His Name Is Mr. Pickles Because He Loves Pickles!

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Mr. Pickles, "Pilot" - Will Carsola and Dave Stewart - 2013

In the pilot episode of Adult Swim’s animated TV show, which was released on YouTu

be in 2013 prior to being picked up by the show, Mr. Pickles, the innocuously named border collie of the Goodman family, rips out the intestines of a bro dude, kills a hooker, scalps her, uses her legs as stilts, rapes a bear, and in the end is shown on the throne of his underground lair furnished by several tortured townspeople, a gimp, and fountains of blood. It’s about as gratuitously violent as possible, all in the span of ten minutes.

Much like other genres and examples of comedy that have been discussed on this blog, Mr. Pickles could not exist outside of its medium. The animators have crafted a very specific style that caters to the both hilarious and disgusting violence depicted in the show. Removing much of the gore, we can see that the style of animation lends itself to gross depictions of the characters as well as the show, and that Mr. Pickles certainly is not the sole perpetrator of violence.

In the opening scene, serene music plays as a couple have a picnic next to a river. Johnny begs Jane to have sex with him, to which she replies that she’s not ready. They look to be in high school, so the scene is familiar, though crude. Then Jane turns to show her full face revealing tattooed tears on the left side of her face and says: “it’s only been an hour since the abortion.” At that point the music turns off, Mr. Pickles is seen looking on voyeuristically in the bushes, and Johnny pops a can of beer for breakfast. He pulls up his shirt to reveal his “beer-roids” and there we get our first bit of gross animation. Slowly the character’s face becomes ugly and covered in veins. This is the style of the show: crude humor with cruder drawings.

All the characters in the show – the bear, the people, the fish – have that same style of drawing that overuses veins and crude outlines on solid colors except for Mr. Pickles, who is ostensibly the villain of the show. Ignoring his actions for a little bit, the only hint we get that Mr. Pickles, whose name is so obviously stupid and childish, plays the music is the intense satanic music that works as his theme song. Mr. Pickles is a pervert dog, a serial murderer, and a manipulator, but he’s also a good boy. He carries around Tommy, the kid with polio, on his back, he saves the kid who picks on Tommy (only to eat his face off, push him off a cliff, and smash his head in with a rock), and he discovers the Donkeybird, just like Tommy asks. The underlying humor of Mr. Pickles is that juxtaposition of cute, loyal household pet with the devil worshipping, stripper killing, grandpa framing dog that Mr. Pickles is.

Mr. Pickles certainly isn’t for everyone, but what sets it apart from other crude animated TV shows with similar drawing styles like Family Guy is that it is so blatant in its violence. The violence is not only gory and bloody but also aimed at as many people as possible: rednecks, women, Black people, native Americans, and anyone else the creators can think of. The show is unapologetic in its depictions, but it relies on the overall terrible culture of the town in order for us not to see the dog as an anomaly.

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