Tales Of Rad: 6 Children's Cartoons From The Nineties With No Respect For Reason

I was born in the eighties but brought up in the nineties. That means that, in theory, I got the best of both worlds -- everything was 'eXtreme!' and Calvin Harris would still do things to my mouth after checking the appropriate birth certificate.

While many of the products children of the eighties got to enjoy were powerfully insane, the nineties heralded a different brand of batshit in its TV, toys and games. Mostly based on the aforementioned cultural phenomenon of 'eXtreme': Where you took a completely benign interest and pumped the exclamation factor up by a factor of monster truck. NOTE: This only occasionally resulted in an observable increase in awesome.

If the eighties were Gary Busey, then the nineties were Gary Busey after several pounds of pure, uncut Colombian nose candy. Which, if you think about what was going on in the eighties, is a better analogy than it initially sounds.

However, my parents were always finding new ways to tell me to use my fucking imagination and go outside. Which is why I found it amusing that they couldn't suggest I do anything more imaginative than go outside. Also, I lived in the South West where the average rainy season lasts two millennia and you never didn't run the risk of wandering into the wrong field to be mauled by cows or drunk cider farmers. The outside was and still is, awful. It's where society keeps all the worst kinds of people and if you wake up and they're already in your house, it's probably too late to stop all the rape anyway.

So like many kids, I developed a crippling addiction to terrible television. And judging with all the brutal logic posterity allows it's surprising that the nineties generation grew up to be 90% stupids; when the kind of TV we had growing up suggests we should have all become skin-suit wearing maniacs. Not just me.

***

Battletoads

Battletoads is what happens when you mix avarice with laziness. It failed to kick ass in so many directions at once that it never made it past a pilot and looks like a Korean animator dared his colleague to make slimy amphibians homoerotic.

Written by the same guys who made the beloved Ninja Turtle cartoons with precisely none of the same care and attention, the show starred three ordinary kids who could transform into naked-buttocked toads who could then transform their arms into drills, hammers and cymbals for no adequately explained reason other than fuck you for asking.

It was disappointing for every sector of its intended audience. Especially viewers who didn't like their cartoons to call them stupid and gay. There were already enough confused young boys watching this without the theme tune sounding suspiciously like Greased Lightning. 

Serving primarily as a blatant cash-in on the success of the Battletoads video game series (still regarded as one of the most pointlessly cruel and punishing tests of reflexes since Knife Roulette), it'd be hard to find a more cynical abuse of intellectual property were the nineties not full of exactly that sort of thing.

Watch the whole ill-fated pilot here.

Darkwing Duck

You could never have got a series like Darkwing Duck aired in the eighties. Back then, you couldn't hit a villain with anything harder than a paper aeroplane and plots tend to get pretty incoherent when you can't legally show threat. But DW's motto was 'let's get dangerous!' and his episodes would usually open with someone getting nailed over the head with a sack full of loot hard enough to erase the memories of their formative years.

To new parents, it must have looked like The Hills Have Eyes but it proved an important point in cartoon development when, in true Disney fashion, creators stopped assuming the only viewers were (like many of their characters) victims of severe head trauma and started including actual jokes. Darkwing himself dressed like a villain, acted like Batman, fought like a pussy, resented his brood of more capable sidekicks and his only superpowers were deus ex machina and blind luck. He was basically the incarnation of everything ridiculous about crime-fighters up to that point.

It was a pretty insanely brave direction to take considering how much Disney borrowed from Hanna-Barbera, the very people they were constantly taking the piss out of. Characters see rings of stars whenever they take a hit to the bonce (which is about once every negative ten seconds) and only leave buildings via them-shaped holes in the walls. And you know what's really crazy? It's still fucking hysterical.

'I am the low ratings that cancel your program!'

Watch pretty much all this genius at work, here.

Mummies Alive!

Mummies Alive! was more disrespectful to Egyptian culture than the British Legion. Combining the high energy thrills of archaeology with the extremeness of modern extreme teens! A formula that Kids' WB would continue with Jackie Chan Adventures in 2000. Except with slightly more Jackie Chan and even more racism.

The artists' idea of a believable memetic heir (or reincarnation? It's never made especially clear) to an ancient pharaoh is a San Franciscan, skateboarding schoolkid with a good tan. Way to bring profiling into the modern age, mummies. Why do they even have a huge cache of Egyptian relics in San Francisco? Because, America. Fuck yeah. Look past the creators having basically gone back into the ancient history of the East to make it even whiter and you still have a program with a rocky relationship with sanity.

