I remember attending WonderCon one year in the mid-2000s (back when it was still in SF) and shaking hands with a classic cartoonist—whose name I can’t recall off-hand—after he’d finished a panel. I asked his thoughts about why classic cartoons don’t seem to have the cultural cachet they once had. He placed the blame on the “gated community” mentality of studios, which once let their cartoons be shown for free on network TV, only to spend the ‘90s and 2000s migrating them to cable exclusively. Hard to believe there’s a generation that has almost no idea who Mickey Mouse is because Disney stopped sharing his cartoons and focused all their energy on acquired IPs like Marvel and Star Wars.
As a proud member of that not-quite-Gen-X/not-quite-millennial generation that remembers waking up every Saturday morning to rot my brain on cheap animation, I was probably the hoped-for demographic for Killing My Lobster’s Toon Out (through June 10 at 447 Minna.) The sketch show is equal parts nostalgia trip and critique of ‘toons from the pre-streaming era, when impressionable kids invested deep emotion into characters created solely to sell us toys we didn’t need. Truly, they were halcyon days.
Still, the works weren’t totally lacking in depth. In fact, the best sketches in the show are the ones in which the subtext that flew over our young heads is crystal-clear to our adult eyes. One such sketch features an energetic young Poké-fan (Nick Trengove) eager to catch the latest adventure of Ash and Pikachu, only to have his hopes dashed when the network airs an old episode of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. Our lad is disappointed at first, but something about the shirtless barbarian with the effeminate haircut stirs feelings in the boy—feelings he doesn’t quite understand.
Another sketch finds American voice actors (Elaine Gavin and Marisa Hankins) dubbing in English for Sailor Moon’s US broadcast, only to have to make drastic changes to the dialogue for “cousins” Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus. (Given that a few sketches revolve around Dragon Ball Z, it’s interesting the show didn’t address the ridiculous “I can see their parachutes” censorship of that show as well.) In another scene, it almost makes too much sense that HBO’s Succession would be, well, succeeded by a gritty reboot of that other “tale of a rich Scottish monarch,” Duck Tales.
With writing led by KML regular Tirumari Jothi (directed by its artistic director Nicole Odell), the strongest sketches are the ones that go for laughs whilst simultaneously questioning the social relevance we’ve given these characters. So, while a running gag about X-Man Wolverine’s claws being more hindrance-than-help works better on paper, a sketch about a kid (newcomer Bob Lewis, they/he) growing up in a TV-free house—thus being out of the loop on popular shows—reminds one of the unwarranted emphasis placed on people who’ve never seen shows like, well, Succession. Lewis plays a similar character in a sketch about café buddies who are less interested in sharing about their own lives so much as very dramatically recounting the last Dragon Ball episode as if the characters were personal friends.
Sketches like that resonate stronger than, say, one in which a man on a date (Kenny Bourquin) falls victim to several pratfalls. Another sketch, in which a Scooby-Doo-style mysteries is solved by celebrity guests whose presence is problematic in hindsight, sorta falls down the middle. It’s not as compelling as a piece in which the opening narrator to Avatar: The Last Airbender “bends” silhouettes to their will.
As always, the KML cast members seem game for anything. Trengove puts a lot of his usual himbo traits to good use (I swear, he must have willed into existence a sketch in which he plays a hero doctor), whilst company members Elaine Gavin and Kenny Bourquin bring their usual affability to the works. Marisa Hankins almost steals the entire show in two sketches—one as an over-the-top emo version of Bruce Wayne, the other as a mild-mannered cousin of Stretch Armstrong (a sketch that ends on an hilarious punchline revealing yet another family member.) The aforementioned Lewis brings a lotta laughs to their characters, including an out-of-work Joe Camel who fights a hacking cough as he tries to get hired at Nickelodeon, of all places.
As KML’s “touring year” continues, they’ve now landed at 447 Minna, the relatively new-ish venue best known as the new home of the SF Neo-Futurists (who, like KML, once called PianoFight home.) For an old brick building, CO² levels were pretty decent, with my Aranet4 topping off around 1347ppm at the end of the one-hour show. Thankfully, masks are still required to see the company’s productions.
There were quite a few flamboyant fashion choices made by audience members on opening night, yet none stood out to me as prominently as stage manager Jacqualynn Metcalf’s TMNT miniskirt, featuring the classic ‘80s faces of the pizza-loving quartet. It was the perfect visual metaphor for how our childhood preferences creep into our adult lives. Toon Out’s best moments are the ones that hilariously remind us that we’re still the obnoxious kids who devoured these shows ad nauseum; we just have to pay more bills now.
KILLING MY LOBSTER’S TOON OUT runs through June 10. 447 Minna, SF. Tickets and more info here.
