The Weird Cartoons of the Early Internet
Read along while this old millennial ventures back to the early Aughts to relive some stupid things that made him laugh.
Our spoons were too big.
The early internet was a weird place. While there were plenty of central locations online for sharing weird and funny videos, images, and writing, I actually remember sitting together offline with high school friends, perched around my home computer, watching weird cartoons. When did you last laugh at a computer screen with multiple friends? And why does it matter?
We were heavily online in the early 2000s, spending our summers and evenings on AIM, Myspace, and Livejournal. We had grown up with AOL and other hotspots for early chatroom and social media access, and so we had broad access to other delightful weirdos. To garner so much attention that we were inclined to meet in person to discuss it feels important.
In that world, before memes were everywhere and the average person’s screen time had shot through the roof, strange teenagers were quoting videos to each other and sharing them through Away Messages. Let’s dive into some of them.
One of my favorites was Rathergood.com, created by Joel Veitch, a British screenwriter and animator. It still exists as “The Lair Of The Crab Of Ineffable Wisdom” but it is no longer what it once was. Yes, they still make videos, and yes, they still host many of their old animations. YouTube is a far easier place to access them today, as the videos were created for in-browser viewing with Adobe Flash Player, a relic of the Internet of Old.
But here is a link to their classic videos.
If the name Rathergood isn’t ringing a bell, you may remember the weird marmosets from their 2004 Quiznos commercial!
Here is the original Rathergood video:
I appreciate that a company like Quiznos took a chance on a bizarre British animator for a campaign. This preceded a wave of bizarre television commercials headed by Old Spice, and was a far cry from the odd but endearing Geico Gecko commercials that were seeing their initial popularity at this time.
A Rathergood compatriot was Weebl’s Stuff, whose videos were definitely more cutesy than odd. However, their Kenya video still lives in my head rent-free.
It’s worth noting that these videos looped on repeat within their original Flash players, so we would listen to them over and over, and it was honestly pretty great.
Think of it as an elevated Hampster Dance!
Similarly, websites like You’re The Man Now, Dog (YTMND) hosted other repeating animations and audio clips that made us laugh, and laugh, and laugh.
A classic example from YTMND is ualuealuealeuale, which showcases a GIF of Adam West’s Batman laughing, with a ridiculous mumbling song playing over it. That’s it. That’s the joke.
Is it stupid? Yes. Did we love it? YES.
The Creepy Corner.
Some of the videos were never meant to be cute. Videos like Mr. Stabby, Salad Fingers, and the bloodbath that was Rejected Cartoons also drew us in. If you’ve ever heard a millennial say, “My spoon is too big” or “I am a banana” and you weren’t sure what the hell they were talking about, the secret lies with Don Hertzfeldt.
Disturbing and creepy, these characters had short-duration runs and were captivating with their animated violence and obscenity. I won’t say they would be entertaining to anyone today except for those whom share the nostalgia for them, but they were an important cultural blip for those of us who came of age at the dawn of the 21st Century.
Homestar Runner.
I fully understand that I started this newsletter with an image from Homestar Runner, but as I’ve written and written, this has gotten LONG, so I will come back to talk about Homestar Runner, Teen Girl Squad, and Strongbad another time. Sorry!
Ok, but is it art?
I would argue yes.
When video art remains in someone’s mind for fifteen to twenty years, like the above videos or live stop-motion pieces such as Tony vs. Paul (produced entirely in-camera through 4000 still images), I’d argue that they stand the test of time. Perhaps the quality doesn’t, as technology improves constantly, but the feelings they evoke remain.
I appreciate that young people have greater access to create their own weirdness on the internet. I’m admittedly not a fan of TikTok, as I don’t currently have the patience for in-your-face videos non-stop, but I do appreciate the humor people create for the world, and I’m happy seeing them at my own pace, several weeks later on Instagram.
I do worry a bit about the balance between art and content, and I have been thinking a lot about which of the two categories newer videos fall into.
I believe that art and content are different from each other. I’m confident that there is overlap and that one person can be both an artist and a content creator. I’d argue that artists will create even when nothing is to be gained, even if no one else will ever see it, and content creators will not create without an audience.
In my opinion, that feeling was what drove those early 2000s video creators and cartoonists. Yes, they put their videos on the internet, where they immediately found themselves on a global platform. However, I think the spirit that drove them to create oddities like Salad Fingers and Homestar Runner came from somewhere deeper, and weirder, and I am grateful to have digested them when I did.
What Excites Me
Tabatha and I finally saw the film Saturday Night, a recreation of the ninety minutes before the first episode of SNL debuted in 1975. We absolutely loved it. Every actor was perfectly cast, and the impressions of some of the biggest comedy stars of the 1970s and 1980s were spot on. It’s entertaining chaos, and we highly recommend it.
Unsolicited Recommendations
Great Articles I Read This Week
What I’m Listening To Right Now
Admittedly, I’ve never been a big death metal guy. I like a lot of different kinds of metal, but something about the growls and blast beats never really grabbed me. I’m still not a big death metal band guy, but I recently had this record recommended to me by several people, social media accounts, and Spotify (based on my own listening history), so I gave it a shot.
Plus, their album artwork is pretty damn cool.
While I enjoyed Blood Incantation’s Absolute Elsewhere after several listens, I don’t think I’ll be doing any deep dives into newer death metal albums anytime soon. I am glad I listened, though!
Listen here:
Which Books Have My Attention
Starter Villain, by John Scalzi
The Vexed Generation, by Scott Meyer
This week’s books are brought to you by my poor memory. I actually own both of these in audiobook form, but I forgot about them. I bought them months and months ago when I had free book credits from Audible; they were trying to lure me back into a membership, which I did not renew, but I did accept the book credits.
I was reminded of this because I saw Starter Villain on display at Book Soup as a staff member’s recommendation. It’s the story of a man who inherits his uncle’s supervillain business and has to figure out how to be real bad real fast.
The Vexed Generation is the sixth installment of the Magic 2.0 book series, which began with 2013’s Off to Be the Wizard. It’s a silly and funny science fiction series that details Martin, a loser computer hacker type, who discovers that the world is actually run by a computer program that can be edited to allow for time travel and magic. I don’t think it’s marketed as YA, but I do think that teenagers would enjoy it.
Until next time!