I studied Ancient Egypt for two years at University and I never came across any references in the scripture to viziers that could transform into insectoid power armor and shoot purple lasers. Because if that were the case, I might have payed more attention. And the side-splitting fish out of water jokes like mummies not knowing what mobile phones are would ring a little less hollow if the whole situation wasn't fucking crazy to start with and relegated to the two minutes per episode when they weren't punching clay monsters in half.

Watch the pilot, which is seriously called Ra, Ra, Ra, Ra, here.

The Bots Master

The mysteriously titled The Bots Master is like a museum of bad decisions. With a cast you couldn't fit on a roll of toilet paper and plotting you'd be equally unwilling to then wipe your arse with. Their names were Zulander! Blitz! Sir Lewis Leon Paradim! Dr Hiss and Lady Frenzy! If Gladiator was casted entirely from a local methodrone clinic, it would make more sense than The Bots Master.

Most confusing of all is the inclusion of hip-hop culture. Scratch that, not the inclusion per se as that's like saying the inclusion of chalk and insect parts in Love Hearts is confusing. You weren't legally allowed to make any kind of video in the nineties without a hip-hop soundtrack written by a composer begging for a swift death.

No, it's all in the execution. It watches like a straight to DVD Transformers reboot directed by Fred Williamson and Fisher-Price and starring no-one but Skids and Rudy Ray Moore. You'd see a more appropriate application of black culture in Harlem Shake v6 (Klan meet edition/WHOSE BABY IS THIS?)

Animaniacs

No animated series tried to sexually confuse its audience as hard as Warner Bros.' Animaniacs. The scripts were crammed with more innuendos than the stenograph at Todd from Scrubs's date-rape hearing and the two male leads, Yakko & Wakko, couldn't go the full twenty minutes without eye-fucking a nurse or mouth-raping a terrified concert pianist. This is what happens when the corpse of Bob Hope is ground up into animal feed and distributed as Japanese sandwich filling and I'm no expert, but I think that would sound 'a rittle bit rike dis.'

Presumably all these references to the adult network, giant cocks and, I shit you not, butt stuff went over most young viewers' heads but at least a degree of sexual chemistry must have slipped in under the radar. Some of the references barely class as suggestive. Even as a child, seeing a buxom cartoon bunnie's boobs, even in silhouette, while two clearly-defined male characters are sniffing her panties with their eyes must have had some effect.

Oh, right.

For the many, many double entendres of Animaniacs, see this conveniently concentrated dosage.

Biker Mice From Mars

No part of the Biker Mice gave two shits. It was a show about a team of spec-ops alien rodents turned motorbiking conservationists that speak entirely in fist bumps and Schwarzenegger puns, the only language known to originate not from the larynx and lungs, but directly from the cock and balls.

They live and kick ass on Mars as depicted by Mad Max but end up in Chicago as also depicted by Mad Max. A Mad Max world in which nothing doesn't shoot lasers. And that's only one of the many reasons that Biker Mice From Mars is better than Mad Max. The rest of them are here, in this easily digested series of bullet points!

• The only time the Bikers don't wear helmets is when they're hanging around in the empty void of space. Because they're able to subsist entirely on the galaxy's natural supply of balls. 
• The show is so manly, after watching an episode women limp for days. 
• The mice call every human they meet 'citizen' because their only political beliefs are the People's Republic of Dude That Was Freakin' Sweet. 
• The soundtrack is so metal Boris Vallejo paintings masturbate to it.

Half the script of every episode is:

EXT. AWESOMEST RUINS ANIMATORS COULD DRAW THAT ARE ALSO SHAPED LIKE RAMPS

BIKER MICE enter shot in fucking sweet motorcycle jump.

THROTTLE

C'MOON BROS!

MODO

HEEELLLSSS YEAAAHHH!!

VINNE

WE ROCK SOOO HAAAARRRRDDD!!!!

The plot mostly revolved around an industrialist who's also an alien who's also a deep sea angler fish whose mission it is to tap Earth's natural resources dry because his race of alien angler fish were so wasteful with their own. A poignant message of altruism for young men to not give a damn about while Vinnie uses someone's face as a bike ramp. The writers can't have expected you to think about it much because they sure didn't. It's like they only included a narrative to make the pussy demographic of the audience that actually wanted that environmentalist bullshit to go anywhere end up looking stupid.

