Here’s a thought: as a lot as I like Grownup Swim’s unique programming, a pleasant chunk of it’s… kinda dangerous. Within the sense that it’s typically messy, teasing, testing, and lots of different user-unfriendly issues. I imply, simply to state an apparent truth concerning the channel that reveals how difficult its expertise could be: Grownup Swim’s pure habitat is the nighttime. If you happen to watch AS throughout the day—like I do, to be sincere—you might be dishonest. Nevertheless, dangerous doesn’t imply not worthy.
Read more: Embracing the Chaos of Adult Swim and Frisky Dingo
How Grownup Swim Meant to Be Unhealthy
What if Grownup Swim is definitely pursuing some badness by design? And what if this badness is much less a matter of deficits, and extra the results of a channel that requested creators to interact in non-standard methods to construct and supply audiences one thing uncommon? I feel that Grownup Swim developed a “home model” of types, a set of recurring trademark aesthetic options and qualities that actually expressed this angle. Particularly within the late aughts, this home model allowed Grownup Swim to develop into its golden years and discover its id by pairing quirky concepts with parts acquainted to these TV audiences. On this approach, the programming block turned a beacon for various comedy (animated and never), and it cemented its idiosyncratic, out-of-left-field, and even oppositional-toward-mainstream fame.
One manifestation of this home model is one thing we might name “chaotic accumulation.” Chaotic accumulation led reveals to purposely cram huge quantities of data of their brief period. Take into consideration how Harvey Birdman: Lawyer at Regulation (2001-2007) beloved to bask in crowding of all types: from the visible, distracting overpopulation of its frames, to the quick and bizarrely detailed improvement of its tales. As I see it, many unique Grownup Swim productions employed this model, particularly these with brief episode runtimes of ten to fifteen minutes. Across the similar time as Harvey Birdman, different reveals relied on this model, from the stuff made by comedy duo Tim & Eric to my case research right here: Frisky Dingo. Frisky Dingo, created by Adam Reed and Matt Thompson (of later Archer fame), was a limited-animation present that ran on Grownup Swim for 2 seasons between 2006 and 2008.
However earlier than we dive into Frisky Dingo, it’s necessary to think about the consequences of chaotic accumulation. Creators who depend on chaotic accumulation intentionally mess up the bigger constructions of their works. That is most clearly considerable in relation to storytelling constructions, which turn out to be densely full of info, convoluted, wonky, uneven, and typically exhausting to handle. Particularly in North American mainstream leisure, the place storytelling is king, this counts as a rebellious gesture, and one which successfully expresses the choice vibe sought by Grownup Swim. However this alternative impacts folks watching at house. Take into account how US audiences, particularly these of animated comedy tv, are very a lot used to coherent, solely reasonably puzzling storytelling constructions. They know how you can make sense of them, and so they additionally anticipate numerous rewards for having efficiently handled them. Chaotic accumulation upsets this entire setup based mostly on the routine of anticipated pleasures, however finally it discloses its personal various spectatorial pleasures.
Chaotic accumulation, like different parts of the Grownup Swim home model, allowed the channel and its programming to ascertain continuity with the mainstream tendencies in comedic leisure, whereas additionally fashioning itself because the “various place.” Within the case of Frisky Dingo, this dynamic was replicated within the present’s relationship with parody. This had particular implications for parody’s reliance on clear, audience-friendly storytelling.
Frisky Dingo and the Thought of Parody
Even a cursory evaluate of Frisky Dingo’s first season means that its comedy is usually grounded in its being a parody of superhero narratives, aesthetic tropes, and inventory characters. On this sense, the present appears to comply with a celebrated custom in televised grownup animation in america, one which solidified itself at the least for the reason that early Nineties with The Simpsons and its kind of lucky offspring. Earlier than and past tv, US parody standardized itself round masters like Mel Brooks or the Zucker Brothers. At this level, folks have been conversant in how parody sometimes operates, and we knew that its pleasures have been typically these of the spoof: each a mockery and a celebration of a goal. Nevertheless, chaotic accumulation makes Frisky Dingo an odd match on this custom. It allowed the present to marshal a “will to parody” with out having to do something to actually again it up. On this sense, FD is a failed, malfunctioning parody. However it is a function of the present, not a bug.
