Liquid Television is an Emmy award-winning anthology animation program, produced by Colossal Pictures, that ran on MTV from 1991 to 1994, with the first season also running on BBC Two concurrently with MTV. It has served as the launching point for a number of original series that later became popular on their own, such as Beavis and Butt-Head, Æon Flux, and The Head. The bulk of Liquid Television's material was created by independent animators and artists specially for the show, and some previously produced segments were compiled from festivals such as Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation. Mark Mothersbaugh composed the show's theme music. There were also a large number of animation pieces adapted from the work of Art Spiegelman's comic compilation, RAW. RAW featured underground cartoonists such as Mark Beyer, Richard Sala, and Peter Bagge. In particular, Dog-Boy by Charles Burns was based on the artist's series from RAW.
Selected segments from the series, including the first appearances of Æon Flux, were released on two VHS tapes in the late 1990s as The Best of Liquid Television parts one and two. These tapes are long out-of-print . A collection volume, titled Wet Shorts (The Best of Liquid Television), comprising the two VHS tapes, was available on DVD but this too is out-of-print.
Recurring Series
- The Adventures of Thomas and Nardo
- Æon Flux
- The Art School Girls Of Doom
- Buzz Box
- Crazy Daisy Ed
- Cut-Up Camera
- Dangerous Puppets
- Dog-Boy
- Footworks
- Invisible Hands
- Miss Lidia's Makeover To The Stars
- Psycho-Gram
- Soap Opera
- The Specialists
- Speedbump the Roadkill Possum
- Stevie and Zoya
- Stick-Figure Theatre
- Winter Steele
This series contains examples of:
- Antimatter: In one series, The Specialists, the heroes meet up with their antimatter counterparts, who were chromatically opposite but otherwise identical.
- Art Evolution: The Liquid TV reboot features shorts entirely produced on computers, rather than the traditional, hand-painted look on most of the shorts in the original Liquid Television. It was also more common to see the Flash animation style in the new series.
- Badass Longcoat: The guy with the gun that shoots colors in the "The End" short. Brad Dharma, the Psychedelic Detective, also wears one.
- Domestic-Only Cartoon: Most of the shorts were produced solely within their country of origin. An exception was Aeon Flux, which was outsourced to South Korea.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Soap Opera segments are a soap opera that's literally all about soap.
- Fake-Out Opening: Most of the first season episodes started with a music video playing, only for it to gradually morph into the Liquid Television.
- Instrumental Theme Tune: A synthesized piece by Mark Mothersbaugh.
- Jackass Genie: Subverted with Suprema in Genie Junkie. She has no respect for her current master and no issue twisting his wishes to make him look like an ass, but mainly out of disgusted boredom because he's a Lazy Bum who uses her power for utterly banal things. He even proves he's literally incapable of picking his own nose without her magic. She noticeably perks up when he wishes to become a god, to the point of gladly having sex with him afterwards.
- Limited Animation: The Specialists is largely just key frames, with no in-betweens.
- Missed Him by That Much: "Winter Steele" has the titular biker and her lover Crow going in circles trying to find each other, often failing to realize they're in the same building. When Winter discovers a message on a bathroom mirror reading "Where Are You Winter?", she shoots it up in a rage.Winter: I'm on your trail, you dumb bastard! Where the hell are you?!
- Momma's Boy: "Psycho-Gram" is about a very disturbed individual sending letters to his mom about inflicting several atrocities, and even mentions "Lost my virginity, per instructions."
- Nun Too Holy: The nuns that ran the orphanage Winter Steele and her lover Crow were raised were a bunch of assholes.Nun #1: Sister Frosty, this is the second motorcycle child that's been deposited here this month. Them people's like animals! Look, he ain't wearing nothing but a saddlebag! Christola!Sister Frosty: At least he's got more on than the little girl did when they dumped her here! She wasn't wearing nothing but a sterling silver tire chain. Ain't that right Sister Knuckles?Sister Knuckles: For Pete's sake get the kid inside, he's got road rash! You watch, he's gonna be a discipline problem just like the girl, I swear to God!All three: A-men!
- In a later segment, Winter's ecstatic when she learns the orphanage is condemned and forces her way into personally knocking the building down with a wrecking ball. She openly regrets the nuns aren't inside as she does it.
- Plant Person: Crazy Daisy Ed is literally a walking, talking flower.
- Self-Abuse: Joked about in The Specialists. After meeting their antimatter counterparts, they're warned not to touch themselves or it'll destroy the universe. One of them quips "I thought it was go blind."
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: The first "Crazy Daisy Ed" short begins with him being on the ground like a normal flower. He gets tired of just looking at the city and wants to actually be there.Ed: Okay, I'm bored!
- Seinfeldian Conversation: "This Is Not Frank's Planet" features a spaceship flying through various surreal landscapes while the two (unseen) occupants argue about whether or not they're lost.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: Winter Steele and Crow put each other through the wringer to show their "love," doing things like beating each other up and burning themselves with cigarettes. Winter muses they crossed a lot of boundaries to explore the depths of pain and pleasure... while they were seven. The state eventually put them in separate facilities because of their frightening behavior.