This show rocked so many tits that thousands of blossoming girls and fat boys ended up with mammoplastys. It rocked so many balls into sterility that since it was cancelled, birth rates have increased by a factor of LASERMOTORCYCLE. Some might call that coincidence. I'd say it was an observable spike in the awesomeness of my childhood.

Watch the entire first series here and for even more fun, take a drink every time you notice the writers look deep within their own hearts, reach out and find not a single fuck to give.

Tales of Rad: 6 Video Game Characters I Still Have A Crush On

Welcome, sexually confused creatures, to Tales of Rad. Tales of Rad is the internet column series that got your mother pregnant. But with what? 

If you grew up as part of the Playstation generation, then congratulations, you had so much more masturbation-worthy material than Nintendo fanboys it's almost unfair. Almost. 

Of course it isn't remotely unfair because all those lactating pussies who didn't dare ask someone to buy a PS2 and copy of God of War for them were too busy rubbing themselves off over Princess Peach and Krystal to develop real personalities, so you're safe here, real gamers.

All the same, the objectification of women isn't restricted to any console. Occasionally, even the most coy of squeaky-clean Nintendo characters would show some skin. Or release a gruesome sex tape. 

The point is, depictions of women in video games are possibly worse than any other minority. The only thing it's potentially worse to be in a game is German. Or maybe Russian, Hispanic or Zombie, these days. But women are generally portrayed as hyper-sexualised, neurotic and totally dependent on a central male character (usually you) to fix all their problems. Probably with your penis if it's a Bioware game. 

On that note, here are five imaginary things I wish I could have put my cock in were it possible. 

***

Name: Miranda Lawson
Game: Mass Effect 2 & 3
Shame: Not too bad, actually. You'll see.

Miranda is a character from a Bioware game, in case you didn't see that coming. And by god, does she have problems. Problems that can only be solved by Shepherd-penis. The only kind of penis that counts in a Mass Effect game, be sure of that. Unless you play as a female Shepherd. And let's be honest, the only reason anyone would do that in ME2 before the possibility of making Shepherd gay was slipped into design for the closer, is so they could see what sex with a ceramic-faced bird alien is like.

This is kind of a fucked up franchise. 

Miranda was presumably introduced to distract people from the fact that an interstellar starship commander sexing his way across a universe of blue women had sort of been done before.

She was genetically bred to be perfect by her father (Daddy issues: check) and enlisted as an officer by pro-human group, Cerberus (Military training/kinkiness: checkity check) and at a brief glance you wouldn't be the first to say: 'Meh. Decent job done, but perfection is only attained by- OH MY GOD. I RESCIND EVERYTHING I JUST SAID BECAUSE SHE JUST TURNED AROUND'.

I don't know what Mr. Lawson thought he was paying for at iDesigner Baby, but what he got was more bübblebutt than Übermensch.

Miranda had 'Dat Ass' before that was even a thing. Just... just look at it. Not for too long, mind. A man could lose himself for many years between the twin peaks of Mt. Joydome. Of course, whenever the sheer graphical magnificence of a particularly pert breast or butt cheek cuts through the general fog of tedium that covers a gamer's brain, mid-game, there's a downer of a thought:

Some schlepp, some probably underpaid and certainly undersexed programmer probably spent weeks, maybe years, diligently writing all the code that makes Miranda's ass cast exactly the right amount of shadow and experience the most believable amount of jiggle according to environmental stress.

That's a bit of a turn off. Now the thought of that same guy going home to his homely wife and their under-furnished home, uninspired life and sexless marriage and hearing her ask him what he did that day, that lights my candle.

And speaking of danger wanks, Bioware added an enemy in Mass Effect 3 called a Phantom. They're just so lithe, so juicily athletic. It marked an important point in gaming when thousands of players simultaneously had the same thought: 'I bet they're into some kinky shit.' And when your contortionist beau has a plasma cannon embedded in their palm, that adds a whole new layer of risk into the daily handjob.

You, uhh, you look really nice tonight. Umm, is the sword really necessary? I mean... well, we're only going for tapas.

Name: Rikku [Foreign sound]

Game: Final Fantasy X
Shame: Shocking.

Rikku is the most believably down to earth female Square Enix has ever created. Which also makes her the cheesiest fake woman I've ever wanted to have sex with. If you wanted to weaponise 'bubbliness', you'd ask Motomu Toriyama for Rikku's original concept pitch.