The factor is, parodies are playful, even zany love letters to their targets. Imitation, so the saying goes, is the sincerest type of flattery, and so parodies typically find yourself preserving and celebrating what’s most expensive to what they spoof. And within the context of US mainstream leisure, what’s most expensive tends to be the constructing of coherent, manageable storytelling. Consider The Simpsons: the present’s well-known two-episode saga “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” (1995) is a parody of the whodunit, particularly because it was present in Eighties and Nineties soaps and dramas, from Dallas to Twin Peaks. It adheres to and upholds the narrative guidelines and constructions of the style, and it’s due to this that the present can efficiently play out all its comedic twists.
Within the first “Who Shot Mr. Burns?” episode, as an example, The Simpsons spoofs the cliffhanger that famously ended Dallas’s “Who Shot JR?” episode. For this, Dr. Hibbert instantly addresses the viewers. By breaking the fourth wall, the present additionally parodies the popular culture frenzy that Dallas prompted.
One other Simpsons episode, “HOMR” (2001), has turn out to be a well known instance of parody that celebrates storytelling. The core narrative is a heartwarming spoof of Daniel Keyes’s 1959 novel Flowers for Algernon. On this Emmy Award-winning episode, Homer goes by way of a trajectory analogous to Charlie, the protagonist of Keyes’ novel.
In “HOMR,” scientists uncover that Homer has a crayon caught in his mind. Upon its removing, he turns into a refined mental who solves Rubik’s cubes, giggles at wordplay on NPR, and turns into the private hero of his sensible daughter Lisa. However Homer’s newfound intelligence makes him unwelcome amongst his friends. Crushed by social rejection, he decides to reinsert a crayon in his mind, and he explains himself in a touching letter to Lisa, who understands his alternative and hugs him on the finish of the episode.
Frisky Dingo, too, spoofs Flowers for Algernon with its episode “Flowers for Nearl” (2006). However the parody resides extra within the hints left by the characters and the setup than in any core narrative arc. The episode raises the potential of making a parody of Algernon after which shortly ridicules it, for the reason that present’s characters repeatedly fail to acknowledge or pin down the supply materials, complicated it with—and burying it below—a plethora of unrelated, however similar-sounding popular culture references.
Not lengthy afterward, the character Nearl—a proxy for Charlie from the novel, and likewise a long-lost twin brother to one of many present’s protagonists (à la The Man within the Iron Masks)—is unceremoniously killed as quickly as he’s given a minute of narrative exposition. There are two fascinating options of this loss of life. First, he’s killed by one other character within the title of narrative simplicity: a reasonably ironic and self-reflexive contact for a present constructed by way of chaotic accumulation. Moreover, his loss of life halts any potential for parody he was carrying.
I might go on. Frisky Dingo is replete with parodic parts. However creators Adam Reed and Matt Thompson dumped them on every ten-minute episode like a heavy bag of bricks. The present finally ends up treating us to a barrage of references and a relentless shifting of its parodic targets—all issues that by no means find yourself being organized right into a full-fledged parody. There may be mocking, heaps of it, and from behavior we’d suppose that there could be a bigger joke to get, finally. Nonetheless, its chaotic accumulation makes every thing fast and non-consequential, and so the present continually thwarts our makes an attempt to discover a bigger image. Actually, the present does greater than this. It pushes us away from doing any form of “making-sense” work, narrative or in any other case, which now feels pointless.
Chaos Reigns
In Frisky Dingo, chaotic accumulation works by way of interruptions. The present itself begins as an interruption, when the credit score sequence of a Sealab 2021 episode (Reed and Thompson’s earlier effort for Grownup Swim) is abruptly halted by some sign scrambling. This scrambling resolves in a greeting from Frisky Dingo’s resident dangerous man and protagonist Killface, who’s taking on the airwaves to broadcast his message of doom.
Frisky Dingo bursts with interruptions, particularly because it picks up a sooner tempo midway by way of its first season, and particularly in its dialogues, which carry the majority of the present’s enchantment, given its in any other case spartan appears. Characters constantly interrupt one another’s speeches and actions, fueled by sheer incompetence or obnoxiously narcissistic behaviors. As expressions of comically destructive characters, these interruptions concoct a superbly serviceable, entertaining celebration of poisonous idiocy and annoyance. Due to this, Frisky Dingo episodes, at their finest, really feel like some type of extra sophomoric tackle the Marx Brothers: all lack curiosity in strong stable narratives.
