Billy and Mandy in: Trepanation of the Skull and You is an animated short from 1995 (Though the creator says he made it in 1998) and the earliest incarnation of what would eventually become The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy. Maxwell Atoms (credited here by his real name, Adam M. Burton) created it as his junior thesis for University of The Arts, Philadelphia.
In this PSA spoof, a boy named Billy asks his friend Mandy about the bandages on her head. She tells him that she drilled a hole in her head so that she can fulfill her brain's full potential. Billy then decides to get a hole drilled into his head.
In 2016, Atoms uploaded the short on his YouTube channel; it can be watched here
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This short provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Evil: This early incarnation of Mandy doesn't have her later counterpart's mean streak, but at the same time, she has a very unsettling air to her even before she drills a hole into Billy's skull. It's also never confirmed if Mandy herself was actually trepanned before this or claimed to be so she could mess with Billy.
- Author Appeal: Maxwell Atoms is big on fringe culture, where trepanning was seeing a popular reemergence in the late 90s.
- Black Bead Eyes: The characters have black dots for eyes.
- Black Comedy: The short revolves around drilling holes into people's heads. There's also a shot of a guy getting eaten by a dinosaur.
- Bloodier and Gorier: While Billy And Mandy featured plenty of harmless Amusing Injuries, this short contains more visceral Body Horror and actual bloodshed.
- Characterization Marches On: Mandy is not a sarcastic Enfant Terrible. She's a Cheerful Child... a bit too cheerful.
- Don't Try This at Home: Parodied. The short ends with Mandy informing the kids to ask their parents to help them with electrical appliances, not that they... y'know, shouldn't be drilling holes in their heads.
- Early Installment Character-Design Difference: While Billy doesn't look all that different from his Grim Adventures... incarnation, Mandy is a completely different character altogether, having a different outfit and pigtails. Both are also drawn to be more realistic heights than the squat statures they'd have in the series proper.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In addition to the above-mentioned examples, the short lacks any supernatural elements, up to and including the presence of Grim, though that could be chalked up to how the pair haven't met him at this point.
- Girlish Pigtails: Mandy wears these.
- Perpetual Smiler: Mandy smiles the entire short. It's more creepy than endearing.
- Retraux: In the style of a 1950s PSA.
- Truth in Television: Trepanning is a real, archaic pseudoscientific medical procedure and has been around since prehistoric times, a precursor to the modern lobotomy. The characters drilling holes into their skulls with a power drill was a popular practice in late 90s fringe culture. Any actual medical benefits it has are debatable, so Don't Try This at Home.
