Aluminum Christmas Trees: The advertisement at the end is not an out-of-nowhere parody; it is an actual ad for a real food truck, as it was a Kickstarter backer reward.
Audience-Alienating Premise: Divorced from all of the real-life drama surrounding it, this is still a short film about a militaristic uncle threatening his nephews with Corporal Punishment if they don't eat a human face found in a cheap food can, after which he loudly narrates going to the bathroom. While not a terrible idea for a Black Comedy on paper, the final product focuses so much on the dark aspects that it's not that funny.
Bile Fascination: Practically the only reason the cartoon gets any attention is because of the consensus that it's an ugly, poorly-paced and amateurish dumpster fire, not to mention the sadistic glee of seeing the famously judgmentalJohn Kricfalusi fail at putting his money where his mouth is, let alone make up for missing his own deadline by six years.
Fridge Horror: The fact that there is a decaying face in a can implies that either somebody died and their face somehow got into the can before George found it or there is a business that sells human body parts as food.
Just Here for Godzilla: The short's only redeeming factor is that it features Michael Pataki's final performance, which makes it worth the (mercifully brief) runtime.
Nausea Fuel: The fact that George is trying to get his wards to eat a human face that he found in a food can. Ironically, the face itself isn't that gross visually, with none of the visceral detail that defined Kricfalusi's style.
Overshadowed by Controversy: During the last stages of its production, the disastrous fallout of its Kickstarter campaign and the incriminating reports about Kricfalusi's history of pedophilia which came out almost a year before the short's release were discussed far more than the cartoon itself.
Padding: A major complaint of the short is the very slow pacing, namely the completely unnecessary long shot of George returning from the bathroom, making a seemingly endless string of over-the-top faces on his way for no real reason.
Protection from Editors: Kricfalusi specifically promised in the Kickstarter that this was the first project he would have complete creative freedom without any form of Executive Meddling. Among critics, this short showed exactly what happens when Kricfalusi was left to his own devices.
Special Effect Failure: Seven years (technically eleven, as George Liquor's voice actor Michael Pataki recorded all his lines before passing away in 2010) and $130,000 went into this project, and it was created by an animation veteran of 40 years who's notorious for being an extreme perfectionist and critical of any and all animation that doesn't meet his vague but high standards. You would never know from watching the final product, which looks like a first-year student film at best and a complete mess at worst.
Very poor CGI is used to animate several objects, such as the table, chairs, and the titular cans. Ignoring John's open hatred for CGI in animation, it looks like something out of a high school student's animation projectnote Seasoned Toon Boom users know that these are reference models meant to be traced over, which means that Kricfalusi used generic assets for his "masterpiece". and clashes badly with the hand-drawn character animation (and the George Liquor title card at the beginning was plagiarized from former Ren & Stimpy artist Bill Wray). Even the 2D stuff is plagued with obvious issues in layering, scaling, and tweening.
The most professional part of the short is the well-drawn, Looney Tunes-esque George Liquor title card at the very beginning... because it's blatantly reused from the opening of "Man's Best Friend", the banned episode of Ren & Stimpy, with cheap editing effects used to recreate the "George Liquor" text. Even that looks sloppy, as when the camera zooms further in on George's face, the drawing just gets more pixelated, proving that the picture wasn't retouched for this new context.
The short has dizzying, seemingly endless camera movements that feel more like someone messing around with the camera tool in real-time than anything planned. Worse, the 2D characters never conform to the 3D objects and background, meaning that they're constantly changing size and shape in relation. Even for Kricfalusi's trademark motion style, it just doesn't read.
In two shots where Cigarettes is sitting at the table, both the table and the chair become transparent, likely from John K. forgetting to turn the opacity on the layer back to normal.
Even the audio isn't immune. The background music changes in an abrupt fashion right before George screams "Eat the fucking face!" Many of George's lines have also clearly been spliced together from different takes with no attempt to bridge them, though this can be somewhat explained by the death of Michael Pataki, George's voice actor (as this video proves, Kricfalusi himself filled in some lines that Pataki wasn't alive to do, as George sounds a bit different at the end, which is much more obvious in the workprint cut).
When George returns from the bathroom, and the shot is located behind him, it's clear that the only thing that moves is his right arm that holds the belt, and nothing else apart from his whole body sliding.
Near the end of the short, when George walks to the other end of the table after he tells Ernie and Slab that they're good boys, you'll see that he's in a light green shirt while he's walking, despite him not wearing this outfit at any point during the short. He also looks quite pixelated and blurry.
If you look at the picture on the main page, you'll see that George's tongue is going through the table.
When George's arms stretch from off-screen to grab a fleeing Slab and Ernie, a quick eye can see the arms aren't attached to his body and are floating in midair.
Squick: The part where Slab and Ernie (who are brothers, mind you) yell "Touch Tips" and attempt to bump their groins into each other is very uncomfortable, especially when you know that it's a Call-Back to a far more disgusting scene from What Pee Boners Are For.
Took the Bad Film Seriously: Despite the cartoon's many, many problems, the late Mike Pataki's performance as George Liquor isn't one of them. Even though he was quite literally dying of cancer while recording his lines, he was clearly giving his all for the character and, if nothing else, was trying to go out with a bang, thus never knowing about the final product, most likely for the better.
The Woobie: Ernie and Slab, the latter moreso because he has his face ripped off and reattached upside down.
, Kricfalusi himself filled in some lines that Pataki wasn't alive to do, as George sounds a bit different at the end, which is much more obvious in the workprint cut).