After a fifteen minute delay, giving people at Ferndale�s packed Magic Bag plenty of time to get a beer or two in their hands and to look at the flyer advertising future shows (Jordan Knight?!), the show begins with trailers for such classics as Airplane and Sweet Sugar. It is a preview of the humor to follow. Stupid humor that is sometimes easier to giggle at after a few drinks.

The best shorts are not necessarily the ones with the best animation. They are the ones with drier, more subtle wit. �Peepshow� stars a couple Easter marshmallow bunnies. �Ninjews,� a jerky claymation, tells a story of two Jewish men, endowed with powers of the Ninja, preventing the contamination of a pure Jewish boy by a pig Nazi. A tale of Billy and Sally dolls has a Dr. Seuss on crack quality. �Free Will Press Start� consists of moving sketches of God and the Devil playing a Life video game.

�No Neck Joe� and �Happy Tree Friends� make a return this year with new episodes. �No Neck Joe� is bland with its usual play of tormenting a guy without a neck. �Happy Tree Friends� is bearable. They cut down their headache inducing opening sequence, and it has more hilarity than useless gore with shorts about poking an eye out and old war flashbacks.

For the few good ones, there are also plenty to get up and go to the bathroom through. �Snowman� and �Cane Toad� are beautifully animated but fail to entertain. �Heavy� and �Mousochist� drag on forever. �Sickcom� and �Hut Sluts� are trying so hard to be sick and twisted the writers forgot to make them funny.

Overall, it is a good time and a nice alternative to the usual movie night in suburbia. I might have found it more enjoyable if some chick was not blowing cigarette smoke directly in my face the entire evening -- seriously, how many cigarettes do you really need to smoke in a period of only a couple hours? Bitch.

~* December 28, 2003 @ 5:06 pm *~