Liquid Television

Liquid Television was a series shown on MTV in which animators, directors and producers could feature their own creations and characters in wildly different forms and genres. Some could be live-action, some were computer CGI (a pioneering technique at the time) or hand-drawn, some were done with puppets and some were stop-motion. Pretty much, this was a wonderful show for people who love all kinds of random, bizarre and crazy animated shorts.

If it were not for shows like Liquid Television there'd be no Aeon Flux, Beavis and Butthead, King of the Hill, Daria or Office Space. But there were also many other lesser known characters and segments such as Dog Boy, The Art School Girls of Doom, Psycho Gram (which were brilliant!), Bobby and Billy (also brilliant), Winter Steele and Joe Normal. Basically all of the weirdest experimental stuff MTV could find.

I used to watch this on TV when I was 10 years old and I must say, for my fertile imagination at the time, this show was light-years ahead of the tame, PC crap that kids watch these days. I do wish a complete anthology of Liquid Television was put on DVD instead of this lame 'Best Of...' DVD that's OOP. Come on Paramount, why are we waiting?

Wow. Where to begin? Liquid televison was a major factor in my life. Well, entertainment wise at least. I was just barely old enough to start enjoying MTV when this baby aired. I can distinctly remember the varying styles of animation this series brought. From the sci fi realism of Aeon Flux (with her death in every episode), to the live action plastique look of dog boy, L. TV was a gallery of creativity. This show did indeed spawn some of MTV's most popular animation shows as well, like the aeon flux series (a less condensed version that folowed a story, unlike L.TV's one shots), and Beavis and butthead. Kudos has to go to MTV for even showing these twisted toons. It's a shame that L TV is no longer around. Even it's spinoffs (head, aeon flux, beavis and butthead) are no longer around. Still it's nice to see after all these years (8 to be exact) people still remember liquid tv. I highly recommend you try an catch an episode on one of MTV's animation festival weekends. There is a new incarnation of L TV, entitled Cartoon sushi, but to me it lacks what L TV had. It would difinatly suggest you pick up a L TV tape also, it's much more then worth it.

A regular show on MTv, when it was still on the cutting edge of creativity and non-conformism, Liquid Television featured a series of funny/disgusting/dumb/ingenious/disturbing shorts, mostly animated cartoons, but quite a bit of CGI, simple drawings, etc.

When I first went to college in 1994, this was on of the shows my friends and I would stay up to watch. It's bound to be remembered as an essential part of the Gen-X subculture (if you want to call it that).

Liquid Television is best known as where Mike Judge got his big break, with a demented little cartoon about two stupid losers named Beavis and Butthead, which everyone knows went on to have their own show (and equally important part of Gen-X) and eventually a feature length film. Judge, of course, went on to make "King of The Hill", one of the most popular shows on TV today.

During a time of great originality and artistic expression, Liquid Television was a testament to the fact that people can and do understand new ideas and appreciate them. Unfortunately, it is long gone and probably would not be appreciated in today's mass-produced, assembly line, politically correct media.

I was 20 when Liquid TV began to be aired in Spain (Tuesday nights 01:00 or 02:00 AM, prime time, eh?), and I remember only a few college freaks and me liked it, specially the variety of animations styles and contents. (I mean freaks because here this series was not broad-casted by MTV, but in TVE2 (like the BBC2), after a cultural program named Metropolis (that is still on air, by the way), so I doubt many Spaniards remember it).

I completely agree with Shawn Watson from Scotland: it was (still is) light years above the average animation series, so is a shame that now that we can buy almost every season of almost every famous TV series in shiny packages with full episodes and extras, this revolutionary show remains unavoidable.

At least most of you can buy the Wet Shorts DVD, unpublished in Spain.

Liquid Television certainly must be noted as one of the landmark programs the network aired throughout its history. An anthology series that had recurring elements, the program launched a couple of MTV standards: Mike Judge's "Beavis & Butthead" first appeared here with their controversial "Frog Baseball" episode, as did "Aeon Flux," the very first element anyone recalling the series would likely remember. That character, an under-dressed, overachieving, amazon-like killing machine, eventually got a big screen, live action film starring Charlize Theron in the title role. For those two additions, Liquid Television's place in TV history should be secure.

Other brilliant elements included "Stick Figure Theater," where classic clips from vintage movies were turned into what appeared to be deceptively simple "flip movie" style animation (though they also did a very memorable re-imagining of Madonna's "Express Yourself" video), "The Specialists," a team of three investigators that had brawn (Samson), brains (Master Mind) and beauty (Kittka) and who rented themselves out in the classified ads, stumbling into a very complicated case, and "Winter Steele," which was a marionette/puppet presentation about a street tough biker chick out to find her motorcycle man, Crow, and the complications she faced in the chase.

But it wasn't all animation; there were key live-action segments as well. Most notably of these was, "Dog Boy," which arguably had the best script of any of the elements in the series (though granted, it did lift the story from Charles Burns' graphic novels and tried to capture the comic book look and palette in its presentation). It was a stylish collection of vignettes with a story line about an innocent young dishwasher in a diner who was given a heart transplant of a canine and who took on many of the traits of that animal as a result.

As for the rest, some of the other footage was taken from vintage animation from the 1920s or 30s, student films and other elements not specifically created for this series. This is not a criticism, but it is notable that "Liquid Television" only produced a portion of the material it showed, and even reran clips to fill out its 30 minute time slot on occasion.

Though not every element offered up on this show worked, it was an ambitious series that set the tone for later presentations, like Cartoon Sushi, and must be remembered for attempting to showcase some thoughtful, fun and interesting material of this sort, at a time when nobody else was doing anything like this.