By Kevin Polowy
State Press Magazine
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a still from Swing Sluts by Brett Johnson |
"It's time for the adventures of Radioactive Crotch Man"
Say what? Radioactive Crotch Man? Doesn't sound like a cartoon you'd anticipate finding your younger siblings camping out in front of on a Saturday morning.
On the other hand, a superhero with such a droll name is just what one should expect from Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation, the short film series that spawned the likes of Beavis and Butthead, South Park and Rugrats. This year's festival, which premiers at Harkins Centerpoint 11 tomorrow features 20 new shorts and a select handful of cult favorites.
"We got a butt-load of new films and a lot of humor, a lot of crazy stuff," said Craig "Spike" Decker, who co-created the festival with Mike Gribble.
Sick and Twisted began in 1990 as a showcase for the animated flicks that were too revolting or adult in nature for Spike and Mike's Classic Festival of Animation.
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a souvenir barf bag from the festival |
"We had a lot of (adult) films in the original show, the non Sick and Twisted -- our high-brow show," Spike said. "So I had to come up with a concept and a way to program these somewhere so I came up with Sick and Twisted. And subsequently that's where Beavis and Butthead and things like that came out of. I like that type of humor."
Although Mike passed away in 1994, Spike continues to produce highly-acclaimed theatrical festivals of animated short film collections. This year's show features three new shorts produced by Spike and Mike -- Swing Sluts, a new film starring Summer and Tiffany; Home, Honey, I'm High: What You Should Know about Drugs, a public service film about drug use; and Beyond Grandpa II, a sequel to last year's hit.
Other titles in this year's festival include Cannibalism and Your Teen, No Neck Joe, Horned Gramma, Tyson: I am not an Animal, Tongue Twister, and of course, Radioactive Crotch Man.
Nick Gibbons, who directed Crotch Man, said he can't really explain how he thought up his pelvic-powered hero.
"I was just looking down one day and thought, 'man, that would be a great superhero," he joked. "It was just this bizarre thing that I came up with one day and had stored in the back of my head for a few years."
One of Gibbons' previous films, Fast Driver, a parody of Speed Racer, was included in the 1997 Sick and Twisted festival. Gibbons agreed with Spike that comparing the Sick and Twisted shorts with classic animation is like apples and oranges.
"I consider (Sick and Twisted) a completely different arena of animation," he said. "I love the classic stuff. But I do have a special place in my heart for the sick and twisted stuff. It's a lot of fun."
Spike and Mike founded Mellow Manor Productions, Inc. in 1977. They named their business after the Victorian house in Riverside, California where they lived in a communal setting. Spike recalled the first time he encountered Mike:
"We were living in this Animal House type home, this big fraternity-type party house with crazy shit going on all the time," he said. "I did bass vocals in this 50s style greaser band and one night after a gig we had a party and Mike came and nobody knew who he was.
"And he was wearing a clown costume and he had mirrors on his shoes. He was going around looking
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still from Home Honey, I'm Higher by Matt Davis and Dan Dudley. |
up all these girls' dresses with these mirrors. He ended up getting thrown out of the party. Then he appears at my house days later and we were renting the attic out and he rented it from me. So our relationship just kind of evolved that way."
Mellow Manor Productions was originally formed to promote underground bands with retro animated shorts. They presented specials featuring Spike's band Sterno and the Flames with all-night horror-thons and midnight rock 'n' roll films such as Jimmy Plays Berkeley and Quadraphenia.
Many of these shows would open with animated shorts like Superman and Betty Boop. Spike and Mike began introducing odder shorts like Bambi Meets Godzilla and the demand to see these offbeat cartoons led to full-time animation promotion for the duo.