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[ass-hell]

Buttstache Episode 7

You’d think this episode would revolve around mustaches, and you’d be half right. It’s just the catalyst that they’ll waste way too much time on to get to their real point. Also, that titlecard is completely misrepresentative of this episode.

They waste about half of their ten minute episode letting Zack and his butt run around and harass various professionals of escalating technical competence. Because they’re awful children, they throw a fit when these random working professionals won’t let them try out their jobs. Except the jet pilot, who kindly offers them a ride even while they’re screaming at him that he’s the worst.

All these cool guys have mustaches though! I honestly thought that we were in universal agreement that mustaches are awful, and the only modern people that have mustaches are people's’ dads and the most irritating of hipsters that are probably gentrifying some poor neighborhood at this very moment. Then again, I don’t subscribe to a theory of machismo OR irony to define my life, so maybe this is just something I don’t “get”.

Anyway Zack and his butt figure if they too have mustaches, then those guys that also have mustaches will let them violate health and safety codes and try out their job stuff. Naturally, their next step is to cover their faces with fertilizer (You could say that they got...shitfaced AAAAAAYYYYYY) and invite Eleanor over to visibly hate at them. I’m not sure if their “mustache envy” joke is actually a reference to penis envy or if my hate of Freudian Theory is encompassing my better judgement, but they make that joke at Eleanor and the hatred in my heart grew ten sizes that day.

The butt grows a buttstache. Zack grows a single hair less impressive than the hair I saw growing out of a guy’s facial mole at an airport once. Then they attempt their harassment of working professionals again and whaaaaat? They succeeeeeed? Man mustaches were the key after all!

Of course mustaches aren’t the fucking Apparently with the mustache, Zack’s butt looks like pop sensations Jason Bumber, and everyone’s super into that I guess and people let celebrities do whatever they want.

I don’t care about that. I care that it took me a long damn time to figure out they were pastiching Justin Bieber instead of anyone famous that actually has a mustache. First to come to mind for me is Tom Sellick-- Bum Silcrack there you goddamn go-- which might seem kind of a weird choice for their age range demographic except they’ve already proven they don’t care about that. Even if they were concerned about that, do Borat or something. I hate Borat, but at least he has a mustache and kids probably know who that is.

It’s also worth noting that while impersonating Justin Bieber, they make a joke about how bad Justin Bieber is. By being far worse in content and less successful financially, I really don’t think they’ve earned that joke.

The villains, also mistaking the butt for Justin Bieber, take him to sing at the Great White Butt’s birthday party. Again, they seem mostly innocuous and not that bad of guys, which makes our protagonists look that much worse for beating the shit out of them all the time. The problem with ordering these episodes so that TGWB’s first appearance is trying to watch a concert and getting beaten up for no reason is that the audience is consequently set up to think that really, the protagonists just seem to be bullying the bad guys. The bad guys have barely shown any bad intentions until this point.

By the way they’re planning on blowing up the city after fake Justin Butt-er finishes singing.

The butt’s really nervous about singing, which makes sense considering they chose a voice actor doing a continuous bad Cartman impersonation, but then the butt sings and--!

It’s as terrible as anyone would expect but everyone in the show acts like some incredible voice came out. They could’ve just done a gag where the butt’s singing voice is a different voice actor who can actually sing, but they didn’t even try.

Meanwhile Eleanor and Zack defuse the bomb with Zack’s single facial hair, using it to poke the reset button. You know, the tiny pinhole kind that’s on a lot of 90’s electronics. A hair wouldn’t work for that but they just don’t care. Nobody who works on this show cares.

[ass-hell]

Zackster of Disguise Episode 6

It was just today that Netflix recommended me Master of Disguise, complete with a screenshot of the titular character in brownface. At least that sets the mood in an “it could be worse” kind of way. I guess.

