One ofAdult Swim’s first programs,Aqua Teen Hunger Forceis a loosely-structured, bizarreanimatedcomedy about three anthropomorphic food items that live in a shabby house in a New Jersey neighborhood. Any attempt at a more detailed premise would be futile since the show employs a “whatever works” type approach to its increasingly outlandish plots. Newcomers would logically witness the opening credit sequence and think, “a show about crime-fighting food?”, but newcomers would be wrong. Instead, the show sporadically follows Master Shake (Dana Snyder), Meatwad (Dave Willis), and Frylock (Carey Means),unemployed and generally unsociable, living their strange lives day to day in their comically under-furnished house.
Of course, there are the Aqua Teens’ visitors: aliens, monsters, glowing cubes of wisdom, sentient growths of mold. Dave Willis andMatt Maiellero’s wonderfully twisted vision of their surreal world features a number of side characters (many of whom reappear inconsistently throughout the series), as vital a part of the show’s formula as the Aqua Teens themselves. With bite-sized episodes only eleven minutes long, large chunks of the show can be consumed in an afternoon. Still, after eleven seasons and a feature film (and another allegedly in production),Aqua Teen Hunger Forcehas dug a deep pool of content to choose from, but we’ve assembled a list of the ten most essential episodes from the show’s prolific run to help introduce you to this hilarious, uncompromisingly odd program.
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“Revenge of the Mooninites” (Season 1, Episode 8)
The first great episode of the series, “Revenge of the Mooninites” brings back the 8-bit supervillains the Mooninites to wreak more havoc on the New Jersey neighborhood. Though the Mooninites would return several more times throughout the series, this is arguably their funniest outing. After stealing a magical belt with powers exclusively related to songs from the rock band Foreigner, they brainwash Meatwad into a cigarette-smoking, lewd-talking “dirty white boy” mode. With no small amount of quotes that make the episode an instant classic, it also reminds us why the Mooninites are so damn funny. There’s also one of the first truly iconic Carl-isms, “I don’t need no instructions to know how to rock”. After a promising start as one of television’s strangest programs, this episode finally foundATHFrunning at full steam.
“MC Pee Pants” (Season 1, Episdoe 9)
When Meatwad becomes obsessed with the music of the high-pitched, nasally rapper MC Pee Pants, the Aqua Teens go to investigate the not-so-cryptic messages hidden within the record’s lyrics. In a show that has a fondness for music, rapperMC Chrisguests as the voice of MC Pee Pants and provides the show with the iconic track “I Want Candy”. There’s so much here that works: a candy-crunching Carl (Dave Willis) accompanying Meatwad to Pee Pants’s (Christopher Ward) crib (“That’s right by Melon Shakers…the gentleman’s club”), to the introduction of Pee Pants himself, one of the show’s strangest, funniest characters.
“Universal Remonster” (Season 2, Episode 11)
One of the first episodes to feature fan-favorite villains the Plutonians, “Universal Remonster”is centered around a stolen cable television signal. The Plutonians invent a half-beast half-universal-remote, the Universal Remonster, to help them pirate cable TV, and Frylock investigates. Here is an incessantly quotable episode that features the absolute best of the Plutonians, who wander about their spaceship in a drug-enduced paranoia. It also shows plenty of the in-universe television series featured in the show, from Meatwad’s kids show to Shake’s “All-Day Blood Buffet” of slasher movies. With so many jokes crammed into its eleven minutes, “Universal Remonster” is the show at its faced-paced peak.
“Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past From The Future” (Season 1, Episode 18)
The first three seasons ofAqua Teen Hunger Forceare consistent in their absurdist creativity and their quotability, and few episodes prove this better than “Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past From The Future”.When Carl’s pool mysteriously fills with elven blood, the Cybernetic Ghost of Christmas Past arrives at the house to explain why. The Ghost’s lengthy and convoluted story about the history of Christmas gets repeatedly interrupted, and one of the show’s best episodes is born. It’s a clear example of its particular humor aimless plotting, and a shirtlessGlenn Danzigguest stars in one of the show’s funniest cameos.
