The Head, The Maxx, Aeon Flux - and ultimately _Liquid Television_ basically defined a lot of early teenage engagement for those of us born in the 80's. Assuming your parents let you watch MTV at all. Liquid Television was one of the things that increased my burgeoning desire to get into anime during the era in which anime was at its most dark and gnarly. It probably introduced more people to _Ninja Scroll_ than I can even imagine. Watching Aeon get wiped out at the end of every short of hers (until they started the actual TV series, anyways) was wild.
The Head, The Max and Aaron Flux were my Friday night cartoons when I was a kid. Never even thought about them as an adult show cuz I saw and liked them as a kid. They were just really interesting cartoons.
@@ehrenloudermilk1053 Check out The Maxx comics if you ever get the chance. They are even darker and really expand on the world and stories we were introduced to in the tv series.
I forgot about The Head honestly because I guess at the time it kind of played second fiddle to The Maxx which was a more interesting show to me back then, like the head was almost one of those shows that wanted to just make the most ridiculous shit possible it was almost a meme or something back then, like "why would someone make this show?"
@@weshouser821 that was what stuck with me though, because it was so odd as if was created from some hallucination.. Ren and Stimpy set me on a weird course, perhaps >_< nostalgia glasses aside, the 90’s was a weird time for animation!
It's stuff like this that helps me understand why MTV was so popular in the late 80s and 90s. If i had been born back then I'm sure it would have become my favourite channel too. However, by the time I was old enough to appreciate quality tv, MTV was already crashing and burning
@NordicThommy yeah it's been a joke for years now unfortunately. As someone who is interested in animation (both consuming and occasionally creating) seeing MTV fall from it's position of creative pioneering to just cheap reality garbage was honestly really sad. At least small parts of it have been archived on RU-vid etc.
Unfortunately TV is a business so eventually somebody is going to figure out it's cheaper and more profitable to point a camera at some drunk sluts and see what happens.
Aw man that's some heavy nostalgia. That and Sci Fi channel where you'd switch over and catch some vague anime that you'd mentally wonder about and even come up with your own stories of what you saw.
Dude ,I love that truth. I once woke up at 4a.m with the radio playing "fish heads"when I was 12. Was trying to stay up to hear the Tyson fight and failed lol Didn't ever really know if fish heads was a one off weird radio thing or my delirious stoned teenage brain until yt existed and I found it
I worked on the show back in the 90s. You did a great job with your research! It’s funny to be watching something you’ve worked on being chronicled by a RU-vidr!😂👍🏾
Thanks for your contributions! I looked you up on IMDB, were you the layout artist for the latter half of season one? Just want to clarify as IMDB's credits are sometimes faulty haha.
I loved The Head as a child. I got to watch the entire series on Teletoon here in Canada, they aired pretty much all of MTV's animated back catalogue in the early 2000s.
I grew up in the Canadian border area of northern Minnesota (actually a lot of my classmates had dual citizenship because it was so remote), and had the good fortune of growing up with both MtV AND Much Music. The 90s were the best 😊
I remember it too, they were always on late, and I remember feeling tired while watching these shows lol. Do you remember a couple years earlier when they showed duck man? That was awesome! I was born in 1990 though so I dunno if you were also old enough to remember that
I’ve probably spent a good amount of time in my 20’s googling “MTV show with guy who has a lawn mower blade through his head” trying to remember the name of this show. You have finally showed me the light. Thank you, sir. 🤙
Every so often this show pops into my head - I don't remember much about it, except a lot of the imagery making me feel slightly uncomfortable while watching as a kid.
This just unlocked part of my mind. I don’t think I ever would have thought of this show again. There were so many sick ass shows when I was a teenager…
Mtv was everything back then. The animation was like NOOTHING else we had ever seen. It absolutely blew my mind and I fell in love with weird things forever
I was 14-15 when this came out and I loved The Head. However, even back then it got really overshadowed by The Maxx and Aeon Flux. It truly was groundbreaking and I think it just never found its audience. Most of my friends liked darker stuff, ala The Crow and Spawn, so they definitely were more into The Maxx. And Aeon Flux had a half naked woman with guns. That's like printing money back before most teens had the internet access. I'm glad to see it finally getting some love.
I actually watched this show over the past couple days after watching this video and I’d just like to thank you for putting me onto this show. It was a lot better than I anticipated from seeing the thumbnail for this video like a dozen times. The head really deserves more of a cult following than it currently has.