And yet, I cannot get a single break. The first exchange between characters is Zack’s butt farting out a sandwich. The deus ex machina that is “[whatever] makes Deuce go…!” Is finally acknowledged as going berserk, or “Butt-zerk” because this is a one note show baby, and they’re gonna hold it as long as physically possible. Despite the fact that the butt’s berserker mode is triggered by whatever’s most convenient to the plot at any given moment, I feel like its formal establishment means I can’t complain about the deus ex machina nature of it.

Another mystery explained: the buttcrack is on the back of the butt’s heads, so they’re essentially upside down. How these things are actually butts. I guess they could even be functional. I hate it, and it makes me hate myself.

The entire opening segment is a non sequitur that leads up to the actual plot about everyone wanting to go to a party, but having to use disguises to sneak in. Even acknowledging that the only thing that’s fooled by his disguises is his own butt that’s proven to lack object permanence, Zack is still shocked and in denial that Eleanor would tell him that he really sucks at this deception thing. She annihilates his ego mercilessly. Best friends.

Unintentionally, Zack has canonically pierced ears.

So yeah, Eleanor cheats at their disguise contest by using her rich robot disguise technology whatever, but it’s arguable whether this is really an abuse of privilege or just the effective implementation of it. Either way, Eleanor’s robot mentions that her hair looks like shit, and I know-- I KNOW-- even the creators know their character designs suck. They suck! You’re bad at this!! What the fuck even is happening with Eleanor’s hair!!!

She makes it into the party easily, unlike Zack, who makes it in with a lot of difficulty because of course he has to make it in eventually. They have fun for approximately .2 seconds before they spot the bad guys and designate themselves guards for the item the bad guys are presumably there to steal. Eleanor is all goof along with Zack until trouble’s afoot, then she’s all responsibility. For as much as I hate this show, I’ll admit it’s not often a female character gets to be both the comic and the straight man.

Anyway.

“I wrote a letter to my butt And on my way I dropped it”

I don’t understand what this means, but this is the song that Maurice sings to distract Zack’s butt I guess.

What is it with these kinds of children’s cartoons and transmisogyny? Like it’s some sort of necessity or something? I understand it’s a cheap joke, but I feel it’s even more pervasive in children’s media than anywhere else. (I could certainly be wrong.) What’s more frustrating is the acknowledgement of the “man in a dress”’s beauty and attractiveness-- until the “deception” is revealed. Then the idea of being attracted to that person is abhorrent because--? She’s still as sexy as she was before they “found out” she wasn’t what they assumed she was. I think the only media I’ve seen use the “man in a dress” trope but play the logic straight is Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

Either way it mimics real-life violent transmisogyny and perpetuates the “trap” trope that literally endangers women’s lives. Just two years ago, a Filipina woman was murdered because some man believed she was “deceiving” him with her transness. Maybe this feels like the wrong outlet for this kind of serious talk, but as long as there’s someone out there that will argue for the harmlessness of a joke like this, it bears repeating.

Back to the plot. No wait one more segue-- I’m so mad that they call the evil robot butts Ro-butts when they could be the infinitely superior BUTT-BOTS.

Now back to the plots.

Admittedly there is kind of a lot happening in this screenshot but it’s fuck nothing.

Instead of Zack’s butt’s usually butt-zerk, the deus ex machina instead comes from Zack’s grandmother. I admit I didn’t expect to see her again, given how disposable every other character seems to be. But now that they’ve sort of acknowledged how this “Butt-zerk” thing keeps happening, they have to change it up to a new thing that has no foreshadowing or build up. Essentially it’s the same thing, I don’t care.

Maurice’s fishnets disappeared by the end of the episode. Nobody cares about continuity or anything else.

[ass-hell]

Glutiator Episode 5

I’m assuming this episode will be a take off on Gladiator. This seems like a weird choice because this isn’t the type of cartoon that parents would likely watch with their children, meaning there’s no overlap between the intended audience and who would actually get this reference. It’s also lost on me because I’ve never seen Gladiator. That’s the “are you not entertained” one, right?

In this episode, Zach has always dreamed of becoming a gladiator champion.

