"Sick'-Figure Drawings: Spike & Mike's 2002 Fest
Spike & Mike are back with an even dirtier and more deviant show than ever before.
By Marc Savlov, Fri., Jan. 18, 2002
If you're one of the few, the proud, the spineless, who have yet to take in Spike & Mike's annual Sick & Twisted Festival of Animation (at the Alamo Drafthouse Downtown, Jan. 18-Feb. 10), the following is directed at you. If, however, you've already sold your penny-ante soul to the S&M meatwagon o' shame, then feel free to skip over this part and get back to bangin' your bong, baby.
Here's the skinny: Fifteen brand-spanking-new slices of animated debauchery -- ranging from Heavy.com's popular VH1 smear-fest "Behind the Music That Sucks" to new works from semilegendary Seattle "artiste" Tony Millionaire and from Bill Plympton's newest brainwarper "Eat" to Los Primos Productions' "Harry Pothead and the Magical Herb" -- all of which are more or less guaranteed to either a) make you laff, or b) make you gag. (The possibility of both occurring simultaneously is slim, but, given the Alamo Drafthouse's penchant for getting everybody good and loaded beforehand, hardly beyond the realm of possibility.)
Add to the heaping gobs of new animation a brace of popular returns -- Don Hertzfeldt's "Ah L'Amour" and "Rejected" among them -- and you've got a recipe for, well, lots of stoners yelling at the screen and spilling pints of Bass on your shoes.
But wait, there's more, says S&M representative Scott Haire: "One of the highlights this year that we're pretty excited about is the Tenacious D film 'Fuck Her Gently.' It's awesome!"
Killer, dude. What else can the frail and spindly expect?
"Well, as always, we'll be trying to get some girls on stage to do crazy stuff," adds Haire. "We've got the blow-up sex dolls, a six-foot inflatable penis, and we'll be trying to get girls to expose themselves onstage, randomly and as often as possible. Pretty much the usual."
Lest you think this sort of low-brow comedics went out with Cheech and Tommy's film careers, bear in mind that the Sick and Twisted fest (technically a bastard progeny to the duo's original, less reprehensible Classic Festival of Animation) has in the past "broken" (in the good way) such animators as Austin's own Mike Judge, the aforementioned Plympton and Hertzfeldt, and Blastro.com fave Jim Lujan.
All that and a giant inflatable sex organ. Yet more proof that comedy is an ugly business, dammit.