Being born in the early 80's, I thought this was some sort of fever dream I imagined from my youth. The Thumbnail reminded me of something from the darkest corners of my mind. If anything I thought it was more or less something on MTV's Liquid Television.
Thank you (and I honestly mean this) for reminding me of this excellent show. It came out when I was 14, a time when my sisters and I was going through the all too 90's trope of drugs, violence and mental illness destroying a middle class family in the Rust-belt of the U.S.A. My mom actually was the reason I'm sure the show came out in August, because she was really interested in "The Oddities" and MTV Animation, generally. She said she identified with Jim, which was fitting, as she's schizophrenic with multiple personality disorder (nowadays known as D.I.D). It was an analogy that made sense to my younger sister and I and it seemed to help her cope with the pressure of trying to explain that type of things to one's kids. Plus, the show was truly pretty cool and I feel like the animation quality was "bad" as opposed to "poor". Meaning that if it were actually more polished and pretty, it might have hurt rather than helped as this astetic was in with the Grunge/Punk/Alternative rock and DIY Independent comic book scenes that were all the rage at the time. I loved the show, but I honestly forgot about it until now.😅 Sorry for the long winded comment, but I truly appreciate you for this. Subscribing, Liking, Commenting and Congratulating you, Great Job!
This show has stuck in my head since I was an 8-year-old boy watching it in my bedroom at night I have tried to explain this show to other people who lived and were my friends at the time they don't remember it I am so happy right now that you are talking about this show and that it's not just some crazy memory that I had stuck in my brain thank you a million times over
The Maxx was the absolute best show on MTV ODDITIES with the Head and Aeon Flux following. I still own the Trading cards that came with random cards of the 3 shows in each pack and a signed copy of the Maxx on DVD by the creator.
@ 9:53. The thing about Earl is that he does have a character arc in that he sacrifices the fishbowl and its occupant as part of the effort to save the world in the show's final crisis. Then we see that the reason Earl has been refusing medical treatment for his accidental condition was out of compassion for the tiny and vulnerable goldfish. It's a small but IMO significant moment showing how deeply caring this quiet background character is, adding just another dash of pathos and dark humor in an already poignant show.
I actually did catch The Head on and off on MTV back in the day but I always watched it completely out of order due to the way MTV released their shows. I never even knew what the full story was but now that I've watched this I finally got some context lol. It was such a weird show but you can't help but be engaged once you've committed.
This show scared the shit out of me as a kid when I caught the end of the pilot episode randomly on a Saturday morning before basketball practice. It was ‘96 and I was 10 years old channel surfing when I came across it. It took me years to get over this and The Maxx which was also on MTV at the time and I saw a commercial for it. 😅 Daria came out soon after and that became one of my Top 10 favorite animated shows to this day.
I was beginning to think I imagined this in a fever dream, with the way people have no idea what I'm talking about when I bring this show up. Great episode! Keep up the good work.
I grew up with this stuff as I was in 5th grade when Liquid T.V. started. I'd tape all the episodes on my vcr and watched them up until my 20's. The Head and Aeon Flux were my favorites.
I am so glad to have grown up during this animation period. Truly the golden age of animated entertainment. I am pretty sure that Aeon Flux was also an MTVs oddities.
Liquid Television was a goldmine of weird animations. They had content in all kinds of mediums, not just drawn animations. In hindsight, it was like a peyote trip. Weird that this got recommended to me, but I'm glad it crossed my path, I hadn't thought of this show in ages.
Wow! Absolutely wow! I was born in 1989, so I was in between the ages of 5 and 7 when the show came out. And I remember back then watching this with both my much older brother and my father. Wow this took me back. Now the memories are not exactly very detailed because I was so young but I do have fragments of memories sitting with my father and my brother watching this.
I was enlisted in the Navy when this was airing, and we used to crowd into the barracks TV room to watch this. Shocked to find someone talking about it on YT so many years later.
my buds & I loved The Maxx comics and we were initially very disappointed when The Head was aired first instead. But it grew on us fast and we ended up absolutely adoring it. I think it was the first unexpected gay couple we ever saw on TV. "not... right now"
I don’t know why this popped in my “head” today so I had to Google it and was also surprised yours was about the only video I saw. Great look man I remember actually watching this on MTV as a kid and it twisted my little brain haha
The decision to include two men kissing is indeed a bold one for the time. DS9 also was one of the first shows to show two women kissing and from what I understand, it caused a bit of a ripple during those peak "dont ask dont tell" period
Oh man, I miss this show. MTV animation was something else back in the day. Cartoon Sushi was another great showcase that even had shorts from John Dillworth (the creator of Courage the Cowardly Dog) and Bill Plympton (Plymptoons and Idiots and Angels).
Liquid Television and 120 Minutes (on Sunday Night) were two of the shows I watched religiously on MTV. 120 Minutes introduced me to Primus and Chevelle
This show was great. Awesome to see someone talking about it cuz it was indeed ground breaking. Butt-Head's cameo is when I knew I was in for something special 😄
Fun fact: The Head and The Maxx were originally going to be packaged together as part of MTV’s Oddities. But when The Maxx fell behind on its delivery schedule, the two shows were split and run separately. This is why there were two episodes of The Head per 1/2 hour.
I watched this religiously when it was airing. I was an old Liquid TV fan, loved B&B, and so I had to catch it when I heard they were making a full series out of this too. (don't know if you picked up that the "pilot" of the Head was in fact originally just a standalone from Liquid TV) . It's nice to see it getting some love, I always thought it was brilliant. I wouldn't mind a look at The Maxx too, although that was a very different show it wowed me back then too.
I used to watch this. Damn near every single person my age has never heard of it. They seriously believe I either made it up or had a fever dream. It's one of those shows that any reasonable person would think you are BSing them while trying to explain it.
Aw, man. Saw this and memories flooded back. I remember strange amalgamation shows like Liquid Television on MTV, Eye Drops on G4TV and O'Canada on Cartoon Network. MTV Had a lot of really weird shows in the 90s and it was great.
You got some very wrong info here, but I think it’s because you didn’t get to see the show air originally. Take it from me, as i was alive and conscious in 1994 and a HUGE fan of the show. The Head season 1 had 15 minute episodes because MTV Oddities was a 30 minute show with one segment of The Head and The Maxx each. There were never music videos aired in the middle of these shows - ever. Most of MTV’s non music shows also did not randomly break for music videos. The only other show I remember that did it regularly was Sifl and Olly (which was something MTV insisted upon, but that’s a whole other discussion). Season 2 was aired as its own show outside of MTV Oddities. It was no longer a part of that branding. Also, at the time of this show’s debut, there were almost no shows that ran in a 15 min time slot. That would’ve came about around the time with the Space Ghost: Coast to Coast’s debut. The quarter hour run time was frequently referenced as a novelty for that show, and it didn’t become much of a thing until Adult Swim’s debut around 1998-1999.
Speaking as someone who's old enough to remember and clarify (since I taped them all)... The opening 3-minutes debuted as a teaser on August 13, 1994 and aired repeatedly over the next 48 hours during "MTV's Animation Weekend," which heralded the premiere of their rightfully-forgotten cartoon "The Brothers Grunt" (THAT was a WTF-were-they-thinking show!). "The Head" officially debuted as part of "MTV's Oddities" on Dec. 19, 1994, airing 2 installments a week through Jan. 30, 1995. The leftover time in the 7th episode was filled with an extended preview of the next "Oddities" program, "The Maxx." Similarly, season 2 opened with a making-of special titled "Inside the Head," which was omitted from the DVD release (yet it's blocked on RU-vid). And the graphic novel only has one pop-up, it's just the front cover. Also, this was hardly the first serialized cartoon. 1959's "The Bullwinkle Show," 1975's (pathetically animated) "Return to the Planet of the Apes" and the first season of 1979's "Flash Gordon" were all serialized.
Thanks for the info regarding the air dates, but I didn't say it was the first serialized cartoon. I said it was the first non comedic serialized cartoon aimed at adults. Rocky and Bullwinkle was a comedy aimed at kids and those other two shows you mentioned I've never seen but they look like Saturday morning cartoons to me.
@@okfinebethatway Both shows did air on Saturday mornings, but neither was aimed at little kids (Flash Gordon was actually padded into a series from a prime-time animated movie). Anyway, I've got Wikipedia straightened out with sources for the season premieres, and I'm working on IMDb. Dunno whether to thank you or curse you for starting me back on this. I wrote an episode guide over 20 years ago, and I'm certain I did some work on these sites before, and then got distracted by some shiny object... Maybe I'll actually finish them this time.
Some things not mentioned... what led to liquid television were the hundreds of animated MTV interstitial logos in the 80s and early 90s, that were made by a wide variety of animators, acting as little short films. Also, before The Head, but after B&B (in Aug 1994) there was a show by the Ed, Ed, And Eddy guy called The Brother's Grunt.. which started as a weird MTV logo and as a show had the B&B format... but all the characters did was grunt and do gross out stuff.. it is, to this day, fhe most baffling show ive ever seem.
Well this wasn't the history of Liquid Television so I didn't want to focus on it too much. As for The Brothers Grunt, I'm aware it exists but it wasn't produced by MTV Animations. It was done in Canada by Danny Antonucci like you said so The Head was still MTV Animation's second production.
This was a great show! I remember when I first found it, doing some late night channel surfing. Simple as that sounds, I always considered it a pleasant memory. Thank you for making this video. I'm glad to see this show getting some much needed attention!
The "Pasquale Mendoza" segment intro still plays in my mind at least once a year. Also, while I love Aeon Flux calling it serialized is very very generous.
It was a gamble to watch this show. You didn’t know if you were gonna get “the head” or “the maxx” personally I prefered “The Maxx”. It was illustrated very well. Comic book cartoons are rare and it was before its time.
MTV use to air a strange animated series called Cartoon Sushi. It was just a bunch of short very peculiar animations. I haven’t been able to find much on it but I loved watching it back in the day
That was basically a sequel to Liquid Television. There was a lot of great stuff in it, but for the most part, they just aired stuff that had played in the Spike and Mike animation festival on TV.
Wow. After the glowing accolades I feel pretty lucky having this show on T.V. when I was little. I think protagonists like Jim and Roy highlite the importance of keeping a cool demeanor when the events of life are coming to a head. Now I'm off to see if you've done a similar review on another show that I personally loved but no one else on planet earth seems to remember, Captain Star.
I was 14 when The Head premiered, and I had both seasons bootlegged on VHS. I also taped The Maxx and countless hours of Beavis and Butthead. I even remember The Brothers Grunt, which was unspeakably repulsive by comparison to any of them.
I had no idea this existed until this video so I thank you for researching it so well. I'm glad you cited Twin Peaks as an earlier example of mainstream serialisation. I would also like to mention Star Trek Deep Space Nine had a heavily serialised story but that wasn't until 1993. Still, I find the evolution in television from almost entirely episodic, to having continuous storylines becoming the standard writing model today. I guess it illustrates how the average audience is more able to pay attention to continued stories, especially now that "marathon streaming" has become a bad habit amongst so many people
i remembered this show well and a lot of my friends had watched it too but most of us were bigger fans of the Maxx but we still did like this show. The Oddities and more so Liquid Television was so awesome at the time because you could not find animation that was meant for more of an adult audience anywhere as this was way before youtube and videos on the internet were more like GIFs lol
Also very short lived and fell I guess under the radar of many, The Head and The Maxx could be got as DVD on demand via Amazon in the mid 2000s. The Head looked complete but they had to change one or two song from the soundtrack of the Maxx. Just saying they are out there : ) Greetings from Germany and cool to see a Video about the show.
Liquid Television had other great segments too, of course. Who remembers Dog-Boy? What about Winter Steele? I'd love to watch a review of Winter Steele, especially by a puppeteer.
I watched this and all the other MTV cartoons as a kid. I never had any clue any of them were unusual or subversive at all lol I just liked them because they were darker, weirder or more crass.
I have been searching for a place to watch this show for years. I used to watch this as a kid all the time. The animation and some shows on mtv were insane but awesome back then.
I just checked, and it appears that most of the episodes are on RU-vid in a playlist. That said, season 1 just has 7 seven-minute episodes so I'm not certain if it's complete, based on what he said in the video. I'm also too tired to watch it right now, but maybe tomorrow.
In the first few episodes of Daria there’s a kid in her self esteem class that wears The Head t shirt, I was watching it recently and thought it was a cool ass shirt fast forward to now and I learn it’s an actual show! I’m definitely going to give this show a watch thanks man
Thank you for bringing this crazy ass show back to my attention since I was first pleasantly baffled by it as a 7 year old with too many channels to choose from! This is really a mind blowing rediscovery, so I can't say how much I appreciate this ❤