Uncomfortable.

He gets an acceptance letter into a tournament, but he can only choose one of his (two)  friends to fight alongside him. The Glutiator is apparently the tournament name but that’s not. what that word is. It’s not even, “to become the Glutiator,” that’s just what the tournament is called.

Zach’s butt assumes that Zach’s going to choose it as his partner over Eleanor which is confusing. The butt is a coward that doesn’t even like fighting, yet it makes Zach’s life miserable for making the only good decision he’s ever made and choosing Eleanor to fight alongside him. Seriously, “I shredded everything you’ve ever owned in anger!” What the fuck!!!!

Finally though, the main villains of the show make more than a cameo appearance.The eyeless butt is so gentle, yet even its comrades mock it mercilessly. Also its name is Maurice.

I try to purge this show from my mind whenever I’m not working on an Ass Hell, but I’m pretty sure this evil plot, to ruin Zach and his butt’s relationship, was used in a previous episode. And four 10-minute episode into a series seems kind of early for that kind of plot recycling.

Zach’s butt joins forces with the evil butts and ends up pitted against Zach and Eleanor. What the fuck!?? What an awful friend!! So Zach becomes conflicted about winning the tournament at the expense of their friendship, and the show makes a direct comparison between the evil butts and Eleanor for pushing Zach to win the tournament. Which seems like a dick move, considering Zach’s butt pulled the dick move first by joining the bad guys and enacting the plan to destroy Zach’s dream.

There always seems to be something that “makes Deuce go…..!” that’s never actually established. A complete deus ex machina to resolve the plot, without actually having to think a way to do that. Last week it was something, this week is “being at the bottom of a dogpile”??? I hate this.

And I guess Bigfoot is back too. Or is it Buttfoot. That sounds too awful even for these writers to be probable.

[ass-hell]

[ass-hell]

Episode 4 Comic Butt Convention

I don’t know who told these people how puns work, butt (!) they need better advisors. Not me. That’s about the best I got.

In this episode, the principle characters go to a butt convention, which would explain why there are zero other humans there besides Zach and Eleanor. However, it also seems to function as Comic-con specifically with the references to comic books and popular television shows. I can’t tell if it’s a convention of things relevant to the butt population with an emphasis on pop culture nonsense because that’s what Zach and his butt would be interested in, in which case a “butt convention” would actually be an appropriate name-- or the much more likely option that the writers farted out “butt convention” for the pun, if you can call it that. I have a terrifying feeling that I am thinking about this much more than the writers would ever care to. If anything though, they’re at least familiar with the most common type of person at these events.

The convention is called “Butt-apalooza”, which is essentially the same uncreative joke as “Knit-o-Rama” from the last episode.

Zach displays a surprising lack of racial...species?? sensitivity towards butts, asking “why do you butts like that show?” Referring to a show he previously declared stupid. His butt distances itself from the rest of his, uh, folk? by agreeing that the show is stupid and that IT doesn’t like it. Unlike the normies, he’s a fan of “Butt-er Star Galacti-Cheek” (this pun is a disaster). And yet, he wears a poor reproduction of Futurama’s iconic Brain Slug. Who’s the normie now??

I’m resigned to the fact that every joke in this show is a throwaway non sequitur, but who the shit is this abused dog? Why are Zach and his butt abusing this dog?? It reoccurs throughout the episode with the the same static animation each time, and it is disturbing to me. Whose dog is this??? Why are they stealing the Cheez-Whiz bit from Goofy Movie????

Anyway, the kids are given a comic book by something that is decidedly more my speed

in which Zach is the chosen one, a super hero. Eleanor is outraged that her shitty friend could be declared better than her at anything-- which sounds cocky except she’s RIGHT. Maybe being superrich has given her an unfair advantage in life, but it’s an advantage noneletheless, and she is far superior to Zach or his butt (who actually doesn’t seem to have a stake in this competition) in every respect.

In a heart-wrenching moment, Zach falls out of a plane and doesn’t die.

