To get into the spirit of summer fun, and before we move on to more serious topics in subsequent weeks, I want to give my devout followers their "homework" for our informal summer studies. It's an easy assignment. All you have to do is have a heck of a time - and when you've been at the lakes or golfing all weekend and your liver is on strike - watch the new season of Squidbillies on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup. Feed your curiosity and read on.
What do you get when you mix hillbillies from the north Georgia mountains and squids? The answer is something hilarious yet disturbing as heck - squidbillies.
"Squidbillies" is the best cartoon to grace the TV screen since the legendary characters of the old Warner Bros. troupe. It's a product of Cartoon Network's Adult Swim lineup of misfit programs that runs from 10:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. every day.
This stuff is brain candy for psychopathic insomniacs and other social deviants, which is why I've taken such a shine to it. It has all the charm of a family show laced with pure Confederate glory, high-powered four-wheel drives and shotgun blasts to the face.
The Squidbilly family consists of a madcap bunch of inbred hillbilly squids: Early, Rusty, Granny and Lil. Other residents of Doogle County include the Sheriff, one of many clones raised in what looks like a cabbage patch; Snakeman, a snake that's also a man; and Dan Halen, president and CEO of Dan Halen Sheetrock International.
Early is a small, grayish colored squid with a perpetually mean grimace, few teeth and a hair-trigger temper. He's an uncouth, shotgun-toting dad with an infamous baseball cap collection. He refers to his hats as "lids." Each lid bears pearls of wisdom printed on the front. Some of the better ones offer gems like: Booty Hunter, Free Hat - Limit 1, I support the flat tax because I'm flat broke, No habla jibber jabber and Hooked on Darwin. His favorite activities are consuming bootlegged pinecone liquor, brown party liquor and fried opossum peckers. He also loves to grab his shotgun and rob the Sip-n-Strut, a local convenience store. Early jams the double barrels beneath the clerk's nose and tells him to suck the iron tit. His haul usually consists of Bad Company cassettes and beef jerky. The pride of his world is his truck-boat-truck - a truck pulling a boat pulling a truck. He hides it from God because he believes God will take anything he loves.
Rusty, Early's boy, is a teenage squidbilly with acne and an over-developed desire to become a man. He'll go to any lengths to impress Early, sometimes ramming cars into the tree in the front yard repeatedly, ejecting himself through the windshield to prove his toughness. In one episode, he strikes a deal with Satan to make him a guitar god. Early must then strike the same deal to win Rusty's soul back in a hell bound guitar showdown with the Prince of Lies. The power ballads are great in that episode. Rusty likes to play it safe sometimes too. When Early comes home, Rusty often greets him wearing a football helmet to protect him from the beatings. When Early gets drunk, which is constantly, he blames Rusty for ending his dirt biking career. He blames Rusty for his always being "behind the eight-ball" and for "coming this close to something real only to have it taken away."
Granny Squidbilly is the matriarch of the family, often reminiscing about the glory days when the Lord made Heaven and the Earth, back when Jesus was president and nothing roamed the countryside but bears dressed in blue jeans and sleeveless flannel shirts. She's definitely the most spiritual of the family, often visited by the Jesus squid in great times of need.
Lil is Early's sister. Most of her moments onscreen are spent face down in her own vomit with a warm crack pipe clutched tightly in her unconscious fist. When she's awake, she busies herself with making mud for dinner and insulting Early's fat ex-wife, keeper of "the illusive bunfish." Early sometimes approaches Lil when no one is looking, nudging her with a sly grin on his face, asking quietly, "you awake?" While this may seem like a redneck, incestuous abomination, remember that Granny does it too.
"Squidbillies" airs Friday night at 1:15 a.m. and midnight Sunday.
Visit adultswim.com for videos, times and lot of other fun stuff that will add the waste your life has become as a follower of "Thoughts from the John."
Write to John at jrfrees@bsu.edu
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