Hell 2012

[Kyaroru]

I will not miss hell this year like I did last year. Stupid me, getting confused about the times and having to go to a graduation all Saturday. I look forward to the further corruption of my ever decreasing naivete.

[Phil]

[Shadowoffire123]

Oh, HELL YES.

[Shaylex]

Do we have a playlist yet???

[PuppetQueen]

Retro Hell.

*grabby hands* I want more

[Phil]

Howdy, gang. Somewhat belatedly, here is the Hell 2012 playlist. Everything shown here was new to the Animazement Hell:

01 - Govinda: "It's My Challenge" - There's nothing like a short musical number to kick off Hell. Or, for that matter, a not-so-short one.
02 - The Box: Poltergeist - Proving that even the most jaded Hell audience loves a cute doggie, even if it's made out of cardboard.
03 - Star Crash trailer - Even if you can't see his face, you can instinctively feel The Hoff's presence radiating from this trailer.
04 - Claycat's The Raid - A claymation remake of a foreign art film from Indonesia.
05 - Super President in "Billion Dollar Bomber" - This fall, write in your vote for James Norcross for the highest office in the land.
06 - The Accordion Family (1979) - This would have been our first ad from our commercial sponsor were this not a Soviet era ad from Estonia, so I reckon that makes it state sponsored. Also, did you know that accordions are the groovy new rock music instrument?
07 - Half in the Bag at No-Brand Con - It's like a con report for Animazement before the con is even over! Woah!
08 - New Kids: "Turbo" - Presumably, the Netherlands are like this all the time.
09 - Intermission - From the folks who gave us Look Around You, the first of this year's intermission trilogy.
10 - Pizza Boomerang - This might be overexposed, but it was just too damn great not to show.
11 - Pirate Baby's Cabana Battle Street Fight 2006 - This isn't quite up to the glorious standard set by Kings of Power 4 Billion %, but considering how well that went over last year I figured I bascially had to show Paul Robertson's earler pixel fight rampage opus.
12 - Chicken Minced Meat (1986) - Another important announcement from our state sponsor. This was so perplexing and terrifying we showed it twice in a row, to make sure everyone was sufficiently traumatized.
13 - Telephoneme - NEVER KILL A SNAKE WITH YOUR BARE HANDS
14 - Mighty Mister Titan - Another installment of our annual Titan Team recruiting session and exercise break. Here's a representative sample you can follow along at home with.
15 - Space Stallions - Step aside My Little Pony or be trampled by the Space Stallions!
16 - Intermission in the Third Dimension - Two words: Don Hertzfeldt. 'Nuff said.
17 - Kool Penguins - Subtle, nuanced cigarette advertising circa 1935.
18 - Raw Force (NSFW) - After all those cute penguins, the Hell audience required an emergency infusion of kung fu sleeze and violence. Thankfully, Raw Force had them covered.
19 - School, Girls, and You (NSFW) - I can only hope that the Hell audience will remember the danger signs they were taught in this educational film that scientifically examines the mystery that is the woman.
20 - Follow The Sun - The finale of this year's intermission trilogy.
21 - Odezenne - "Dedans" - Look directly into the eye of the pyramid, if you dare.
22 - In A Pig's Eye - For our finale, this short film by Atsushi Wada was presented without commentary or explanation, except to point out that for a show billed as "Anime Hell" in the program book, we hadn't actually shown any Japanese cartoons until this point in the show. This excerpt will give you an idea of what the experience was like, but it's not the same as being there. For starters, you'll probably still be able to sleep well at night.

And that was Hell 2012 at Animazement. After being crammed into a small ballroom in 2011, this year things were opened up and we filled two ballrooms with roughly 1000 folks rocking out the entire time. Special thanks to Hellions Cameron Blashka and Chris Culpepper for manning the equipment and preventing me from sabotaging the entire show by pressing the wrong button at the wrong time yet again. Also, thanks to everyone involved in the spontaneous dance party that broke out in response to our cranking up "I Survived" by The Hose while everyone was being seated.

Next up, the Retro Hell playlist.

[Phil]

This year, in addition to the usual Hell show on Friday, I was asked if we could provide a show on Saturday as well. I've been working hard to make sure that all new material has been shown at Hell for quite a while now, but while this adds a lot of novelty to each year's Hell, it does leave a ton old favorites from previous years collecting dust. So, we scheduled Retro Hell (sounds better than "Old Hell") for a modest 230 seat room in the Marriott on Saturday night, where I could break out some of my favorite material from years past.

A few minutes before we're about to kick things off, the power goes out, leaving everyone sitting around in emergency lighting and wondering if our ghetto AV rig managed to blow a fuse. As it turns out, the power was out on a block-by-block basis all the way out to Garner, NC, so obviously the apocalypse was upon us. After a few minutes it became apparent that the power was not going to return immediately, and since the convention center across the street still had juice I encouraged folks to wander over there and check back with us later. About half the room cleared out, but the other half were hardcore Hell fans (or, you know, just lazy) who decided they'd hang around with us hoping power would return in short order.