He does start feeling like maybe he isn’t the chosen one though and apparently this is the worst thing that has ever happened to him. I would feel worse because his best friends don’t seem to actually like him that much, given that one’s was to immediately be offended that he could possibly be more important than her, and the other declares outright that it doesn’t really care about “your thing.” Maybe it’s even more sad that one of his best friends is his own butt. Either way I hate Zach and I don’t care about his suffering, no matter its cause.

It turns out the whole thing is a plot by...The Prince and the other evil butt, but not the great white butt from the first episode. I thought these guys were like, henchmen butts, but I guess they’re villains in their own right? Their plot was to annhilate Zach’s self-confidence so that he can’t foil their latest plot. Which is to make some Akira-esque flesh boat out of brainwashed butts.

I’m really skeptical that Zach would really be the main problem in their ability to execute a plan, but for SOME REASON Eleanor needs Zach’s help to beat them?? He’s pretty much been an obstacle and even the cause of most of the problems encountered in previous episodes so far. When she finally convinces him that his existence has some merit in the universe (a lie), they actually do some cartoon action stuff that I’m thinking the whole show was actually was supposed to be based around. They have these toilet-themed, gun-like weapons that look special, and once more I’m frustrated with their lack of continuity leaving me out of the story that I assume is in there somewhere.

They defeat the flesh boat and it makes some seriously nasty squishy fleshy sound effects.

I still love Eleanor, and I’m beginning to think it’s because she actually hates the butt as much as I do. This is her face practically every time she looks at it:

[ass-hell]

I forgot to mention it here, but I plan on updating with a review every Friday. It’ll take me a year to finish, but I don’t think I can’t take too many episodes at once...

[ass-hell]

Episode 3 Grandparents’ Butts Just Don’t Understand

Somehow, I’ve willed myself into watching this again.

There’s so much questionable lore in the first five minutes of this episode. Once again, I want to know when butts became sentient apart from their...host bodies? But also-- who is this snooty, rich nextdoor neighbor kid who is both integral and peripheral to the episode’s plot?

Recognizing that these episodes are stand-alones, it still would’ve been nice to have an establishing episode here or there for any of these characters or events. Or at least an establishing scene. The interaction between this kid and Zach does not make it immediately obvious whether they’re friends or not. It isn’t secondarily obvious either if even the rich kid himself knows whether they’re friends or not. I understand we’re supposed to hate this kid when he mistakes the name of Zach’s favorite action hero and proves that he’s not a real fan, and it’s not fair that this kid has ample opportunity to watch this movie that deserving superfan Zach is struggling to arrange.

Spoilers: the most developed character this episode is this robot butt-ler, whose sentience is twice as questionable. (I can only use this as a clue that we’re far enough into the future to have sentient AIs as well as sentient butts. I mean, really, which is more unbelievable?)

What about this action movie though? The premise of this episode is that the butt and the boy want to stay up late to watch some action flick, and for some reason they still need a babysitter? How old is this kid?? His babysitter is his grandmother, who they conspire to get rid of with an invitation to something called Knit-o-Rama, which sounds like a store instead of a convention, and leave behind her butt to watch them instead. The grandmother butt is, of course, a totalitarian dictator, and the kids’ efforts to chill her out backfire in such a way as to drive her out of control like some college kid who lived their high school life under lock-and-key.

There is a truly horrifying scene in which the grandmother detaches her butt, which again raises questions about how this butt/human relationship works, among other things that I would rather never, ever want to think about. The butt has a masculine voice and a domineering attitude so there’s the typical transmisogynistic joke misgendering the butt, who does declare herself a lady. Personally, I refuse to acknowledge gendering butts, even sentient ones, excluding this one who has explicitly stated her preference.

Why would a butt have a full-on mammalian body. 

