A milkshake named Master Shake, a box of French fries named Frylock, and a wad of meat named Meatwad live in New Jersey, next door to Carl, their grumpy human neighbor whose interests include above ground pools, cars, eighties arena rock, and pornography. Together, they are Aqua Teen Hunger Force, though honestly why they're actually called this isn't really important as they don't spend much time underwater nor do they actually fight hunger. Whether or not they're teens or not is also debatable. At any rate, they've been entertaining those of us with cable on The Cartoon Network's Adult Swim program for a few of years now and gone on to gather a sizable cult following. They've also gotten into trouble with the law as the good citizens of Boston will attest to, and stared in their own theatrical movie and Playstation 2 video game - amazing when you think about it. What we have now is the fifth compilation of episodes from The Cartoon Network/Warner Brothers, in the form of Aqua Teen Hunger Force Volume Five, compiling fourteen brilliant (and a couple of rather disturbing) episodes of the show over two DVDs.

None of it really makes any sense at all, but all of it is damn funny anyway even if it's really difficult to explain to anyone who hasn't seen it just exactly why that is... it's one of those shows that either works for you or it doesn't. There isn't really any in the middle zone to hide in here, as it's all very abstract and off the wall.

Disc One:

Dirtfoot: Shake is tired of not being able to win with the ladies and so he decides to move out and get his own place. He sets up his own bad ass bachelor pad a the bottom of a well and soon finds that like it or not, he's got a new roommate... the Dirtfoot monster!

Boost Mobile: Master Shake takes on a new gig as a spokesperson for cellular company Boost Mobile. The constant chirping and 'Where you at, dawg?' emanating from Shake's phone soon begins to drive Frylock nuts, however, and so he decides to give Shake a lesson in courtesy. Or something like that. What matters is that Shake gets into a whole heap of trouble with his roommates and his Boost Mobile employers.

Dickesode (Censored And Uncensored Versions): When Carl and the ATHF crew go to Wong Burger for lunch, they rip off the bottoms of their cups to see what they win. While Meatwad and Shake win discounts off their next order of Wasabi Fries, Carl's tab tells him that he's going to have his dick ripped off. Later that day, penis shaped Chinamen who up at the ATHF house and attempt to rip off Carl's dick. The reason? Mr. Wong comes from the planet Dick and needs to build a dick shape spaceship out of dick's in order to get home. There's an ungodly amount of penis in this episode.

Hand Banana: Hands down the greatest episode in the set, this one starts with Meatwad telling Frylock how he wants a dog. Frylock busts out his Make Your Own Dog 1.0 software and gets to work. When the DNA from Shake's hand gets into the mix, the resulting dog looks like... a hand banana, and that's exactly what Meatwad names his new friend. Not only is Hand Banana a fantastic chef capable of baking delicious muffins, he's also really into anal rape and he finds Carl too sexy to resist.

Tonight.... you!

Party All The Time: Frylock grows what he thinks is a zit on his face but soon finds out after a trip to the doctor's office that it might be something more serious... like cancer. Shake and Meatwad don't know what to do to cheer their friend up so they recruit Andrew W.K. to come to the house and bombard him with his hit song, Party All The Time. It doesn't work, so Frylock shacks up with Carl, who is simply delighted to have a cancerous flying box of French Fries dying on his couch. This episode is actually rather sad.

Bart Oates: Carl strikes a deal with the Mexicans to get a sweet deal on some unauthorized New York Giants merchandise that he can sell at a tidy profit. Despite the spelling error on the shirts, he goes ahead with this until the floating image of former Giants center Bart Oates (voiced by the real Bart Oates, surprisingly enough) shows up and tries to teach Carl how what he's doing affects people.

Global Grilling: Shakes buys a contraband outdoor grill which turns out to be nuclear powered. When the grill heats up, the planet becomes so hot that it can be taken over by the Mucus Men, giant beings made entirely of delicious mucus. No one is excited about this at all, save for Meatwad.

Grim Reaper Gutters: Dan, a grim reaper from the Grim Reaper Gutters company has arrived and he refuses to leave until he makes a sale. If you try to turn him away or escape from him, well, he's the grim reaper, and he'll kill you. In order to thwart Dan and his unnecessary gutters, the ATHF employ the services of porn star Tera Patrick who eats corndogs and wants to party.

Moonajuana: Ignignokt and Err, The Mooninites, are back on Earth. Shake wants to get high and so they hook him up with a giant bong and smoke him out with Moonajuana, which is actually a pile of burning tires. Carl imbibes as well and decides he wants to listen to some Styx while Frylock has to prevent the Mooninites from robbing the guys blind.

Disc Two:

Ezekiel: Everyone is shocked when a teeny tiny Milkshake bearing an uncanny resemblance to Master Shake shows up at the door looking for his daddy. Shake very reluctantly allows the little guy into the home and raises him as his own, a bad idea all around, and eventually it all goes as horribly wrong as you might expect it to in the first place.

Antenna: Carl, for the hefty sum of $40 a month, rents out his property to a pair of aliens who use his land to host a gigantic antenna that goes all the way up into space. The problem with this is that Carl now only gets on channel and that his head is swelling like a balloon and blood is coming out of his orifices. Frylock investigates to try and find out what exactly Carl has gotten himself into.

Carl Wash: Meatwad lands himself a job as a sign guy, standing at the side of the freeway trying to coerce motorists into stopping in the car wash at the side of the road. Unfortunately the car was his run by a pair of floating brains, Carl and Carl Jr., and they're using the car wash as a way to harvest even more human brains.

Star Studded Xmas Spectacular Part One And Part Two: This two part episode finds Shake hosting a special where he introduces clips from the ATHF move, many of which didn't get used in the actual film. Meatwad works the projector while Carl, with a broomstick still up his ass (if you haven't seen the movie, this won't make sense... even if you have, it still might not make sense!) is generally cranky.

All in all, this is a really bizarre assortment of episodes, even by Aqua Teen Hunger Force standards. The creative team behind the series seems to have upped the ante in terms of the grotesque and in terms of the 'out there' humor that the show is known for. Some might feel it's too much, a valid complaint to be sure, but some of us (this reviewer included) welcome the insanity with open arms. This is, if you're in the right frame of mind, some damned funny absurdist humor. The animation is still primitive and the scripts still completely nonsensical but just try not to laugh when Carl gets raped by a dog. Comedy gold, right there.

Video:

Well, seeing as it's a cartoon originally intended for television broadcast it makes perfect sense that this DVD is presented 1.33.1. Colors look nice and while the animation on the show is rather basic, there's a fairly high level of detail. There are a few edge enhancement issues in a couple of the episodes as seems to be common with animation on DVD, but aside from that, the episodes all look pretty nice and there aren't any compression artifacts and the image is nice and clean from start to finish.