" In 1958, FBI agent Dick Jett was kidnapped and cryogenically frozen by a diabolical Nazi scientist! He awoke in the future world of two thousand and twenty-one, a terrifying dystopian apocalypse! He started his own detective agency there, and now this G-man from the past is solving the crimes of the future—the old fashioned way! Always keeping vigilant of the ever-present threat of international Communism, he's the hero America needs! He is...The Frozen '50s Man!"
—Opening Narration
Frozen '50s Man is a satirical comedic Detective Drama created by Andrew Rakich of Atun-Shei Films. The first episode released on March 21, 2021, with episodes being released intermittently after that point.
In 1958, FBI agent, Hardboiled Detective and archetypical man of The '50s Dick Jett (Rakich) is kidnapped and cryogenically frozen by the evil Oberführer-SS Klaus (also Rakich), a high-ranking Nazi turned Humanoid Abomination. After being released in the future year of 2021, Dick suddenly finds that his fifties values have no place in the modern progressive world. Naturally, he starts a private detective agency in order to secure a steady job, and soon finds a partner in Alexis Buttle (Kendra Unique), a radically progressive empowered black woman of the 21st century. Together, They Fight Crime!
The series is notable for lampooning modern politics from an Equal-Opportunity Offender standpoint, but also clearly being very well-researched and never engaging in Windmill Politicals. It's also notable for just being really silly.
Episodes currently released
- Episode 1: "Cancelled...for Murder"
- Episode 2: "Dick's Undercover"
- Episode 3: "The Corsican Dildo"
Frozen '50s Man contains examples of:
- Ambiguously Gay: Two examples from episode 3:
- Bing Fluffernutters, Dick Jett's old partner in the FBI, tells Dick that he looks cute today, has a rather flamboyant manner, and is completely immune to Miss Dubois' charms. It's never elaborated upon, but it's unclear whether he's Camp Gay or Camp Straight. If Dick was comfortable working with him, it's likely that he at least thought he was the latter.
- Thebes Karnak, who speaks with an...interesting accent, likes to put the head of his cane in his mouth, and outright claims that his sexuality is ambiguous. Becomes less ambiguous(at least in Dick's mind) when Dick discovers a ticket to a Judy Garland film festival in his wallet with the tagline "Bring your boyfriends!"note . He's also clearly based on Joel Cairo from The Maltese Falcon (1941), who was gay in the source material but was toned down to (very strong) subtext in the film itself.
- Appeal to Force: In Episode 3, after Dick makes a tasteless joke about "identifying" as a '51 Chrysler when his ANTIFA captors give him their Expository Pronouns, a swift punch to the face gets him to cough up his actual pronouns of he/him.
- Armoured Closet Gay: Inverted with Kit Thistle. Despite being being publicly known as a flamboyant pansexual man in a polyamorous relationship, Thistle's terrible Dark Secret was that he was actually heterosexual and desired a monogamous relationship. Conrad blackmailed him into aiding his scheme by threatening to out him.
- Battle Strip: Bill Racehate removes his shirt before engaging in Good Old Fisticuffs with Dick.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall:
- Klaus at the end of Episode 1 says that Dick is very important to his plans, which will be revealed at the end of a multi-episode arc.
- At the end of episode 2, while recounting the plot revelations he's experienced that day, Dick wonders if the industry insiders he knows are watching will finally reach out to Atun-Shei and commission a full Frozen '50s Man series from him.
- Corrupt Politician: Senator Clint Sleazy from Episode 2. He's The Dragon of the (in-universe incarnation of) the Qanon organization and, like his fellow Q followers and MAGAheads, wants to overthrow the democratic government of America and replace it with a much more reactionary and authoritarian one. Satirically, at the end of the episode after his death, the FBI still tries to cover for him, since he was part of the ruling class and therefore is under their protection despite his efforts to dismantle American democracy.