To put her insufferable chipperness into perspective for all you normals reading this, (I know you're there, Mother) Rikku exists in a world that can and has been destroyed, multiple times, at any moment by a gigantic mushroom creature. Also, it's her job to deal with that. By sacrificing her cousin to kill it. Briefly. It's a shit life as a guardian in the world of Final Fantasy X, is what I'm saying.

And the only goddamn time this maniac shows a single sign of stress is when your party is forced to cross a field in which it never stops thundering. Because she's afraid of thunder. In the world of Japanese video game writing, they call this 'character-building.'

Rikku is so energised you could hook her nipples up to a car battery and reverse engineer a hadron collider. Engineers! Don't bother pointing out how little sense that makes. Perverts! Now you know exactly how you're going to die.

Name: Triss Merigold (Definitely NSFW)

Game: The Witcher, The Witcher 2: Assassin's of Kings and 3: The Wild Hunt, apparently.
Shame: Ambivalent.

'Say that again. I ploughing dare you.'

Holding a torch for The Witcher series' Triss Merigold is less embarrassing than usual because she's well characterised. CD Projeckt Red can rightfully call themselves better than Jesus because they created an (ongoing) RPG series about elves, dwarves, kings, dragons and sword-swiping-monster hunting and actually made it novel.

In a similar manner to Miranda, Triss is a badass. Though in this case a witch. She isn't just sexy window-dressing but vital to the driving plot of Assassins of Kings and enough of an independent ass-kicker to not require your babysitting. In an industry full of squawking Ashley Williams begging for help, Triss is hot purely for not being a squealing burden on the player. Also, in case this was getting too progressive for you, titties.

Name: Bayonetta

Game: Bayonetta
Shame: Hairy.

Prospective buyers of Platinum Games's Bayonetta should have been warned at the counter that the game they were buying is certain to contain n-1 masturbation material.

Another, but quite radically different kind of witch to Triss, Bayonetta spends most of her time in her eponymous game fellating gun-barrels, lollies and generally doing her utmost to blue-ball her teen-boy audience. That's only part of the reason I like her.

Sure, she's an utterly one-dimensional character. Boobs and ass in mathematically perfect proportion. But I didn't get to where I am today by taking digital life seriously. That's why I only apply Pokemon logic to my daily life 27% of the time. Bayonetta's entire appeal to me sits squarely on her nose.

Glasses are hot and the sooner the rest of the world catches up to the fact, the sooner I can get my non 20-20 girlfriend to film that sex tape I've been wanting to do ever since Samus's.

Name: Tifa Lockhart
Game: Final Fantasy VII
Shame: Bruising

I will use your testicles as a nightlight.

Tifa might not have the relatability of Rikku or her gregarious spirit, but I'll always love a woman who can kick my arse and not look like a Williams sister after a particularly toxic steroid binge.

Name: Patricia Tannis
Game: Borderlands, Borderlands 2
Shame: Bacon-tastic.

Patricia is introduced immediately to players as a total brainbox. Let's not beat around the, umm, presumably ill-kempt bush; the developers only wrote her in to advance the plot. Smart people always get shafted in video games because they're only called upon to make a hitherto unexplored connection. That totally leads to the final boss's lair! Why hadn't anyone thought of this before! The actually original part of this is, that Patricia Tannis is batshit crazier than everyone else.

There are a small bunch, but a bunch nonetheless of female characters more objectively attractive than Patricia in the Borderlands universe. Lilith, Moxxi, umm, Claptrap? Hell, you could quite safely say that Handsome Jack is more handsome.

He's called that for a reason, you know. Wow. It's almost like you're trying to kiss me, Jack. Just... Just begging for it. Begging for a tast- what was I talking about?

Patricia, or, as I'll call her from now on (and have been for some time), Tannie, is neurotic like you would not fucking believe. Not in a simpering: 'oh goodness! Tush and fi! Who will save us from the tentacles?!' kind of way but in a more direct, mentally maladjusted fashion. Her every interaction with the player is two parts intellectual patronising, one part screaming, boundary-violating craziness and one part come-on.

Honestly? I've never been so confusedly aroused by a fictional character. To say I like my women on the slightly deranged side is like saying R. Kelly likes his to slightly smell of tiger urine. But Tannie is eerily perfect. It's like Gearbox knew exactly what I wanted in a human female: human, female genitalia; MENSA-grade intellect and all the hilarious mental illnesses that the preceding dictates.

