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March 23, 2005

merrie melodies & the role models of termite terrace

Justin Sirois

sponge bob square pants is an unlikely model of existential
sensitivity { when I was young the drawings of John Kricfalusi

used to make me & my brother piss our pants, he obviously
did a ton of acid, he played in a surf rock band named the

Shit Birds & when nickelodeon ripped Ren & Stimpy away from
his creative control he went independent again with an alcoholic

neo conservative named George Liquor, an Elmer Fudd type
who’s experience in Korea & cinemax might have rattled a

few bolts loose & only wading pools of blended whiskey
can turn the furniture back into their proper shapes, he spends

the afternoon cutting down dead trees, Kricfalusi is obviously
way ahead of his time { sponge bob square pants is a sea

sponge with buck teeth, he’s the social outcast, the square,
but as a sentient being of an absorbent nature he is a

metaphor of complete social acceptance, a tolerant &
kind individual of constant reflection who not only soaks

in the environment around him, he is, in essence, this
environment, in an underwater world without boarders or

check points he is the ambassador to all species & races,
he is the wide eyed abstraction, a being who defies

categorization of genus or genetic origin { when we were
young the cartoons of Bob Clampett & Tex Avery seemed

too charged with anxiety, who’s afraid of a hovering pickaxe?
whose overalls are stuffed full’a TNT? obviously impossible

for us to see the art in it at the time when a sports car could
transform into a pistol & then a giant robot, after leaving Warner

Brothers in ’64, Clampett produced 78 episodes of his sea sick
sock puppet creation & boy companion in five years with his

children Bob Jr. & Ruth doing voice overs, Kricfalusi would
later try to revive the series after Clampett’s death, but ABC

would can the progressive animator for this hands on approach
to the medium { you, the Brita of contemporary apathy, slice

cells into a story board of estranged commentary, an art that won’t
be appreciated fully until the reels of commercialism slow &

the dazed adults understand who tried to tease away convention &
free young imaginations from the confines of capital, you, the

lower case artist, slip castor oil through the lips of authenticity &
throw anvils at vile television thrones, a big blown baby with a

baritone bravura of Hanna Barbaric proportion

Posted by Rock Heals at March 23, 2005 12:24 AM