At this point, several members of the Carolina Otaku Uprising engaged in heroic efforts to entertain the crowd with improv dance displays and Shakespearean sock puppet theater. This somehow managed to segue into Story Time With Uncle Phil, at which point I spent a good twenty minutes taking requests for anecdotes. Thankfully, it seemed to keep the crowd entertained long enough for for the power to return just as someone asked me what it was like to be Thor. Obviously, my lightning powers played a part in the miraculous return of electricity, and Retro Hell finally started a full 45 minutes late and ran not quite two hours to make up for the late start.

So, having set the scene, here's the Retro Hell 2012 playlist.

Pre-show Story Time With Uncle Phil: "$35 and a Tooth", "Don't Let Me Fall In The Puke", further cautionary tales of Steadman, tattoo follies, and The Greatest Maid Cafe in Japan.

01 - Suicide Club opening - Back when some pals and I took over running the AZ Hell from Dave Merrill, Crazy Monkey Hell (as it was then known) relied heavily on a lot of the Hell standards like Corn Pone Flicks, Robert Tilton farting, Heino, and so forth. This was fine, except after a couple of years things got pretty stale. The real tipping point was about a decade ago when technical problems shafted David Smith and I and resulted in a pretty lackluster Hell where I was frantically throwing in old standbys to make up for time. This was the impetus for my really pushing to bring in all new material from that point onward. However, as rough as that year was, it did have an amazing opening in this clip, and I was delighted to kick things off with it again.
02 - Halcali: "Tandem" - I completely adore this bouncy clip, but aside from the World 1-1 gag at the beginning I'm not sure the audience was as into this. Still, hey, you can only argue so much with a couple of young Japanese women bouncing around and rapping.
03 - The BPA: "Toe Jam" - This video, on the other hand, completely rocked the crowd. Trivia: It was directed by Keith Schofield, who also did the music video for "Pi" by Hard 'N Phirm, another old Hell fave.
04 - Oktapodi - Each year I check to see if any awesome new student films have been released by the teams at the Gobelins animation school, and while sometimes I find some winners I don't think anything is ever going to top this gem.
05 - Bimbo's Initiation - "Wanna be a member?" Afterward, in honor of their hanging in there through the power outages, our audience was proclaimed to be worthy of official Hell membership. Congratluations to all, and let the ass slapping begin!
06 - Black Thunder - More election year humor, but this time without some idiot in the crowd repeatedly yelling something incoherent about Ron Paul. Look, buddy, Ron Paul does not have super powers and is definitely not as electable as James Nocross. Or, for that matter, a bear.
07 - Kure Kure Takora 114 - "Gimmie Gimmie Octopus" has been a staple of Hell for years, but the first episode we showed, with Dictator Takora ruling with an iron fist, has always been the best. Alas, Toho has been policing YouTube so I can't provide this exact episode off-hand, but here's a representative (if inferior) episode for anyone playing at home who's wondering what I'm talking about.
08 - "The Big Win" ad - A bizarrely sweet ad that makes me want to go buy lottery tickets and, man, I hate the lottery.
09 - Maximum the Hormone: "Bikini Sports Ponchin" - Eternal kudos to Hellion Emeritus David Smith for originally finding this visceral gem.
10 - ABBA: The Last Video Ever - If you're an ABBA fan (like yours truly), you'll get even more out of the non-stop barrage of references crammed into this tribute to the 30th anniversary of "Waterloo" winning the Eurovision Song Contest. That said, if you're not a fan you'll still enjoy being flabbergasted by the strangeness of it all.
11 - WFMU's That's Irritainment Vol. 1: Heino - Having put Der Man on the Retro Hell flyers, I simply had to break out a sample of this Hell staple and decided I may as well go to the source. The crowd wasn't entirely sure how to take the clip, but watching Heino moonwalk via strobe to "Blau Bluht der Enzian" never gets old.
12 - Indiana Jones and the Wreck of the Edmund Fitgerald - Viva Corn Pone Flicks!
13 - Vivian Vee: "Higher" - When breaking out the old Hell footage, it was interesting to see what still worked with the audience and what didn't. Let me tell you, this video will still completely destroy a crowd, though you may risk mas whiplash as people jerk their heads along with the back up dancers.
14 - Sarah Brightman and Hot Gossip: "I Lost My Heart To A Starship Trooper" - Another guaranteed winner, a slice of raw 70s cheese so inspirational that Chris Culpepper and I were compelled to sing along with the chorus.
15 - Genre - Two words: Don Hertzfeldt. 'Nuff said.
16 - MTV Liebt Gunther - This one went out to William Bloodworth, who introduced me to this video years ago in correspondence that led to his being dragged onto the Animazement staff for years. Heino, of course, provides the soundtrack with Die Schwarze Barbara.
17 - Christoph Waltz in "Der Humpink" - As ever, Der Humpink is Der Humpink.
18 - Telezonia - I got the heads up that we could keep rocking Retro Hell to make up for our late start and decided it was the perfect time to play a longer clip. Unfortunately, I hadn't seen Telezonia in ages and probably should have started it a bit further in, since the crowd started to get a bit rowdy in the face of all that psychedelic corporate earnestness, but the moment we hit "Pick Up The Phone As Soon As It Rings" it pays off completely. God, I love that song.
19 - The Phone - Corn Pone Flicks provided the perfect segue. The audience was laughing so much they were missing some of the lines, but the power still shone through.
20 - The ANJ: "Gorbachov" - Halfway through the video (which, as always, ruled) someone in the crowd rushed the stage and broke out some amazing Russian dance moves while the crowd went wild.
21 - Benny Bennasi: "Satisfaction" - This was thrown in to meet our Gratuitous Cheesecake Quota for the Hell. Since I last played this the video has become wildly popular on YouTube and whatnot but, hey, what the heck.
22 - Self Service - I confess I'd forgotten just how long this short was when we threw it in, and some folks in the audience were starting to doze off as things cranked up, but once things really get rolling people got into it. Still, this was my cue that it was time to start wrapping things up...
23 - Dio ft. Sef: "Aye" - ...but not before waking folks back up with this example of a new Hell trend in recent years: awesome Dutch music videos.
24 - Dead or Alive finale - God bless Takahashi Miike. This was an amazing Hell finale before, and it was just as kick ass this time around.

