"The Ren & Stimpy Show," "The Goddamn George Liquor Show," "The Ripping Friends" and, of course, the infamous Tenacious D video "F--- Her Gently." There is only one John Kricfalusi, and when the demented cartoon genius turns his pen on you, you better hope he's in a good mood. (See the figurines after the jump!)
It's hard to say what his frame of mind was when John K. molded rubberized action figures based on Senators Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, but suffice it to say that they ended up somewhere between over-the-top caricatures and strangely flattering portraits of the presidential hopefuls.
The Obama figure has an exaggerated set of jug-handle ears, huge gleaming teeth and gigantic, soothing hands gripping a podium emblazoned with the words "Hope," "Change" and "Wish." The box comes with fake campaign pledges like "Vote for me and HOPE for the best!" and depicts a yokel using the doll as a talisman to lower gas prices with the phrase "Gas prices too high? Close your eyes and HOPE they go down!"
It's a bit more subtle than the Clinton doll, which comes swathed in a shapeless red pantsuit, with a giant crashing wave of hair, pleading eyes and a smile that juts out like Daffy Duck's bill. The box for her doll (bearing the desperate slogan "I'll Take Whatever's Left!") promises that the candidate is "a pantsuit stuffed with experience," a point slammed home by an even more exaggerated caricature in which Clinton's backside is overinflated in order to house the phrase "Ready for fun on day one!"
Then there's the McCain figure. The presumptive Republican nominee gets it pretty hard from the cartoonist, who gave him a ghostly gray pallor — interrupted by pink blotches all over his face — a menacing mouth and stubby hands crammed with a machine gun and a grenade. In addition to a pair of bandoliers loaded with huge bullets across his chest, McCain is also plunked on top of a giant missile, perhaps to bolster his focus on national security. And just in case Kric's apparent political leanings aren't clear enough, the toy's box finds McCain driving the "Double Talk Express" and quipping "Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan — what's the difference? Someone's gonna pay!"
What do you think of John K.'s action figures? Hilarious? Grotesque? Both?
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