One of the funniest things I ever saw on The Simpsons (a show almost devoid of anything funny in the last ten years or so and which should subsequently be canceled, sorry, fanboys) was a dream sequence in which Homer meets the Kool-Aid man. Anyway, Homer 's having his surreal flight through a colorful wonderland when he is greeted by the Kool-Aid man. He immediately jumps inside the Kool-Aid man's head/pitcher and drinks the appropriately red liquid inside. Kool Aid man keeps truckin' right along at first, but after a second he becomes dizzy, staggers, and falls down... presumably dead.
This is what I think of when I look at this 1957 ad for Kool-Aid. The marketing division of General Foods obviously wants us to think of Kool-Aid man as a living pitcher - merely a vessel for their product. The Kool-Aid itself is not his mind, or his blood. So, we shouldn't be horrified that he's pouring out his brains for us to drink.
Clearly, The Simpsons thinks of it differently. When I first saw this scene, I laughed so hard i cried. Homer's gluttony is such that he takes the life of a magical being by devouring it's mind, only a little dismayed and confused to find himself sitting in the drained skull of a dead miracle afterwards.
I prefer the Simpsons' version of Kool-Aid man physiology.
The weirdness of an anthropomorphic pitcher doesn't stop me from wondering if his chalky stick arms are just a rendering style or if they're the way he is made. The "humans" also have stick limbs, so maybe it's just the art style.
That doesn't mean I'm going to ignore the fact that Kool-Aid man is tipping his pitcher head by pushing up on his own handle. It doesn't work that way. You can't propel your sail boat by using a fan. Kool-Aid man is running the risk of breaking his handle off.
I was hankering for some Kool-Aid up to this point, but their blatant disregard for the laws of physics turns me off. They can keep their tall frosty glass of refreshing Kool-Aid. I'm going to drink mind-blood from the skull of a mythical character instead.
The weirdness of an anthropomorphic pitcher doesn't stop me from wondering if his chalky stick arms are just a rendering style or if they're the way he is made. The "humans" also have stick limbs, so maybe it's just the art style.
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4 comments:
He's sweating and drooling.
Gross.
PS: What the hell flavor is "Golden Nectar?"
Sounds and looks like fetish porn.
I noticed the drooling, too. This argues that "Golden Nectar" must be beer. Glad I could answer your question! Thanks for commenting, Craig!
Interesting to see the sweating and drooling is just realistic condensation - with someone drawing his face through it with a finger.
I guess showing dripping on the nose would have been too repulsive, and dripping from the eyes would have made him cry. They still settled on dripping from the mouth, which I suppose is OK if you are trying to get across the idea of Kool-Aid being mouth-watering.
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