Aqua Teen Hunger Force-Four (2005)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio Featurette-Behind The Scenes-Voice Cast Short Film-Raydon Short Film-Spacecataz TV Spots Featurette-Comicon 2004 preview Gallery-Fan Art Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2005
Running Time	149:44
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Matt Maiellaro Dave Willis
Studio Distributor	Williams Street Madman Entertainment	Starring	None Given
Case	Custom Packaging
RPI	?	Music	Schooly-D Jay Edwards Edward Hastings

    This fourth Aqua Teen Hunger Force box presents the show's third season in its entirety. This late night comedy 'toon is the absurd dynamic between its various characters. The vague crime/mystery solving premise that that the first series briefly flirted with has long been dumped, so much so that it has become a running joke throughout the series.

    The Aqua Teen Hunger Force team consists of three characters; Master Shake, an obnoxious and self-centred man-sized milkshake and the self-appointed "leader" of the team; Frylock, a super-intelligent floating carton of fries who has a goatee, can shoot fireballs from his eyes (and frequently does) and tends to do most of the actual mystery solving; and Meatwad, an innocent, child-sized, dim-witted meatball who just wants to dance most of the time. Their slovenly classic rock-loving neighbour Carl continues to complain about the Aqua Teen's existence, but begrudgingly participates in their schemes as soon as any vague bribe is waved in his direction.

    The recurring cold-openings featuring a mad scientist in his lab have been replaced openings featuring two different sets of recurring alien characters, the Mooninites and the Plutonians, pranking each other in outer space.

    Aqua Teen Hunger Force has more or less been the flagship for the Cartoon Network's late night "Adult Swim" brand since it was loosely spun off from an episode of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast in 2000. It also managed to spawn a limited-release movie (in the US at any rate) in early 2007. Like many of its' peers, its brand of absurd humour is best enjoyed late at night and chemically enhanced (whatever your poison). The show had certainly found its groove by the time these episodes had come around. The episodes are more consistently funny than those in the first season.

    This season set consists of the following episodes:

1. Video Ouija - Meatwad has become addicted to a Ouija Board video game, so Shake takes his own life in order to prank his friend.
2. Unremarkable Voyage - Adventures with a shrink ray. A spoof of Fantastic Voyage.
3. Mooninites 3: Remooned - The Mooninites return to earth to cash an oversized cheque.
4. Gee Whiz - Meatwad becomes pregnant after visiting a religious icon, or an image of Ted Nugent.
5. eDork - Shake gets hooked on buying addons to his ridiculous mobile phone.
6. Little Brittle - Meatwad becomes obsessed with a geriatric rapper, who is likely another reincarnation of the Aqua Teens' old enemy MC Pee Pants.
7. Robositter - Frylock builds a robot baby sitter to look after Meatwad whilst he and Shake work. Alas, the robo-sitter proves to be a little too much like a real teen girl than desired.
8. Mooninites 4: The Final Mooning - The Mooninites return to Earth to start a shonky pyramid scheme.
9. Diet - Meatwad and Carl competitively diet to see who can lose the most weight. Carl gets an unfair advantage (in fact thousadns of them) after eating a suspicious candy-bar that seems to prevent any further weight gain
10. Dusty Gozongas - Shake and Carl compete for the affections of a confused stripper.
11. T-Shirt of the Living Dead - Shake steals an ancient Egyptian T-Shirt. Alas the shirt only fits Meatwad and gives him all manner of super-powers.
12. Hypno-Germ - Shake is brainwashed by a troupe of travelling "hypno-germs" who want to use his mind as the stage for their next play.
13. Spacegate World - An intimate portrait of Carl, the Aqua Teens' lonely neighbour.

Video

    The show is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio.

    The video is generally of a high standard, but features interlacing artefacts (that are only really noticeable if you pause the video).

    The show also makes use of a lot of cheaply recycled backgrounds from other shows that frequently appear in poor focus, but this does not result in any unpleasant MPEG artefacts or undue low level noise. The main characters and focal objects are quite sharp.

    The show has a rather bright, and occasionally garish, colour palette that has made an accurate transition to DVD.

    The English subtitles are a bold yellow colour. They appear to be well-timed and accurate.

    This set is presented on one single layer disc and one RSDL disc. The layer change occurs between episodes on the second disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is one English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448 Kbps) audio track available.

    The dialogue is clear and easily understandable throughout and appears to be in good sync (as good as you could expect from a cartoon, at any rate).

    The music sounds great on this soundtrack, particularly the theme by rap legend (and part-time narrator) Schooly D. There is a lot of dynamic range in the mix. The music sounds crystal clear and plenty of bass is pushed to the subwoofer.

    There is little discernable surround usage in the mix, though occasionally it is used to quite good effect.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    The set is presented in a stunningly designed digi-pack that resembles one of the Mooninites (fan-favourite occasional characters).

Play All/Play None

    Selecting "Play All" on the menu of the first disc causes all the episodes on the disc to play simultaneously, along with a series of coordinated explosions that aren't in the regular versions of the episodes. The second disc has the same feature, labelled "Play None".

Audio Commentary

    Commentary is provided by writers/creators Matt Maiellaro and Dave Willis for 9 of the episodes. The pair mainly riff on their work and the haphazard production values of the studio. Amusing, but that's about it.

Funny Pete Stuff Featurette (6:39)

    A string of short promos for the show. Featuring a range of characters and no real coherence at all, these are all pretty funny.

San Diego Must Be Destroyed 2004 Featurette (3:04)

    Shake and the Mooninites plug the proposed 2004 Adult Swim lineup (a number of which didn't make it to the air that year). Worth a look for fans.

Spacecataz Pilot Episode (9:44)

    The pilot episode for proposed, but never commissioned, Aqua Teen Hunger Force spin-off Spacecataz, which was to feature the ongoing run-ins between the Mooninites and Plutonians. About half of this pilot was used for the old-openings of the shows in this season of Aqua Teen Hunger Force.

    Whilst this episode is pretty funny, it is hard to imagine the concept stretching any further.

Raydon Pilot Episode (3:04)

    A rather silly superhero themed live action short from the show's creators. Reasonably amusing.

F-Art Gallery (12:18)

    A animated slideshow of fan art. The art itself ranges from lame doodles on napkins to really impressive stuff, but it is an awful lot to take at once.

Voice Cast Featurette (21:21)

    An overlong set of footage of the voice cast in action. There are some funny bits, but not enough to make this all worthwhile.

Trailers

    A series of trailers other Madman animated product.

    The Region 4 release misses out on alternate audio tracks for four of the episodes that are featured on the Region 1 release, but is otherwise identical save for PAL/NTSC differences.

    A must have for late night cartoon fans, but best left on the shelf by anyone that likes their shows to make a lick of sense.

    The video and audio quality are good. The extras are reasonable in number and worthwhile.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall