I didn't find Aqua Teen funny when I first saw it but after a friend subjected me to several episodes it was like something in my brain painlessly broke and it all was suddenly hilarious. I agree that's a bit much to expect for a reviewer who's never seen the show. So probably it won't appeal that much to people who haven't seen the show.

I'm surprised she didn't mention the thing with the lightboxes in Boston though. That was something that even people who hate the film can find funny.

My first encounter with the Aqua Teens was a "whatthehellwasTHAT?" moment. After I watched a few times, I started to really enjoy it.

I AM SOFA KING WE TODD ED! Say it FASTER!!!!!

I can't necessarily defend my love of this show, but I'll try to explain.

On the production level, the voices are hilarious and emote well. Shake's voice in particular always cracks me up. Also, the animation is so cheesy and corny, but also sublime in detail and timing. The funny, absurdist elements are so random, but timed just right to hit me precisely in the nerve that causes me to laugh out loud.

The creators of the show come from the same post-Simpsons ilk as the writers of Family Guy, Space Ghost, and other Cartoon Network shows. Randomness, repetition, and GenX cultural references are de rigeur. There's a wink in most jokes at how intelligent the writers (and many fans) are, while at the same time reveling in the basest of topics and techniques for humor (violence, toilet humor, etc.). The characters are also eminently "gettable". One could even say they are rich in development, at least, in developing their primary character traits, much like Seinfeld characters. And like Seinfeld or Simpson characters, there may not be much more than ultimately superficial primary traits, but fans come to love the expected and un-expected reactions of each character to the situations.

At its best, ATHF reminds me of the best of cult cartoons through the years like Rocky and Bullwinkle, Ren and Stimpy, or Robert Smigel. Clearly many people don't response to the techiques and content of ATHF humor. The show isn't the Simpsons, as plays less on witty dialogue, universal themes, or sheer polish. It's guerilla comedy, employing shock, raw emotion, testosterone-realism, and negativity. Caveat emptor.

Sounds like it might be funny, but the "Abraham Lincoln with a time machine" thing is (an homage? ripped off?) from an old Saturday Night Live sketch that was actually pretty funny: see Lincoln makes a time machine, zips to the future and reads a history book where he finds out John Wilkes Booth kills him. So Lincoln gets back in the time machine, zips to the past and keeps trying to kill Booth when he's a kid and a young man. It gets to be a Roadrunner/Wile E. Coyote kind of thing. Booth thinks Lincoln's a madman who's been trying to kill him all his life, so one day he goes to the theatre and shoots Lincoln to stop him. It's a funny concept. You can see the sketch if you can get an old copy of "Toonces and Friends (The Best of Saturday Night Live)."

This show was designed to entertain college students, trying to keep the weekend alive by staying up late Sunday night, and the vast audience of stoners and druggies who can't watch anything more challenging. These two apparently disparate groups actually have something in common; absurdity and irrelevance.

The junkies have no future, and so rejecting rationality makes a great deal of sense to them. They can laugh at Master Shake's conceit taken to the self-destructive level, and Meatwad's just plain retardation, because it confirms their view of the universe.

The college kids suspect they have no future. Those high-paying computer and tech jobs they trained for are being given to Indians at one quarter the salary. They have the sinking feeling that they'll never pay off the immense debts of their college education, and that their lives will be summed up as a string of goose eggs. ATHF expresses that absurdity, as do several other Adult Swim Shows: Tom Goes to the Mayor and Tim and Eric Awesome Show: Great Job!

I suspect this movie will bring an end to the Aqua Teens. Once this movie explains them, there'll be nothing else to do the regular shows about. For the Dorm and Bong Water Crowd, there'll be another series expressing absurdity and futility with a whole bunch of new characters, unrelated to the Aqua Teens. (Ask the voice artists of Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, several of whom are chronically out of work, about what happens to the hot cult performers of yesteryear.)

I wasted some time - Two Fucking YEARS of my life - ignoring ATHF, just because I thought that it was a dumb idea to have an animated show about various fast food related entities living in New Jersey next to Carl's house.

Do I feel dumb now? HELL YES! Could I explain it to you? Probably not. Will my posts on Broadsheet (where I have like a "40% editor's choice rate (it's all Rebbecca; I know that) suffer for this post? Could be. But I don't care because ATHF changed my life, my relationship to urban culture. This show is the intersection of Moon-Stop, hip-hop, blip-hop, rip-hop, and on two occasions man-man-Lip-Lock.

Can I just TELL you why it's the greatest show ever? Now...I can only ask that you come to me, ask, and receive the answer...for a very reasonable fee,

Is this shit out in thee0aters, cause if so, I gots to see it to support my homies and their desire to rain LED death upon the man. Word, or maybe "weird". So...you know that this is outside the bounds of my usual posts and it's more like religious faith....right Angel?

I know you will take cares of me.

I'm not a college student and I'm not a stoner, but often as not I get a kick out of the show. It's just for laughs.

Boy is Zacharek a dufus. Those first pretentious sentences! She seems to think she's exposing something somehow, like we'd be lead into considering this movie the epitome of hip if she were't here to tell us otherwise. She doesn't have a clue, does she? Doesn't have a clue, at all.

All right. Back to only reading the reviews by O'Hehir.