Futurama
Seriously, if Satan wasn't such a pussy, would he let himself be the subject of ridicule again in again in children's cartoon shows?
I know people insist that Satan's greatest trick is convincing the world he doesn't exist or some bullshit, but how about striking fear
into the hearts of mortals? How can you expect to gain any respect when children are growing up laughing at you? Either the devil isn't
real, or he needs to man up and devour Matt Groening's soul live on pay-per-view. That being said, here are a few of my favourite
instances of cartoons demeaning Satan and all he stands for.
The robot devil appeared in a couple episodes of Futurama. I can understand the real devil letting this one slide. After all, he's not a robot, so why should he care? Of course, the robot devil sounds like a really gay Vincent Price, and when Fry sells his soul to the robot devil for new hands, the two of them wind up switching hands. Would the real Satan be so careless? I should certainly hope not.
The devil has appeared on the Simpsons many times as well. Frequently, though I believe exclusively in Treehouse of Horrors episodes, he takes the role of Ned Flanders. However, in Treehouse of Horrors VI, they show the non-Flanders version of Satan, with Bart on his shoulder telling him to do stuff. Really? Bart is more evil than Satan? Bart couldn't even get away with shoplifting and we're to believe that he is more evil than the almighty Prince of Darkness?
If you thought that the Futurama devil was gay, you've never seen South Park. South Park depicts Satan as actually gay. Like, flaming gay.
Hosting luaus in Hell with Pina Colada's gay. As if being gay wasn't offensive enough to Satan, he's also an idiot. The first time
South Park showed Satan, he had a boxing match with Jesus. He was supposed to kill Jesus, but instead he threw the fight so he could
"return to Hell a much richer Satan". I can't imagine what the fuck Satan would possibly need that money for, unless it's to buy even
more gay pink couches.
That's right, apparently Hell is like a really nice hotel. Sure the TV's broken and only gets "Whose the Boss?", but I liked that show when I was a kid! Apparently there's a lot of free time in Hell too, as another episode showed Superman, Hitler, and a couple other guys I don't recall playing poker. I guess there's just no torture greater than being the large blind.
At least in this cartoon the devil came off as someone imposing, or at the very least rather grotesque looking. He also was able to successfully torture Heffer, so big points for that one. The issue here, aside from "Heck" being a friendly community, is the devil's name. Peaches? I mean, yeah, what kind of a name is Peaches? Oh man, I better run before Peaches gets me! I don't think anything made me actually laugh at Satan and Hell when I was a kid more than this episode, except for possibly the last one on my list.
In "Eek Goes to the Hot Spot", Eek is mistakenly sent to Hell (And yet St. Peter didn't get written up or anything! Fucking tenure). At first it appears as if Satan is evil. Well, except that his name is Fido, but he's a dog so it's like kitty Hell or something, I dunno. Anyway, Eek is told he must clean an infinitely large litter box. Not a bad torture for a cat, except he finishes in like twenty minutes. The devil keeps subjecting Eek to tortures, and he finishes them with ease, accidentally terrorizing Fido in the process. Am I to believe that the devil is so incompetent that he can be accidentally thwarted by a borderline retarded cat? Until he comes out of hiding and starts defending all these animated attacks on his character, I will have to believe that's the case.
© 2008 by Dr. Jeebus