“Super Birthday Snake” (Season 2, Episode 1)
Ah, what an episode. In “Super Birthday Snake”, After Shake gifts Meatwad a giant snake for his birthday (he tells him it’s a bunny rabbit), a series of events ends up getting the two eaten. Once inside the snake’s belly, Frylock attempts to devise a plan to get the two out safely, and hilarity ensues. There are some absolutely golden back-and-forths in this episode, along with a second half that features a who’s Frylock gone bad. Of course, there’s also the bit where Frylock argues back and forth with a trio of corpses (“No, I didn’t! “Yes, you did!” “No, I didn’t”) that showcases the show’s comedic timing. It’s easily one of the best episodes of the series, and a perfect example of how quickly it lets things go off the rails.
“The Last One” (Season 2, Episdoe 24)
“The Last One”puts the show’s villains at the center, reminding us how invaluable they are to its comedic success. At a sort of convention for villiany, The Mooninites assemble a plethora of figures from the show’s past (Mothmonsterman, Happy Time Harry, the drunken frat aliens D.P. and Skeeter) to form a diabolical plan to finally put an end to the Aqua Teens. Of course, nothing goes as planned, with each of the villains’ absurd personalities getting in the way of any actual planning. The loosely-formed gang of monsters (named Super Awesome Villains Forever, the Nasty Midnighters, depending on who you ask) are left alone to their devices for eleven excellent minutes of comedy. “The Last One” is one of the first episodes to truly mess with the show’s trademark formula and proved that the side characters are as important to the show as the Aqua Teens themselves.
“Ezekiel” (Season 4, Episode 12)
Patton Oswalt lends his voice to Jesus Ezekial Jesus (“It’s from the Bible,” explains Meatwad), a baby anthropomorphic milkshake who shares a striking resemblance to Master Shake. When Ezekiel shows up at the Aqua Teen’s door one day, it’s believed that he is Shake’s illegitimate son. The fact that Shake has spent the last several seasons continuously showing howterriblehe is, it’s no surprise that the guy is a hilariously terrible father. The episode ponders the idea, though: could these guys possibly raise a child? It also answers: of course not.
“Gee Whiz” (Season 3, Episode 4)
“Last Last One Forever and Ever” (Season 6, Episode 10)
A show likeAqua Teen Hunger Forcecouldn’t have possibly taken its only live-action episode seriously. Really, there are few animated shows that arelessready for a live-action adaptation, considering the absolute insanity of its plotlines (and, of course, its almost exclusively non-human characters). In spite of—andbecause of—this, “Last Last One Forever and Ever” actually succeeds in what it’s doing. Don Shake (H. Jon Benjamin) and Frylock (T-Pain) live in a replicated version of the Aqua Teen’s house, where Shake is at work on a “terrible” screenplay. Carl (played by casting-call winnerDavid Long, Jr.in an actually uncanny resemblance) is there, too, in all his raunchy glory. In a show completely indifferent to making any sense, its single live-action episode basks in the inherent absurdity of its premise, playing entirely by its own rules along the way.
“One Hundred” (Season 7, Episode 11)
“One Hundred” not only marks the last episode before the series underwent a number of tongue-in-cheek name changes, but it also marks the point of being one of the last truly memorable episodes. When Frylock becomes obsessed with the number 100 (in a spoof of the now-forgottenJim CarreyfilmThe Number 23), the show beings to break the fourth wall in a series of gags. With an animated Dana Synderrevealing himself from inside his Master Shake costume, the episode is one meta joke after another, culminating in an R-ratedScooby-Doo! Where Are You?Spoof that breaks the series' typical form. It’s simultaneously a parody of the typical importance given to the “100th episode and a shameless indulgence in it.
