This blog was inspired by my recent outing to a full showing of Salad Fingers followed by a Q&A with creator David Firth. I haven’t seen that bizarre web cartoon since I was 15 and sitting in a smoky council flat living room. Flash was pretty recent at the time and the videos were strange and jolted but so exciting because the internet was pretty recent and these trippy flash cartoons of green old men playing with puppets and collecting corpses was a fun way to socialise. At parties, we would sit for hours showing each other different new internet cartoons and you best believe there was a small amount of cannabis involved. So for all you Millenials out there have a little nostalgia blast of the best 2000s web cartoons to watch while you’re high. P.s. When I started researching I remembered so many that had slipped my mind so let’s make this a two parter.
Salad Fingers
Ok, I’m going to start with Salad Fingers due to my recent viewing. Did you guys know there are like 11 episodes now? I certainly did not and as they go on they just get stranger, more terrifying and the animation improves like crazy. If you love straight up weirdness with an intelligent understanding of the horror genre and the best ways to make your skin fully crawl then this is the cartoon for you. This cartoon first appeared in 2007 after writer, animator and voice of the character David Firth thought it would be fun to learn flash animation. Like most animation of the time the show first took off on Newgrounds where it was initially basically ignored. Firth said that one day it was just on the front page and from there it began to blow up. The cartoon follows an elderly man named Salad Fingers who lives in an empty world with figments of his imagination. He has a love of touching rusty items and his voice is a combination of Michael Jackson and David Firth’s grandmother according to the creator. The show is trippy, jarring and sometimes hard to watch but definitely seems like a lot of fun to watch high. Definitely a polarising cartoon with some people loving it and some hating it, but if you’re not familiar it is definitely a piece of internet history that is worth exploring, especially while a little bit stoned.
Llamas With Hats
This cartoon appeared in 2009 and depicts two llamas, wearing hats, who get up to some pretty whacky nonsense. Just like many cartoons of this era, especially those posted on newgrounds, there had to be some violence in there. The violence in this show came in the form of Carl, a psychotic llama with a penchant for mass murder, dismemberment and face skin party decorations. I would certainly say that this show is less horrific than Salad Fingers and may be better suited to those who don’t want something too intense, but still enjoy a touch of mindless gore. The adorable nature of two llamas wearing hats combined with the vicious sadism of Carl is perfectly executed and I do think it’s one of the funniest web cartoons from the 2000s. The cartoon begins as just a silly little foray into adorable murder and misunderstandings, but then actually turns into a full narrative. It ran for 12 episodes and then had a finale in which the full story was brought to a close. Sit down, put on the youtube playlist, have a zoot and enjoy the horrifying and slightly sad ballad of Carl and Paul.
ASDF Movies
Almost everyone is aware in some capacity of ASDF movies. The first came out in 2008 and contained a variety of short sketches, each more quotable than the last. I remember a good deal of the time I spent with friends in college and even in uni being peppered with “Desmond the moon bear, HOW DID I GET HERE?” and “I AM A STEGOSAURUS”. This is another individual short that turned into a full series and now there are 13 episodes available on youtube. The show was created by Thomas Ridgewell and also voiced by him but he was not much for animating. These are perfect for getting high because you don’t have to follow anything. It is just a string of hilarious non sequiturs. I remember watching the first video in my teens and finding it absolutely hilarious. It was also pretty refreshing since the atmosphere of online and Newgrounds was becoming a little toxic. Everyone just seemed to be trying to out offend or out gross each other. So a cartoon about hilarious little sketches, some of which were a bit dark to give some variety but most of which were just funny in their own right. If you prefer to just have a chuckle rather than a groan, this is the webtoon for you.
Happy Tree Friends
Ok I’m going right back to very dark with this last one, but it definitely deserves a mention as one of the longest running webtoons. It started life on the internet in 1999 and lasted right up until 2016. This took the dynamic of cute and horrific to a whole new level. This cartoon depicted a variety of happy little critters who lived in a lovely little world together. It masqueraded as a saccharin children’s cartoon for the first little part of the episode, then would change violently. When I say violently I mean that both figuratively and literally. Someone basically saw Itchy and Scratchy on the Simpsons and said let’s do that but dial it up to 11. This show is beyond violent and graphic but the contrast definitely gives it an element that appealed to a lot of people. So if you want to get some buddies together and binge watch some fluffy bunnies getting brutally mutilated then this is the show for you. I have to say I think that it is one of the more creative violence based cartoons out there.
See you in part 2!
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