Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Vol. 1 (2003, DVD)

Aqua Teen Hunger Force (hereafter referred to as ATHF) is one of those shows that grows on you over time. It is borderline along the blatantly humorous while also throwing in tons of subtle nuances that seem to reflect the tastes and experiences of the creators of this series.

The show is an animated comedy that centers around the everyday lives of three sentient fastfood items living somewhere in New Jersey, and their decadent neighbor, Carl. And Leprechauns. But I'm getting ahead of myself. The show began airing on Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" several years ago, and recently each season has been packaged for your viewing pleasure.

Each episode opens with Dr. Weird, who makes and does various odd things in the seclusion of a castle along the Jersey Shoreline, who unveils his latest creation, although god can only begin to fathom just what or why he is making giant mechanical rabbits, or rainbow machines, or moth people, but I digress. Each of his creations has a tendancy to escape from his lab with perpetual ease and wreak havoc on our protagonists in some way shape or form.

Although havoc could be too strong a description, maybe inconvenience is a better way of putting it. But regardless, our, er, heroes(?) have to deal with it.

Anyway, Frylock is a floating box of french fries (yes, with french fries still in it) and by far the most intellectual, well-mannered, and most responsible of the bunch(he also shoots lightning bolts out of his eyes). Which Master Shake is the total opposite of (yes, he is a walking, talking milkshake), who is loud, obnoxious, lazy, and has the odd ability to make things he throws to the ground spontaneously explode. Meatwad (the name says it all) is the childlike, put-upon simpleton that is usually seen being bullied around by Master Shake whenever Shake is not watching TV. Despite Meatwad's childlike innocence, he does have a mean streak and it occasionly manifests itself in moments of spontaneous randomness.

And Carl, their human neighbor, could be compared to Master Shake in terms of personality, but in truth, is even more morally reprehensible as the series goes along, doing things that, well...are morally reprehensible.

The first season box set has 16 episodes, each about 11 minutes long give or take, and gives us such classics as the pilot episode, Rabbot, or Mayhem of the Mooninites, Escape from Leprechaupolis, among many others, and aso introduces us to the deliquent Mooninites and the inept Plutonians and the derranged MC P Pants.

The DVD set is two-discs and has a few extras, like a few commentaries on a few episodes, and little else (each set gets more extras as it goes along, some of them interesting, some.....just odd). This show may not be for everyone, but maybe the best way to describe it is if they mixed Seinfeld and South Park together and mixed in some LSD and then dropped it in New Jersey, and that's pretty much ATHF.