DVD of the Week: Superjail!

First in a hopefully weekly column in which I pimp something I like just because a recent DVD release makes it vaguely pertinent. April 12th saw the Region 2 release of Adult Swim's frankly wonderful Superjail! This saucy little package contains the entire first season, a pilot short, and a rash of animatics. 2.0 Stereo sound too - Adult Swim, you spoil us! On a previous occasion, Disaster Year 20XX had this to say about Superjail!:

"Superjail! is the monstrous gulags of incarceration manga Riki-Oh policed by Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka on a spite tip. Superjail! is an endless roll of gasp-gag digression; yard fights tumble into the supernatural, segueing into mondo food prep, before arriving at rampaging mulch-man idolatry. Superjail! is heta uma design philosophy filtered through Johnny Ryan muscle seizure macabre, and cock-rock poop prodding. Superjail! is!"

How's that for recycling? Keep it Disaster Year folks.

Bar Fight

An earlier piece by Christy Karacas and Stephen Warbrick. Bar Fight is four minutes of self-medicated pandemonium. Think of it as an intent chaser to a full draft chug of Superjail!. Internet vapour tell holds it that Bar Fight was rejected from every animation festival Karacas and Warbrick attempted to enter into. More fool them. Delving further back on Karacas' CV, find Space War, a student piece. Pen and paper, mouth-sound mayhem!

Superjail!

A shock-hair impulse criminal is cast out into the real-world, whereupon he immediately commits a serious of petty atrocities, drawing the attention of a levitating stooge-bot. Shock-hair is airlifted to Superjail!, an establishment that operates outside of any recognisable judiciary system, with an accent on calamity and unreason. Shock-hair is lost among the inmates, attention shifting to the demented, reality-bending whimsy of the warden. Superjail! is the monstrous gulags of incarceration manga Riki-Oh policed by Roald Dahl's Willy Wonka on a spite tip. Superjail! is an endless roll of gasp-gag digression; yard fights tumble into the supernatural, segueing into mondo food prep, before arriving at rampaging mulch-man idolatry. Superjail! is heta uma design philosophy filtered through Johnny Ryan muscle seizure macabre, and cock-rock poop prodding. Superjail! is! Expect Itchy and Scratchy vile-snatch studded by David Lynch's revolting Dumbland. Imagine twenty impossible ideas a second, each more terrible than the last. I have tried! But Superjail! is barely describable, and nothing short of wonderful. Praise be to Cartoon Network for commissioning it, and fawning superlatives to co-creators Christy Karacas, Stephen Warbrick, and Ben Gruber. I bet you're all ten feet tall.