Alright meatmaggots, LET'S GET STUPID LOUD!
*SHH!*
Urhm, sorry... I mean, describe Secret Mountain Fort Awesome.
The brainchild of cartoonist and animator Pete Browngardt (whose previous credits include Futurama, Chowder and Adventure Time) and broadcast on Cartoon Network, this short-lived toon covers the misadventures of five monsters - known collectively as Disgustoids - who live in an underground mountain (the titular fort of the series) and generally cause mischief either among themselves or with the people on the surface world while trying to fit in with them. To put it lightly, HILARITY ENSUES!
Said monsters are:
- Festro: The de facto leader of the bunch, a purple monster with giant fangs who only wears underwear.
- Fart: The only sensible monster of the bunch. He also happens to be made entirely out of butts.
- Dingle: The blue monster who acts mostly like a dog and speaks in gibberish.
- Slog: The hairy monster with a big nose.
- and Gweelok: A monster who looks like a giant pus ball.
The show takes its humour and art style from Pete Browngardt's Uncle Grandpa pilot for Cartoonstitute, and is in part a affectional parody/homage to the Totally Radical gross-out cartoons of the late 80s. Unfortunately, its rowdy, over-the-top humour struggled to find an audience and plans for a second season (which was already in production) were scrapped, with only half of the first series actually broadcast.
Browngardt has since admitted the show was the result of Executive Meddling: following the network's plan to age up their programming from TV-Y7 to TV-PG, the bigwigs at CN saw potential in the monster characters - some of them early prototypes of the Disgustoids - from Uncle Grandpa and approached Browngardt to develop a series about them. Needless to say, they were baffled with the finished product and immediately declared it a flop.
Still, for all the collective venom being spewed at this show, it's worth pointing out that it went on to pick up several prestigious animation awards (more so in its short run than the network's flagship shows Adventure Time and Regular Show achieved), and eventually led to Browngardt getting his original Uncle Grandpa concept off the ground and onto our TV screens.
The show was seen in the 2012 reboot of Cartoon Planet.
Secret Mountain Fort Awesome contains the following tropes:
- 419 Scam: In the episode "The 6th Disgustoid" Gweelok fell for this trick reading an e-mail from a scammer claiming to be the prince of some foreign country. The scammer's identity is revealed to be Bromanor.
- Adaptational Heroism: In the Uncle Grandpa short the Disgustoids are enemies of Uncle Grandpa and are brutal monsters who attack humans randomly. While in Secret Mountain Fort Awesome, they are more jerks with hearts of gold and somewhat misunderstood, they also idolize Uncle Grandpa rather than acting as his enemies.
- Big Brother Instinct: Festro calls his friends his "bros" and at times he has a protective side for them. In "Nightmare Sauce" he faced his worst fear (of wearing mom jeans) to save them all from his nightmare. In "Dingle Come Home" he declares war on a crazy cat lady when he mistakes her for kidnapping Dingle. In "Party Slog" he stands up for Slog when he realizes the humans only like him for his abs.
- Affectionate Parody:
- The episode "Labyrinth" is a big one of a movie of the same name, with Jerry the Troll King parodying Jareth the Goblin King and his songs.
- "Party Slog" has Slog doing a walk of shame in a city near a sewer.
- The Cameo:
- A picture
◊ of Scooby-Doo can be seen briefly in the episode "What it do Nephew?" - Jake the Dog can be seen◊ in a movie projector screen in the episode "The 6th Disgustoid".
- A picture
- Cold Turkeys Are Everywhere: The third episode has the group making a bet with Gweelok that he can't use the internet for 24 hours. Not surprisingly, they try to tempt him to use it.
- Deranged Animation: Though considering Cartoon Network's then-recent efforts, this shouldn't come as a surprise.
- Ears as Hair: Dingle has hair that looks like dog ears.
- Fantastic Racism: Most of the humans in the show shun the Disgustoids or treat them like second-class citizens, which justifies the show's main conflict.
- Gag Series: This show's humor is extremely out there.
- Gassy Scare: One moment has Festro coming to the aid of a woman with a bulging belly, apparently about to give birth, but it's revealed to be just horrible gas that she farts out right in front of him once he presses a hand on her stomach.
- Genre Throwback: To the grossout-heavy, Totally Radical Saturday Morning Cartoons of the late 1980s/early 1990s.
- Gross-Out Show: Surprisingly subverted, the designs of the show seem to be this but otherwise it's surprisingly tame and focuses more on the humor of the characters rather than obligatory Gross-Up Close-Ups.
- Grotesque Gallery: Naturally, the Disgustoids fall into this, but that's nothing compared to how the humans are drawn.
- The Hedonist: All five Disgustoids have traits of this, though Festro is easily the much hedonistic of the bunch.
- Hypocrite: Most of the humans hate the Disgustoids for being disgusting, despite most being just as ugly and gross looking.
- Hypocritical Humor: Most of the time when a human calls the Disgustoids gross and ugly, they have a gross-up close up of their faces, looking much worse than the Disgustoids they insult.
- Infinity Plus One Television: The Megavision television was said to get Infinity Plus One channels.
- Insane Troll Logic: Somehow eating sandwiches with 4-year-old mayo allows you to travel through time.
- Killer Rabbit: The adorable (and huge) kitten in the second episode. Fart falls for its cuteness and gets eaten but explodes it from the inside with his farts.
- Medium Blending:
- This show mixes hand-drawn and cut-out animation styles.
- The episode "Just for Kicks" sees Festro battle a CGI velociraptor over a pair of sneakers.
- Only Sane Man: Fart.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: Let's see...we've got a purple ogre with huge tusks and nothing but underwear, a man made out of BUTTS, a hairy big-nosed creature, a walking ball of pus, and something resembling an emaciated dog speaking in gibberish.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: In the first episode, the Disgustoids put mustaches on their faces, which make them look like real life humans (emphasis on real life).
- Pro Wrestling Episode: "Wrestlemaniacs" has Festro and Fart become wrestlers to fight over who gets the last french fry.
- Riddle for the Ages: The show didn't survive long enough to get to establish an origin for the Disgustoids or their many-roomed secret fort, so we can only guess.
- Shout-Out:
- The short Peace on Earth in the episode "7,002".
- Also there's a huge scene in "President the Fart" that is based off Rainbow Road in Mario Kart. Dingle even plays a similar role to that of Lakitu when Festro falls off.
- "Broken Chair" has a part where Dingle has his own band. They play a song that sounds similar to "Crazy Train" by Ozzy Osbourne. Dingle then holds a bat and appears to be fixing to bite its head off but he kisses it instead.
- "Labyrinth" is an episode-long Affectionate Parody of the film.
- In "Funstro", Fart tries to calm down a toothache-ridden Festro by performing a William Shatner-style cover of the theme to Mr. Belvedere.
- Special Edition Title: "Secret Mountain Uncle Grandpa" has Uncle Grandpa shouting "SECRET MOUNTAIN FORT AWESOME!" instead of the regular voice.
- Title-Only Opening: Done in the hammiest way possible!
- Tooth Fairy: Appears as the antagonist in the episode "Funstro" as the Disgustoids tries to retrive Festro's fang to turn him back into normal. The Tooth Fairy is portrayed as a Rock n Roll' monster voiced by Dee Snider.
- The Tooth Hurts: "Funstro" has Fesrto getting one of his fangs damaged after eating a tiny robot. Removing one of them makes him turn into Funstro and removing both makes him turn into Fightstro.
- The Unintelligible: Dingle, yet the other monsters can understand him.
- Weaksauce Weakness: Festro apparently has a crippling fear of mom jeans, which the other Disgustoids help him conquer.