The debacle culminates in a wild house party that is unremarkable in every way except, as one of the kids points out, the attending presence of “buttbots.” Apparently these are minions of the evil butts, but I don’t remember seeing them before. Their significance is lost on me. They also have no actual bearing to the story of this episode except to provide awkward conflict that slightly advances the plot in the most halting way possible and then disappear again forever.

These kind of low-cost, low-concept kids’ shows are meant to be take very little effort and love-- which easily accounts for the throwaway episode order. But the show also expects some level of overarching plot coherence that simply doesn’t work with the totally random episode order. The fact is, I never know who any of the characters are, especially when there’s not even any background cast buildup. But the characters in the show always seem to know what’s going on. It’s like going out with somebody who then runs into an old friend of theirs. They reconnect, but in trying to include you in their conversation repeatedly forget that you don’t know any of the damn people they keep casually referring to. Or the places. Or the situations. You’re completely lost! I already have to deal with this in real life! Why would I want to re-experience it in a cartoon unconscious of its own missteps!?

I continue to actually really like Eleanor.

Even though the entire conflict of the episode could’ve been solved if they’d just gone to watch the movie at Eleanor’s mansion!? Everyone is a loser at the end of this episode, including me.

[ass-hell]

Episode 2 Legend of the Buttsquatch

Episode two opens on a giant house on the hill—The style is so similar, I’m like 90% sure they got some of their designers from Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. (I didn’t really like that show either. But even with that in mind, this and that have absolutely no comparison.) The house belongs to Eleanor(‘s family). Eleanor is rich!?

I need you to understand something. In a children’s show about butts, I get that I’m going to have to hear fart jokes. But this show… there is no escape. It’s not just fart jokes and sound effects—things that have nothing to do with butts make fart noises. Fart sound effects are used for transitions. There’s music composed of farts. I am literally going to cry. Farts aren’t funny. There’s nothing inherently funny about farting. Why is this happening to me. Why won’t it stop for even one second.

Eleanor lets them into the house. I don’t understand why since she doesn’t even seem to like them. Eleanor doesn’t seem to smile very much. I actually like Eleanor despite myself, and despite the everything. Maybe it’s because she can violently express her anger at the boy and his butt, while I am trapped on the other side of this monstrosity, powerless to rail back against this mistake of an animation in any other way than unpopular blog posts.

Eleanor has a dad that walks in and then there’s a Family Guy joke that overstays whatever welcome it would’ve had if it hadn’t already been terrible. You know, the kind where they do an action that could be construed as humorous I guess and then just keep repeating the action over and over.

He’s a big game hunter I guess? And also the plunger guy from the opening? And he wants to capture or kill or whatever the titular Buttsquatch. His weapon is a fart within a fart because some writer out there is just that miserable. It’s a jar filled with a fart. They never actually explain what this does.

That frog is a butt. I don’t understand.

Children’s cartoon characters are scared of everything because I guess it’s funny when male coded characters scream and hide, but the butt callously wills itself to Eleanor should Zack die in that moment. Where IS Eleanor’s butt? Do people regularly hang out with their own butts or not. Do they separate at birth or what. What is sentient butt/human culture.

I want to say the butt rebellion was before Eleanor was born, since butt monsters existed while her dad was still young (in a flashback); but the human rebellion shows her dad as an adult so… I guess it comes down to: does this show even have a Book. Does it care about continuity. Probably not.

Eleanor’s dad gets eaten by the Buttsquatch and they all make it out okay in the end but I just wanna get it out there that this thing doesn’t look like a sasquatch, doesn’t follow the mythology of the sasquatch, and is frankly just some weird generic monster. Nobody even tried.

Seriously, why does it have wings

Kudos to the show for blowing up the Buttsquatch instead of making a poop joke, which I was actually bracing myself for.

[ass-hell]

(okay but when can we retire the flava flav jokes even people my age barely know who he is)

Episode 1 Beat Box Butt

There is a fart joke less than one minute in. There is also a fart joke at exactly 1:30. There are so many more after that.

Anyway this episode is about the main butt becoming a rap star. It really throws you right in there.

