aqua Teen Hunger Force
By James Norton
As genres go, ‘anthropomorphic food’ has a fairly lousy track record. What’s meant to be cute and whimsical typically turns out to be a mix of square and spooky. There’s nothing particularly fun about McDonald’s existentially disturbing mascots, for example. Who can have fun while considering the implications of fried potato slices that can formulate independent thought? What possible milkshake-related insights can be brought to us by an enormous talking turnip? And who actually enjoys the strangely upbeat cannibalism of the pigs-in-chef’s-clothing that grace the awnings of most American barbecue restaurants? This is to say nothing of the Christ-injected VeggieTales.
If talking food is a tool, it’s one typically seized by a businessman/evangelist desperately grasping for ‘funny’ and using the first inoffensive, seemingly comic concept he can find.
But Adult Swim mainstay ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force’ may be enough to singlehandedly rehabilitate the genre. Featuring a streetwise and nigh-omnipotent box of french fries, a chronically stupid wad of hamburger meat with an unnerving talent for deadpan sarcasm, and a milkshake who is, in the words of his creators, ‘an asshole.’
More after the jump…