I've spent enough time around certified geniuses to know two things. One, I'm not one of them. And two, being grossly above average clever opens a door to the kind of screeching, leather-winged neuroses that I, even in my darkest moments, couldn't hope to empathise with. But seeing Tannie, hopelessly incapable of controlling all those cognitive eruptions, I feel less bad for them. Because they definitely get the kinkiest women.

Worst Things Ever: 5 Moments of Mind-Boggling Stupidity in Rap Music

Look, I get white guilt as much as the next honky with several generations of family involved in the sugar and cotton industries. But there comes a point in the life of any man who understands that he's whiter than builder's tea; one single, significant moment when he realises that sure, as an Englishmen, he's culturally responsible for centuries of slavery, slaughter and straight-up, religious genocide, but: [looking furtively in every direction], should he actually feel bad about what those shitty ancestors of his did?

Answer: No. If our generation were to have a specific superhero, his name would be Grandson Hindsight and his superpower would be apologising profusely to anyone with a different skin tone, religion or fruity point of view. But fuck that guy. I've covered moments of catastrophic idiocy in areas as diverse as people falling over, Star Wars and Harry Potter and I see no reason that contributions to the cultural mire made by people of similar ethnicity to me should be the only ones vulnerable to attack.

This is my way of saying I'm not racist, of course. But you, whoever you are, whatever your background, your upbringing, your faith, your goddamn, fucking anything, can't deny that failure isn't unique to any culture. Whether Black, Asian, Near-Asian, Hispanic or Caucasian or whatever, you've all managed to produce total, fizzing shit and deserve to be called on your horseshit as much as anyone else.

[And before anyone gets uppity about my prior, violently vocal distaste for Black Eyed Peas, I think everyone would agree when I say that whatever their individual ethnicities, no-one who shares them would care to admit they exist.]

Macklemore punching hip-hop convention in the mouth. And no-one of note giving a single fuck.

This is an easy starting point, obviously, as Macklemore is white. Which means that I get to say Ben Haggerty writes thought-provoking rhymes like admitting that you have tapeworm improves your chances with the ladies with absolutely no threat of racial backlash.

His smash hit, Thrift Shop does the unthinkable by suggesting hipsters were right about clothes shopping, via the medium of rap! Because that's always been a scientifically proven way to convey public security announcements. What hip-hop conventions is he so eloquently undermining, you ask? Well, the assumption that all rappers want is to spend money, of course!

Macklemore's apparent respect for buying used is at complete odds with the hip-hop community's obsession with labels. With ostentatious displays of wealth. Disregarding this guy's complete inability to write even vaguely intelligent lines (and I do mean that, I've seen deaf chickens do better out on the ranch) I'd almost side with him on this subject, had Kreayshawn not written the exact same song, and much better, almost a year ago.

I'm starting to think that Google was right to assume that I wanted information on Prostate Specific Antigens, back when I searched 'PSA'.

Eddie Murphy rapping about putting things in your butt.

That's right. All the way.

Let me get real for a second. I would not, for one second (provided that second didn't give me a chance to mention anything to do with The Nutty Professor, Norbit, Dr Dolittle, Daddy Daycare or ... nevermind ) suggest that Eddie Murphy isn't a supreme genius. This is the man who gave us the donkey from Shrek, people. But also Boogie In Your Butt. Which fiscally rescinds any reverence you might have for him upon receipt of the following lyrics:

'Put a telephone! In your butt!

Put a dinosaur bone! In your butt!

Put a radiator! In your butt!'

Other things the star of The Golden Child and Beverly Hills Cop suggests that you put inside you include: a bumblebee, a tree, a big rock, some dynamite and him. Suddenly, Dreamgirls is bringing back (back bacon) some very different memories for you, isn't it? It's OK. That's exactly how Eddie wants it. 

Das Racist bucking all accusations that they're fucking high as shit all the time -- by rapping about food. Pretty much exclusively.

Never let it be said that I purely focus my hatred at particular sections of society. So far we've covered white as all shit, black and now we come to Das Racist. A double act of Victor Vasquz: Afro-Cuban Italian & Heems: A Queens-raised, South-Asian, both of which spend their time writing mostly hilarious, pervasive rap pertaining to weed, fast-food and casual racism. Clearly, I've now covered all possible ethnic denominations. Cheers for that, Das Racist.  