Villain Killface’s hero counterpart, Xander Crews, is a self-absorbed asshole who solely cares about taking part in vigilante. Consequently, his assistant Stan—a imprecise spoof of Batman’s Alfred—decides to take command of the Crews Firm by filling the Board with clones of himself. As soon as found, this truth is casually and really shortly addressed by Crews as a “Boys from Brazil factor”—a reference to the well-known novel and movie. However, in the long run, the reference quantities to nothing. It explains nothing concerning the clones, and it makes clear that the “clone story” doesn’t even matter. Your entire gag is then quickly buried below the load of all the opposite references that quickly comply with it.
As soon as once more the intent to parody is evident in Frisky Dingo. What’s jeopardized by chaotic accumulation is its deployment right into a broader, conventional storytelling construction. Within the first season, protagonist Killface would usually be a spoof of a generic supervillain, hellbent on destroying the Earth, whereas his foil Xander Crews is a billionaire with a secret vigilante profession. We, skilled audiences, choose up the indicators, and—inspired by the occasional step in the correct course—we anticipate to be en path to a comedic rendition of the battle between the Good and Unhealthy guys. Nope. None of that ever actually involves fruition, nothing organically grows into steady, overarching parodic storytelling.
In the long run, the primary season looks like a parody of a superhero narrative, however this sense will not be backed up by any precise effort towards attaining that standing. The identical goes for the second season, which doubles down on this technique, although it shifts goal. Actually, after a flip of occasions I can’t spoil, Killface and Crews find yourself as competing presidential candidates, turning the present into what may very well be—however by no means totally seems to be—a spoof of documentaries about US presidential campaigns, like Major (1960) and The Battle Room (1993).
Chaotic accumulation permits Reed and Thompson to gather, with neither motive nor improvement, attainable parodic eventualities: there’s stuff that may very well be used to construct spoofs of office narratives, in addition to setups aiming for the parody of household quarrels. There are a great deal of informal and various mockeries of the woes of on a regular basis life within the US, from personal medical insurance points to consumerism and product placement. Frisky Dingo additionally often namedrops daytime celebrities together with David Arquette, Jason Alexander, Fred Dreyer, and Roxanne Shanté. However all of that is gratuitous. The cultural baggage of every movie star in the end irrelevant and unused, sterile, pointless. Every part piles up, however no construction grows out of something. No matter we’d confuse as construction is sure to be, above all else, merely a manifestation of our personal biases: of the truth that we’re used to anticipating sure outcomes if sure chords—on this case, these of spoof—are being performed.
Even when some parts turn out to be recurring jokes in Frisky Dingo, they nonetheless don’t present a basis for something. The present’s precise story arcs, their parodic intents apart, are quasi-null. Each season finds its course solely towards the tip, and by most requirements, these are unsatisfying, seemingly half-assed endings. However in fact, telling a narrative has by no means been the purpose right here, and so will probably be unsurprising to learn that the popular pastime of the present’s still-committed fan base is the hashing out of catchphrases, greater than the celebration or dissection of meandering, convoluted plot factors.
Audiences could develop pissed off by all this. The chaotic compression of data that goes nowhere blocks the present from pursuing natural and coherent parodic storytelling. Consequently, folks at house would possibly really feel their spectatorial expertise turning into sterile: What’s the purpose of following this? This isn’t going wherever! Because the fox in Lars von Trier’s movie Antichrist (2009) eloquently states:
The best way to Embrace the Chaos
Nevertheless, as soon as we come to phrases with the truth that chaotic accumulation is by design, and that parodic storytelling, and parody itself aren’t the purpose right here, then at the least two new forms of pleasures open up for us as spectators.
The primary pleasure transcends Frisky Dingo. We will acquire a newfound appreciation for Grownup Swim and the countercultural discourse that its programming promoted within the late aughts. There may be loads of quirky, offbeat, aimless, juvenile, and misleadingly amateurish humor going round nowadays. Take into consideration Nathan Fielder’s work, The Eric Andre Present, Tim Robinson’s I Assume You Ought to Depart, or Patti Harrison’s comedy writing and performances.
