Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Aqua Teen Hunger Force’ Season 12 on Adult Swim and Max, The Long Awaited Return Of A Genuine Cult Classic

It’s been nearly a decade since new episodes of Aqua Teen Hunger Force aired on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim block, and over a year since the erstwhile crimefighters Frylock, Master Shake, and Meatwad returned with a direct-to-video feature film (Aqua Teen Forever: Plantasm). Now the Adult Swim mainstays are back in their old late-night time slot with five scheduled episodes that will also stream on Max. It will only amount to about an hour of new Aqua Teens adventures, but fans will take what they can get.

AQUA TEEN HUNGER FORCE – SEASON 12: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Following a 2023 remix of the show’s hip-hop theme song, the virtual camera pans over a brightly colored, fantastical CG landscape, an unusual sight for the minimalist aesthetic of this show. It then zooms in on a peculiarly muscled and shiny-textured version of Master Shake (Dana Snyder), the id-driven egomaniac of the show’s three protagonists, presiding over a bizarre virtual land called “Shaketopia.” If this briefly creates the false impression that the show will traffic in mythology rather than running gags and nonsensical in-jokes, well, that’s probably the idea.

The Gist: To its fans, Aqua Teen Hunger Force will need no introduction. To newcomers, no introduction may ever be enough. The show began in the year 2001 (though a pilot aired in late 2000) disguised as a superhero parody, with anthropomorphic food items teaming up to fight crime. That conceit was quickly dropped, and many of the 12-minute episodes take place primarily in the group’s shabby New Jersey home, where Shake generally runs amok while skeptical Frylock (Carey Means) attempts to limit the damage alongside sweet-natured Meatwad (Dave Willis) and the group’s cantankerous vulgarian neighbor Carl (also Willis). The show has a reputation for surrealist weirdness, but it often bears just as many hallmarks of classic animated shorts: the storytelling is fast-paced, the gags are outlandish, and characters are allowed to reset for the next installment. That last one is especially necessary, because both of the first two new episodes end with characters getting mangled or killed.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? The Aqua Teen Hunger Force characters originated as discarded Space Ghost: Coast to Coast characters, which is to say their lineage stretches all the way back through the history of Cartoon Network’s beloved Adult Swim. So basically, Aqua Teen could conceivably remind you of any grown-up-targeted anything-for-a-laugh cartoon of the past 20 years or so. With its fantastical leanings, maybe think of the most gruesome elements of Futurama.

Our Take: It seems almost like an intentionally undermining feat of bad timing that after several boom years for TV revivals that saw new episodes of Animaniacs, Clone High, Powerpuff Girls, and the umpteenth return of Futurama, Aqua Teen Hunger Force would show up late to the party with an anticlimactic batch of five episodes. But then, the show has never been about building to a rip-roaring action-packed climax anyway, and, if anything, the first two episodes of this brief Aqua Teen revival are a little more tightly conceptual than some of the show’s oddest installments. “Shaketopia” finds Master Shake presiding over his own virtual-reality kingdom, where he impresses his virtual minions by playing a game-within-a-game that involves turning squares into rectangles (it is not a complicated game). “A Quiet Shake,” meanwhile, is a direct spoof of the 2018 horror drama A Quiet Place, with a dash of sly commentary on COVID denialism, set some months after super-hearing aliens have invaded Earth and forced mankind to retreat into their basements. Both episodes join the actual more or less in media res, making the premise clear through action, rather than tedious set-up or exposition; it may be a deeply silly and often juvenile show, but a lot of others could learn from its 12-minute-episode economy.

The show’s lurches into bloody violence and the forever-unchanging personalities of its four main characters are less instructive, and there are moments where, even at a mere 24 minutes, these first two doses of Aqua Teen threaten to feel like old hat. But are we really expecting a 12-minute cartoon show in its 12th season to offer a radical reimagining of its whole reason for being, which is to provide comic anarchy and the whims of creators Dave Willis and Matt Maiellaro? These guys write and direct every episode, which makes even the show’s crassest moments feel, somehow, like a labor of love. That’s also what keeps the characters weirdly endearing after so many years and countless misdeeds: Willis and Maiellaro so obviously love animating them. This and the episodes’ trim runtimes set Aqua Teen Hunger Force apart from its fellow long-running adult-driven cartoons; it’s less exhausted than The Simpsons can sometimes feel, less strident about its anti-politics politics than South Park, and (even/especially in its weirdest moments) more pleasant to look at than Family Guy.

Sex and Skin: Any sexuality in Aqua Teen goes hand-in-hand with grotesquerie, which in this case includes blurred frontal nudity from Carl and mangled penis drawings from Meatwad.

Parting Shot: A hair-metal band consisting of Shake, Meatwad, and Carl rocks out with their original composition about a seedy threeway.

Sleeper Star: None of the side characters in these first two episodes of Season 12 feel like strong contenders for the recurring status sometimes bestowed upon particularly memorable walk-ons, but it is weirdly comforting to see and hear that gross idiot New Jerseyan Carl back in acton.

Our Call: If you don’t know what Aqua Teen Hunger Force is at this point, it seems unlikely that the revival will win you over. But if you already like the show, STREAM IT – they’re 12-minute episodes that have some big laughs, so it’s a pretty high-yield situation.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.