Like it sounds, and contrary to everyone else so far, I have a lot of love for these guys. Constructing a song from the bones of Sister Sledge's We Are Family and twisting it to make fun of how we dumbass white folk can't tell one Puerto Rican from another gets you plenty respect round my way, provided you can be literate or witty about it and they sure, damn, are. However, this particular song would be an exception to the rule that Das Racist just love to talk about fudz. 

Songs about or at least pertaining to: Burgers, pizza, tacos and as far as I know, at least four different kinds of cheese are the norm for these guys. And in the case of choosing a standout, we have a knock-up. On the one hand, there's Combination Pizza Hut & Taco Bell. On the other: There's Chicken & Meat. Take your pick, Internet, but frankly, it doesn't make much difference to these guys, provided their dealer is on board.

Rappers the world over going to extreme lengths to talk about their wangs.

What are you expecting here? If I listed every rap artist to ever spend a little too much time pontificating on the length of their man-hammer, I'd be here all goddamn night. No, instead, I'll examine the most egregious example of a rapper's Oedipus complex and again, it comes from an artist that I actually like. 

Kendrick Lamar's Backseat Freestyle succinctly represents everything stupid about the entire culture of rap's obsession with out-dicking the guy next to you at the urinal. And conveniently, it's all up there in the chorus: 

'All my life I want money and power
Respect my mind or die from lead shower
I pray my dick get big as the Eiffel Tower
So I can fuck the world for seventy two hours'

That's not a clever, poignant reference to anything, no matter what Rap Genius might say. Lamar, the guy I had so much respect for for writing a song for alcoholics everywhere, just made it clear that all he really wants is to be rich and have a bigger cock than is socially expected. And/or, physically possible.

Having a penis you could use as a neck-tie has become a symbol of power, along with the guns, rims and the jewels and it kind of makes me sad. Because I remember a time when all rappers wanted was to gesticulate at knee-high cameras as if it would fuck with the local police, not the planet's incarnated vagina or economic balance.

Everything about these people.

What makes a song classifiable as rap? Is it the machinegun, pop-pop-pop of the lyrical delivery? Is it the creator's race? Is it a thematic obsession with cock-size, money, drugs and/or fucking the listener in the arse? I posit to you, that it is the first of those things which makes it possible for anyone to produce rap songs about anything. And therefore, allows a plane of existence in which this can exist. 

I first came across MC Mong's Ice Cream as a young, naive man who knew nothing of the absolute, screaming insanity with which the entire culture of the East operates. I don't mean that as a criticism, in fact, that's precisely why I enjoy their music, film and tv. But I can almost garuntee that this madness is new to you, so allow me to explain:

They are batshit, fucking crazy over there. Gift a gorilla to a Japanese guy and he will immediately throw it into a ring with a world class kickboxer. Explain the concept of magic to a Korean, and his first impulse will be to make a feature-length film about a wizard transported to modern-day Seoul. 

Basically, these people kick arse so it should come as something of a surprise to find that their interpretation of 'rap' is to spit lyrics that would count as medicinal dick dissolver in any other culture by making as many references to chocolate, hearts and thanking you kindly for loving me as possible. Just... just check out the video, though. The actual song hasn't been going thirty seconds and you've already seen a rickshaw, teddybear, and a creepy, animated face superimposed on a cat. That should prove a pretty decent summary of all the other stupidity you're about to see.

And while we're busily taking the piss out of the non-English speaking peoples' attempts at rap, why not mention this absurdity?

Oh, yeah. Umm, warning, exposed titties and several flapping cocks in about, err, ten second ago.

Die Antwoord are South African and produce genuinely, fucking knockout tunes despite all their numerous, numerous mental illnesses. On this occasion, the video actually gives a slightly overestimated image of their general, shit-eating quirkiness. Sure, there's a whole lot more shirtless crotch-thrusting than you might be used to, as well as a general Zeno Clash by way of H.R. Giger kind of vibe to the set design, but Giger was at least vaguely subtle with his inclusion of genitalia in goddamn everything he ever worked on.

But subtlety to Die Antwoord is what lighting is to Tim Burton: obscenely absent. There are more erect phalli in the video for Evil Boy than at an Eton swimming event. But as I've said, despite all their apparent chemical imbalances, these guys and gal are the closest this list has actually come to, if not the best, then the most consistently talented rappers. So what does that say about the genre? Err, that the inclusion of more references to reproductive organs is good? I feel like I've contradicted myself here somewhere. Ahh screw it. I'm going to listen to Ice Cream one more time. What harm can it do?