And there you have it, folks. Between an unusually ghetto Hell AV rig and acts of god (or, at least, failures of infrastructure), we said to hell with it and had a completely laid back attitude, so while the technical details of the show were a bit rough around the edges we still had a great time. I'd like to give special thanks to Chris Culpepper for going absolutely above and beyond the call of duty in beating an AV setup into shape, breaking out every schtick at hand to keep the crowd entertained while we were waiting for power to retrun, and then frantically manning said AV rig during the show. I couldn't have done it without him.

[Shaylex]

The power went out as far as GARNER?! O_O That must've be Hell, for real.

[PuppetQueen]

Hardcore Hell fan here *srsface*

I loved the extra entertainment xD

[whitless256]

I would totally come back for more Story Time from Uncle Phil. Word of the pre-hell performances had spread all over the con by Sunday!

[Phil]

I'm glad you guys enjoyed Story Time and our zany improv antics! Hopefully future Hells will run smoothly and not require desperate entertainment tactics, but if so, well, there's always more Story Time ready to go at a moment's notice.

[megaplushie]

I'm glad you guys enjoyed Story Time and our zany improv antics! Hopefully future Hells will run smoothly and not require desperate entertainment tactics, but if so, well, there's always more Story Time ready to go at a moment's notice.

I would sit through an entire panel of Story Time. Just saying.

[PuppetQueen]

I'm glad you guys enjoyed Story Time and our zany improv antics! Hopefully future Hells will run smoothly and not require desperate entertainment tactics, but if so, well, there's always more Story Time ready to go at a moment's notice.

I would sit through an entire panel of Story Time. Just saying.

ditto, your stores are awesome...Still didn't get to hear about your adventures in Asgard :<

[kaiser_forsaken]

Seriously, Ron Paul has no superpowers.

Herman Cain, on the other hand, works MAGIC with a pizza oven.

[DrGonzo369]

Every story Phil told....I knew were he was talking about.

Are you sure that wasn't Rick's Lounge before it burned down the 2nd time?

[Phil]

Every story Phil told....I knew were he was talking about.

I'm so sorry.

Are you sure that wasn't Rick's Lounge before it burned down the 2nd time?

Oh, god, Rick's Lounge. Thanks, Dr. Gonzo, now I have to go have savage Fayettenam flashbacks for a few hours.

Something I've always vaguely regretted - but only vaguely - was never having stepped foot in either the Blue Marble Lounge or the Strack Lounge, two square concrete bunkers sitting in the same blasted wasteland of a parking lot up the road a ways from Ft. Bragg. They both looked terrifyingly, awesomely sleazy, but I was pretty sure I'd have been beaten up for walking in the door so I'm happy to let those holes pass into time without having experienced them directly.

[PuppetQueen]

I could really use a pizza boomerang right now.....the guy in the commercial should throw me one.

[Shenanagan]

I am so sad I missed this last year, especially with Retro Hell TT__TT Here's hoping I have a chance to catch it this year!!!