- Dame with a Case: Parodied in Episode 3. Caroline Dubois arrives in Dick and Bing's office with a case and is a Femme Fatale who is obviously wealthy due to all the "dead, tortured animals" she's wearing. However, Dick and Bing are FBI agents, not private investigators, so Dick immediately points out that civilians aren't allowed to just waltz in and proposition specific agents with cases. Once Miss Dubois points out that she's rich, however, Dick decides to hear her out.
- Depraved Homosexual: One features in Episode 1. Conrad the Comrade, a gay communist YouTuber, cheated on his husband with a fan in his husband's bed. Then he garrotes his lover to death on video, eats the victim's corpse to hide the evidence, and then kills the victim's boyfriend when he discovers Conrad's guilt.
- Driven to Suicide: Bill Racehate in Episode 2 tells everyone at the table that he'd commit suicide via gun-in-the-mouth if he ever ate soy. When Alexis brings a vegan burger to his battle with Jett, and he consumes it to top up on meat, he finds out and calmly puts his money where his mouth is... no pun intended.
- Equal-Opportunity Offender: Frozen '50s Man mocks all sides of the political spectrum through the lens of its Fish out of Temporal Water protagonist Dick Jett. Episode 1 satirizes the online left and Breadtube, while Episode 2 satirizes the MAGA right and Qanon. Episode 2 also ends with Dick getting kidnapped by ANTIFA, and Episode 3 makes fun of people with a basic, surface-level understanding of ANTIFA as "a leftist terrorist group".
- Expy: In Episode 1, Dick's investigation at one point leads him to Kit Thistle, the host of web series Paleontology Tube, who speaks in a ridiculously British accent. Kit looks a lot like Abigail Thorn,note the British host of web series Philosophy Tube, and the one video shown of Paleontology Tube looks like equal parts Philosophy Tube and ContraPoints. Additionally, the murder victim and actual culprit is an expy of socialist streamer Vaush.
- Faux Horrific: In Episode 3, Alexis' plan for what she's going to do with the money from selling the Dildo is related to Dick as if it were a supervillain's master plan, even though it's all about providing equity for all and helping marginalized communities. Of course, to a man of the Eisenhower era like Dick, it might as well actually be horrific.
- Have a Gay Old Time: Parodied in episode 3, with Dick reminiscing about his old partner Bing Fluffernutter and calls him "straight as an arrow"...right before Fluffernutter tells him how cute he is.
- Historical In-Joke: In Episode 2, when Dick is pressed about being a Biden supporter, he says that he would never support a Catholic president. Dick was cryogenically frozen in 1958, just a few years before the presidency of John F. Kennedy, one of only two Catholic presidents in American history (the other being Joe Biden) at the time that the episode came out.
- Like Reality, Unless Noted: Frozen '50s Man appears to take place in a world like this, where it's the 2020s like in reality, except cryogenics work, right-wing misconceptions about ANTIFA are actually true, and the Q of QAnon is secretly a time-traveling Nazi with mystical occult powers.
- Monochrome Past: Generally, any flashbacks that take place in the '40s or '50s are shot entirely in black and white. Episode 3 is mostly in black and white for this reason since it takes place primarily in the past, but also to make the shadows deeper and evoke the feeling of a '50s Film Noir, since it's a Whole-Plot Reference to one such story.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: In episode 2, Dick and Alexis roll up to Senator Sleazy's house in an unmarked white van with the label "DEFINITELY NOT THE FBI" crudely scrawled on it.
- Politically Incorrect Hero: Dick Jett, the titular "Frozen 50's Man." Justified by Deliberate Values Dissonance, given that he is from the 1950s, and doesn't even have a good idea of what "politically correct" means. He believes things from that time period like that women owe men sex and are just playing hard to get, that Communism is the greatest threat to American society and while he definitely isn't an outright racist, he speaks with the paternalism and condescension of someone who doesn't know how to be not racist.
- Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: Dick Jett tries to incapacitate Bill Racehate with a karate chop to the neck (similarly to how he dispatched Kit Thistle an episode earlier) after getting caught snooping around Senator Sleazy's office, but Bill effortlessly shrugs it off. Dick follows it up with several more karate chops, but Bill just laughs and punches him in the head.
