Shnookums and Meat: The Weirdest Nothing I've Ever Seen

1:08 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "fanboy and chumchum catch the noid"

 

 

 

  

A consistent theme we've been seeing with a lot of the Disney Afternoon era cartoons that are similar to the typical 90s Saturday morning cartoons, with the primary blueprint coming from Warner Bros. 

But while people were comparing Bonkers to Animaniacs and Gargoyles to Batman, they were comparing Shnookums and Meat to Ren and Stimpy.

My last blog had me discussing Gargoyles and finding more ironic than genuine enjoyment from the show. Let me continue ruining the childhoods of my peers by saying that I always disliked Ren and Stimpy. Refused to watch it as a kid. When I sat through some episodes as a teenager, I was bored or grossed out. Soon, I found that John K. was a particularly unpleasant person and had a negative view of just about every cartoon I liked, so I avoided his show like the plague (such a shame cancel culture was so prevalent in the year of our lord 2009). Then as an adult he was shown to be considerably worse than I thought, which threw all possibilities of me giving Ren and Stimpy another chance. In October 2021, I saw Billy West, and he did what I assume is a really funny Ren and Stimpy covid bit, amongst other thing. Sadly, I did not get the joke.

But this blog isn't about Ren and Stimpy. It's about Shnookums and Meat.

I should specify that this blog isn't about posting reviews or history, but more about posting my own thoughts about the show. Complaining about Shnookums and Meat is nothing new. Every Tom, Dick, and John Rozanski has done that.

Unfortunately I did complain a lot while watching it, so let's get it out of the way.

12:48 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "jeff bennett really said. "let's phone this in""
12:49 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "pith possum and tex tinstar just hahaha wow"
12:49 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "they're very nothing to be fair......"
12:51 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "i do like how friendly this cat and dog are but that means nothing"
12:53 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "man this show really gets almost funny a lot...."

The show lacks any sort of substance. It's nowhere near as gross as stuff like Ren and Stimpy or even Marsupilami, but it's definitely weird to watch.

And rather than complain about the lack of substance, let's talk about why this show is weird.

12:36 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "we are less than 30 seconds into the episode and it has already been revealed that the husband is a furry."

Worth noting, our prior 90s shorts compilation shows usually had separate groups of people doing the shorts, but to my knowledge, Shnookums and Meat, Pith Possum, and Tex Tinstar seem to all be written by Bill Kopp and directed by Jeff DeGrandis. Tex Tinstar I'm not 100% certain of, because the writing and directing credits at the beginning of each episode become twisted from Billy Boy Floyd and Jeffy Boy Floyd to various goofball cowboy names to wild puns to "Directed by Shnookums and Meat."

 

The Tex Tinstar title cards are probably funnier than anything in the three shorts.

Tex Tinstar is also just. Interesting in general. The animated serial short was definitely out of style at this point, going back to the 1960s, and you can absolutely see the inspiration from parodies of the form. Particularly Rocky and Bullwinkle and Dudley Do Right. There's even an outlaw villain played by Corey Burton doing his best Inspector Fenwick.

Tex Tinstar was probably my favorite of the three shorts, though I found myself looking at timestamps often, something you shouldn't do when watching a 4 minute short.

The show as a whole is also.... a lot more god fearing than I expected.

1:26 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "going a little crazy bc the show said gambling is the work of the devil"
1:27 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "like they show two characters gambling and there's no moral they just SAY that"
1:28 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "anyway shnookums and meat just died"
1:29 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "THIS is the hot place"
1:32 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "shnookums and meat want to go to hell because sexy devil girls"
1:51 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "also they called bugs "god's creatures" this isn't out of PLACE for a children's cartoon..... but it's just really weird...."

Religion isn't an avoided topic in kids media, especially if it's older, but usually Christian religion is taken as some serious thing. Episodes where a character goes to hell is probably the silliest it gets, and Shnookums and Meat does have that (in an episode that ends with Shnookums and Meat embracing their fate because they want some devil girls carnally), but not before making plenty of jokes about sin and god out of left field.

mood tbh 

One of the next shows I'm gonna talk about has some surprisingly Christian undertones, but I don't think anything from the Disney watch even comes close to these religious jokes.

I don't have anything to say about Pith Possum. It was the worst one, so just take the damn tweets.

12:55 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "they play super sexy music whenever this woman is on screen to remind you she is sexy"

 

 

 

 

 

 

1:50 PM · Dec 19, 2020 "pith possum kins spock."

 Overall Rating for Shnookums and Meat: F Tier