Okay, so you may not know who DJ Steve Porter is, but surely, if you’ve watched any network television or NBA Playoffs, then you are familiar with his work. This is one of my favorites of his many NBA commercials:
I mean, this kid has been doing big things in the New England and beyond since the late 90s, but he really got on the map when he did his version of the Slap Chop commercial. Basically, he did his “remix” of the commercial and put it online, eventually Slap Chop picked it up and made it the official commercial. When I saw this I bugged:
Dude has totally blown up from the Slap Chop thing, obviously if he is doing the NBA jumpoffs. Kind of a crazy story. Peep this interview w/ DJ Steve Porter. And, well, one of my favorite videos of all time that gets Porterhoused (“Porterhouse” is his style of music):
On January 31, 2007 the city of Boston erupted. No, it wasn’t because the Patriots won a playoff game or the Celtics were in the midst of an 18-game losing streak, but the city hit 9/11-esque terror when they found out that the Moonites had landed. Unknown to Bostonians, city officials, and apparently the people at Fox News, the “light bright” characters were part of a guerilla marketing campaign to promote the Aqua Teen Hunger Force(ATHF) movie. Given all the hoopla, the campaign seemed to work, although Turner Broadcasting ended up having to pay Boston $2 million in “damages,” which led to resignation of Cartoon Network’s head, Jim Samples.
Apparently the “terrorists” were more concerned with their hair, and for good reason. (Man, journalists get real pissed with deflection and rejection.)
History/Context
If you’re familiar with the show and most of the other programs that air on Cartoon Network‘s late-night programming block, Adult Swim, then this would come as no surprise. ATHF is currently in the middle of its 7th season and is 96 episodes deep–it is produced by Williams Street and animated by Radical Axis, and also airs in Canada on Teletoon. With the exception of Radical Axis, which is a privately held company, Williams Street, Cartoon Network, and Turner Broadcasting System are all subsidiaries of Time Warner, one of the world’s largest media conglomerates.
ATHF first aired on December 30, 2000 and began as a show where anthropomorphized food characters fought crime in New Jersey, which was a theme abandoned after a couple episodes.
Production
ATHF, Number One in the Hood!
The show is directed and written by Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis, who also do the voices (however, most of the show is actually ad-lib), and each episode is produced in a month for approximately $60,000 per episode. The show is a semi-parody of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon Teen Force, as is much of the Adult Swim content as Turner owns the entire HB catalog of intellectual property. During the show’s first three seasons it opened with comedic shorts from Dr. Weird’s “castle” on the Jersey Shore, an opening image that comes from The Real Adventures of Johnny Quest (also an HB copyright)–both Dr. Weird and his assistant, Steve, had the blowout going on years before DJ Pauly D.
The show’s theme song comes from old school Philly rapper, Schoolly D, who also is the show’s narrator. Legend has it that he wrote the lyrics to the song on the limousine ride to the recording studio. The show features numerous reoccurring characters, from the Mooninites to the Plutonians, and most episodes feature the Force’s neighbor, Carl Brutananadilewski, who is very Jersey and claims he’s “never had consensual sex without money involved.”
Carl loves the bands Boston and Foreigner, and promotes them on ATHF.
Distribution
The show is distributed through Adult Swim (which was, for ratings purposes, separated from Cartoon Net) and episodes are also available on iTunes for download. Episodes are distributed through the ATHF website and supported through advertisements; however, Warner will yank most ATHF content appearing on YouTube. Full-season DVDs can be purchased through numerous retail outlets and are distributed by Warner Home Video. All trademarks and copyrights associated with the film are held by Cartoon Net/Time Warner.
Adult Swim has also hooked up with indie hip hop powerhouses, Def Jux and Stones Throw Records, to make two albums: Definitive Swim and Chrome Children. Further, Adult Swim teamed with Epitaph Records to produce the The Mouse and the Mask, a records by the duo of MF DOOM and DJ Danger Mouse as DANGERDOOM (the record also prominently features ATHF characters throughout).
While the show is primarily supported through advertisements and the sales of its franchised commodities, ATHF has also accepted product placement in its episodes, most notably its season 4 episode entitled “Boost Mobile.” The episode centers around Shake’s, a main character, parodying the Boost Mobile‘s “where you at dawg?” mantra throughout. At the end of the episode even Axe Body Spray makes an appearance. Apparently, fans didn’t appreciate the paid ad placement despite ATFH deconstructing Boost’s brand in the storyline.
(Axe Body Spray appears at the very end of the episode.)
Consumption
While this show does seem to focus on stoner humor and gratuitous violence, and is maybe less of a social critique than its animated counterparts South Park and Family Guy, ATHF is immensely popular amongst the highly sought 18-24 year old male demographic. However, any cartoon that can set off a code red terrorism alert, force a network head to resign and a conglomerate to pay out $2 million in damages in order to market itself is probably more of a threat to the political economy of media than one would think. Cartoons seem harmless, but ATFH demonstrates how a profitable commodity can also be a vehicle for strong satire and even critique of its own industry. Plus, they make fun of Carrot Top and AT&T in one breath.
People. I kind of got sidetracked on this briefly, but peep the game here in the cartoon version and this site gives a nice explanation of the parallels to the communist project in Russia. Basically, Orwell is about anti-totalitarianism and his other book 1984 is another attack on the perversions of communism as it relates to fascism. Wow, lots of isms.
Political Economy of Media 