- Repeating So the Audience Can Hear: Lampshaded in episode 3. When Dick Jett receives news of his partner Bing Fluffernutters' death, he does this over the phone, but the person on the other end isn't amused.Dick: Well yes, I'm repeating everything you're saying! No, it's not annoying or weird!
- Sarcastic Confession: In order to get into Senator Sleazy's QAnon meeting, Dick Jett tells the unabridged truth when questioned by Bill Racehate at the door about why he was touching his ear.Dick: Oh, I was just talking to my partner. She's out doing surveillance in the van.Bill: Oh, ok. [lets him inside]
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: When "Q" appears in person in Episode 2, and is revealed to be Klaus the Nazi himself, on top of some kind of Humanoid Abomination, the remaining Q cultists immediately abandon the movement, cutting Dick and Alexis loose from their imprisonment and deciding to rethink their lives.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Discussed in episode 3, after the entire story that Dick was recounting turns out to reveal that the Corsican Dildo Dick was pursuing was a fake, and that he has no idea what happened to the original. Alexis is very irritated about this, but Dick gives her an explanation that doubles as a metacontextual defense of Film Noir's slow pace and tendency toward Random Events Plots as a genre.Alexis: Why didn't you tell me that before!? Why did you have to make us go through this entire boring story!?Dick: Well, y'know, cause stories like these aren't really about the plot, so much as they're about the suspense, the mystery, the wacky and memorable characters; y'know, just the general hard-boiled vibe of it all.
- Shout-Out: In Episode 2, Bill Racehate says that he's gotta live by his principles before shooting himself in the mouth.
- Take That!: On her way to rescue Dick while he's locked in battle with Bill Racehate, Alexis can be heard listening to The Joe Rogan Experience podcast and disapproving of something Joe is saying about the efficacy of Ivermectin against COVID-19.Alexis: Oh, Joe. You idiot.
- Unresolved Sexual Tension: Parodied. By Episode 2, Alexis Buttle is clearly developing feelings for the misogynistic Politically Incorrect Hero Dick Jett despite his constant hitting on her, except it's almost beat-for-beat like an actual romance subplot from a '50s detective movie, and also explained in detail by FBI agent Gina Bunkerson directly in front of both her and Dick during the Unfolding Plan Montage.Gina: At 8:16, Ms. Buttle's mind will be a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions; "Why, Why!? Why am I attracted to him?" She'll think to herself. "He's a chauvinistic pig and I'm-I'm a dynamic progressive; we're from two different worlds! We have nothing in common, it would never work! Oh, but my mind and my body are telling me two different things and I don't even know what to do!" Then at exactly 8:17 P.M, the words of your dear departed Gram-Gram will creep into your already racing mind: "Alexis, sweetie, you must always remember to tell the ones you love how you feel! Life is too short!" But is it love? Is it? Really? No, no it's not. But could it be? Could it? Given time and attention, could it not flourish like a blooming orchid on a shimmering summer morn? *~Gasp~* But you have no time for such romantic musings; you've got a job to do.
- Webcomic Time: So far, the entire show has only spanned from 2021 into presumably 2022 with a time skip between the first two episodes, despite how each episode's lengthy production has resulted in the show being produced well into 2024. Not helping matters is that episodes 2 and 3 have cliffhangers which cause the next episode to have to be an Immediate Sequel.
- Whole-Plot Reference: Episode 3 of Frozen '50s Man, "The Corsican Dildo", is one to The Maltese Falcon (1941). It features Dick getting roped into machinations to claim a priceless object just as Sam Spade did in the movie. Just like in the film, the Dildo turns out to be a fake, and the criminals decide to make off after the real one, but unlike the film, the woman was actually innocent of his partner's murder... but Dick needed something to show his bosses, so he scapegoated her.
- Worst News Judgement Ever: The front-page of a newspaper in 2021 announces the end of racial segregation following the 1964 Civil Rights movement purely so Dick Jett can express horror.