The second pleasure is a little more particular to watching Frisky Dingo. Take into account that the present got here out within the late aughts, and that these have been additionally the early days of US tv’s extra pronounced funding in advanced storytelling—a pattern inaugurated by reveals like Misplaced (2004-2010). In his e-book Complex TV, media scholar Jason Mittell explains why up to date tv audiences are attracted by complexity, particularly in relation to storytelling. He focuses on reveals that use extremely self-reflexive, layered, and convoluted types of storytelling utilizing what he calls an “operational aesthetic.” The purpose of such an aesthetic is to push audiences towards a extra conscious and intense engagement with the “how” of a given work—right here it means the “how” of storytelling, how the narrative is made to play out. The pleasures afforded by operational aesthetics immediate audiences to bask within the satisfaction of greedy the event of advanced storytelling constructions, over its factual contents. For instance: a large portion of the general pleasures afforded by the German present Darkish (2017-2020) stems from how the collection invitations us to marvel at, and to make sense of, its sensible administration of overlapping temporal trajectories.
Movie theorist Jason Gendler has not too long ago refined Mittell’s place in an analysis of the highly parodical, compressed, and chaotically accumulated events from a 2010 episode of the television show Community (2009-2015). Gendler notes that the episode is simply “an excessive amount of to deal with”: it’s too quick and too topsy-turvy to actually lead us towards the pleasures promised by operational aesthetics. The extreme, unruly, and unorthodox use of parody within the episode varieties a posh entire. However this isn’t the type of complexity that Mittell discusses; it’s really a mockery of it. We find yourself having fun with this lack of steadiness and course as a deliberate sabotage of the neatly working advanced constructions in normal storytelling that we might in any other case admire.
The cognitive pleasures supplied by chaotic accumulation in Grownup Swim, and particularly by Frisky Dingo, belong to the broad class that Gendler writes about. Frisky Dingo evokes parody, however refrains from constructing it. We set ourselves up for the cognitive pleasures and conventional payoffs associated to getting parody in its normal, storytelling-based varieties, however then the present amuses us with its deliberate failures. In doing so, the present additionally highlights how a lot of our appreciation of mass leisure drives on autopilot. Chaotic accumulation makes the “making sense of tales” a part of our mind spin idly, providing us an opportunity to take pleasure in, reasonably than decry, disruption and absence. To place it in a Rube Goldberg-esque style: the pleasure of chaotic accumulation lies in getting that you’re not alleged to get what’s being promised to you, as a result of, in the long run, there’s nothing to get except for the impression of getting one thing. The pleasures in Frisky Dingo’s chaotic accumulation come from the pissed off technique of habitually digesting and making sense of one thing that intentionally fails to be the standard parody that it solely vaguely suggests it may very well be.
Now, Hellraiser’s Pinhead would say that pleasure is pleasure and it ought to all the time be pursued, it doesn’t matter what it entails. Being extra conservative than Pinhead on the topic, I’m able to concede that the fun of chaotic accumulation present in Frisky Dingo and most Grownup Swim productions don’t instantly meet everybody’s style. However here’s a gross sales pitch. By attempting to embrace these pleasures, one can even acquire a fuller evaluation of Grownup Swim’s influence on up to date various US comedy. Plus, the irregular modus operandi of chaotic accumulation affords the possibility to higher tune oneself to the appreciation of “dangerous” artwork.
These are all outcomes that Frisky Dingo places inside attain, one wants solely to humbly depart the door open to Killface and firm, and to their idiotic, never-meant-to-be-completed parody. Saying no to the present from the get-go due to its idiocy or its deliberate incompleteness results in nothing, and what’s the enchantment of that? As Killface tells us, whereas coated in crawling ants for causes which can be in fact pointless to elucidate: “Satisfaction is a idiot’s fortress. Now, who’s for Denny’s?”
Gianni Barchiesi is an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Movie Research at CUNY Brooklyn Faculty and can quickly be part of the Faculty of DuPage as an Assistant Professor of Movie Research. In his analysis, he investigates the intersections between the research of the aesthetics of the transferring picture, and theoretical and philosophical inquiries into our notion and expertise of those pictures.
Edited by Thi Nguyen and Alex King