Actually it’s weird, he doesn’t even rap, he just beatboxes. Which sells out a stadium performance? I don’t know. I don’t care. I hate the butt.

The jokes are unsurprisingly LOLRANDOM and loud and obnoxious. I hate them. I hate them and I hate the butt and I hate the boy. I actually don’t know if I hate the boy or the butt more.

The episode itself could be situated probably anywhere in the show’s episode order, especially considering it introduces a character called THE GREAT WHITE BUTT, who is the normal butt’s record producer? Or something? But apparently this butt is evil and all our main characters realize that the record deal is part of this giant but’s plan to do something(?) when they see it step out of the shadows.

(I fucking REFUSE to gender butts you cannot MAKE ME GENDER SENTIENT BUTTS GOD THIS IS THE WORST)

But this is also the first episode and I don’t know who this fucking giant white butt is or why it’s evil or even get a good grasp on its relationship with the main cast. At the end, it turns out it just wanted to watch the concert and the main cast fucking RUINED it for it because they’re complete assholes, so good job guys. Is it really evil? Are they racially profiling white/grey butts, or is there do they share a past?

I don’t know. I don’t care.

Most unbelievably, the butt show goes out of its way to promote toxic masculinity.

And it ends on a fart joke. Thank god.

[ass-hell]

An Overview: First Impressions

I’m obligated to kick somebody in the face and mention that “”””PSYCHO””””” is a TOTALLY INAPPROPRIATE WORD to use any way but to describe psychotic episodes or symptoms (and even then like, as a prefix not really an adjective) which have nothing to do with this show. I could make a cheap shot about how this show had to have been conceived during a psychotic episode but not only would that be insensitive, but also inaccurate. This show has like, zero creativity.

There’s a small explanation at the very beginning of episode one, before the theme song plays, about why anthropomorphic butts are running around in the first place. But it raises more questions than I would’ve ever thought to ask in the first place. Besides the horrific implications of one’s butt gaining sentience and going off to live its own life (so are their mouths, like, assholes? How do people’s bowels work now? Questions I actually do not want to know the answers to), apparently, the butts all formed their own society and took over before some guys came along and overthrew the butt regime. The warriors are shown for a second in such a way that makes them seem like they have some significance, but nothing about the rest of this episode would indicate that they cared about an overarching plot.

Fucking hell I just fucking ass kisser really

Regardless of the apparent butt rebellion, butts and people seem chill now? I guess acknowledging that conflict isn’t really the vibe they were going for, but it’s just hard for me to overlook. I am not the intended audience for this monstrosity.

The butt sounds like a South Park character in the absolute worst way, and it’s named Deuce. Because WHY NOT. WHY NOT, HUH. FUCK ALL OF Y

And the butt belongs to (do you think that terminology be politically incorrect in butt  world) an equally annoying boy named Zach. Zack? God I don’t cARE AND THEN THERE’S ELEANOR Eleanor is a girl so naturally she plays the straight man and isn’t allowed to be funny. You’ve seen her character a million times before as every tomboyish best-friend girl who is sometimes gadget-y. There is nothing unique happening here except that they don’t give her overt feminine signifiers.

Which is. Actually pretty significant I guess. She doesn’t have makeup or a bow or boob bumps or even eyelashes I think. So good on horrible butt show for having an androgynous female character. I wish it didn’t happen this way but credit where credit is due. And I like the animation. It’s simple but it flows well, and it would be cute if it wasn’t the butt show.

Really my only pressing question is that if their butts are running around, why do the people still have butts?

[ass-hell]

Because I am a broke fool, I agreed to review 80 episodes of this horrible show for only $25. I can only assume that my good friend of 10+ years exploits my suffering and labor for his own enjoyment. For some reason, I do not reconsider our friendship at all. Maybe because I really want that $25. 

Maybe I will learn something from this journey. Maybe I won’t. Either way I will get $25, and in the end, isn’t that what life’s all about?

Anyway, welcome to Ass Hell.