Since the advent of the internet I’ve been searching for a mind-blowing cartoon that I saw late one night in my early adolescence. The sequence depicted a futuristic race track where one driver refused to stop driving and was ultimately torn apart by his own obsession. I didn’t know the name of the animation, but I sure as hell knew where I saw it: MTV’s Liquid Television.
Without Liquid Television, there would be no Beavis and Butthead. There would be no Aeon Flux. Originally airing from 1991-1994, Liquid Television featured animated shorts ranging from silliness to total weirdness to dark and disturbing-ness. It may be the fog of memory, but I seem to remember watching Liquid Television only late at night, being left with the impression that I had witnessed something special, and feeling that perhaps I had seen things I wasn’t meant to see.
Sadly, Liquid Television evaporated into the ether after the 90’s, not available on DVD, and nowhere to be found on the internet, save a few grainy YouTube clips… until now. MTV has resurrected Liquid Television in the form of LiquidTelevision.com. All the original stuff is there plus new animations and other material from shows like MTV’s Oddities and Cartoon Sushi.
They even have the animation that I’ve been searching for all this time. It’s called The Running Man: The Man Who Would Not Die, and unlike some things that I’ve revisited over the years, it’s just as incredible as I remembered it. I recommend you head over there right now and derail your entire day watching cartoons like I did.
