There’s nothing worse than having to sit down and read loads of words. Especially if you’ve broken your leg or had your eyes ripped out by a sexually aggressive crow. That’s why we like to help you out by making some videos for you every now and then.

It doesn’t mean they’re good- as you can see Dep Ed Michael & ‘Spray scribe Euan have very, very shaky hands. That doesn’t matter though because, for your viewing pleasure, they’ve had a think about what Lawyers do when they’re not out chasing ambulances.

Matthew Broderick is a man with a surprisingly unremarkable film career.

We don’t mean he doesn’t make money- we’re sure he’s super-successful if judged by wealth. However, before you continue reading, grab a pad of paper and a pen. If, like us, you get hand-cramp from even writing your own name, then just open up a word document instead.

Now make a list of all the Matthew Broderick films of which you can remember. Done that? Now cross out all the ones that weren’t artistic travesties. Come on, be honest with yourselves. By the way if you didn’t cross out Godzilla it’s probably best if you cease this exercie immediately.

As a reliable rule of thumb one should master cutlery before tacking cultural discourse on the internet.

Don’t look on Wikipedia, that’s cheating. Now how many films have you got? Not many eh? 3, 4, 5 maybe? Weird isn’t it for an almost 30 year career?  We were surprised because we like equine bothering super nice-guy Matthew Broderick. The reason any of us still have a soft spot for him is because of Ferris Bueller.

If you like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, then you’ll probably love the new Honda commercial/Bueller homage made for the crazily valuable Superbowl commercial break slot. We say probably because you may feel there’s some ‘selling out’ issue. If that’s the case you may just have to accept that movies aren’t early 80s hardcore punk and that Matthew Broderick isn’t Henry Rollins.

Once you’ve done that then you can sit back and enjoy. Then depending on how keen you are, watch it again and look out  for the subtle details that were put there for your nerd-ass.

Oh, and try not to think about the fact that he looks like  70 year old botoxed woman when he has the towel on his head.

Pre-determination is something that the same fools who believe in superstition go in for in a big way. You might recognise it as fate or the ‘thundering approach to emotional and financial oblivion’. If you believe in fate then you probably married the first person who ever gave you an orgasm and are now woefully unhappy, only able to console yourself by watching romantic comedies.

Even as you do so, you realise everything seems to work out well for the shining-faced Hollywood elite. That is despite their belief and reliance on exactly the same concept which has led you to a life of raised voices and thinly veiled hatred. Fate worked out okay for them, didn’t it? Why not you?

Anyway, enough about your bitter, twisted existence.

You see, fate is a weapon which is used against you. From your formative years, you’ll remember the fairy tales where the prince always met the beautiful princess and guess what: they lived happily ever after. It was never a case of boy meets girl, girl meets other boy and they all lived horribly ever after, only communicating through lawyers, was it? Their fates were mapped out and they knew that the person they ended up with would be “the one” for them. That’s not just because royal families are notorious for marrying internally and producing offspring with webbed toes; it’s because the fates are strong with these ones.

As you begin to grow up, you’ll move onto “teen” things for “teens” and these are a little bit more angsty. You’ll see people going through highly glossed break-ups and angry retribution because you’re a teenager and this stuff is designed to fill you with the proper quotient of ire about the world you’re forced to grow up in. “Why can’t things be like they are in fairytales?” You’ll post on your Tumblr (or your diary, depending on how old you are) but let’s face it. Teen dramas always end with the two buff dickheads who broke up at the start getting back together or meeting their future spouses through their ex. There’s always the suggestion of serendipity, even if your warped teenage mind can’t get your head round it.

When you’re older, you think you’re wiser and you won’t fall for silly things like fate but just wait until that person you quite fancied at school adds you on Facebook and you’ll find yourself wondering ‘what if’. You’ve been conditioned to believe in fate and pre-determination. That’s why adverts have become so predictable.

Take this latest example of fuckwaddery from BT. Unable to tie ‘the berk from My Family’ down to a new contract, BT were forced to try and update THE GREATEST DRAMA OF OUR MODERN AGE without mentioning the fact that Whatsisface died in a horrifying Space Shuttle crash in the Adriatic Sea. They decided to go back to the start to when Whatsisname from My Family met Whoserface from other things by sending one of the irritating children to university. Presumably to study for a proper degree given that he’ll never get another acting job after this (I’m willing to be proved wrong on that one).

You see, if you go back in time to the original advert, Thingy and Whozit meet through a completely serendipitous moment. Fast forward to 2012 and here’s Young Whozit running into a girl who wants to live in the same flat as him. No looks are shared but you can tell where this is going.

There’s not much to say about the advert itself. You can all see the sheer idiocy of the creepy ‘geek’ who has an interest in touching the bits of Young Whozit’s future love and I’m quite sure you can visualise trying to make friends in your teenage years by talking about the speed of broadband (or dial-up… or fax machines… or how long it takes to dial a phone… or send a telegram). It’s not something that marks you out as an interesting human being.

It does show that BT are going back to the start and the cycle of fortunate events will begin anew. The two will enjoy a blossoming romance, held together by a love of superfast broadband (which isn’t superfast at all) while ‘the geek’ tries to ruin the blossoming romance by hilariously spiking the wrong person’s drink on a night out. Or something. It doesn’t matter. Four years down the line, you’ll be at a wedding in the ad break for Britain’s Got Talent and you’ll wonder where the hell we all went wrong.

Is it their fault for relying on the same old bullshit to shift Broadband plans or is it yours for buying into it from childhood?

Unsettling news has reached hecklerspray! No, seriously. This is weird. Apparently, T-Pain sleeps in a coffin! A velvet-lined coffin no less! We’re terrified! We’ll never say anything nasty about lovely T-Pain again.

He’ll probably cause us a world of T-Pain. That’s the worst kind of pain there is. Much worse than B-Pain or P-Pain.

And we have the FCU to thank for this discovery as they uncover the strange world of one of hip-pop’s most famous. Not only that, we meet T-Pain’s twin! Yes. It gets creepier by the second! AAARGH!

The Fact Checkers Unit dive into the world of pop with help from Mark McGrath and Samsung Galaxy, who see no trivial rumour about a celebrity too ridiculous for investigation!

The duo are sent on an impossible fact mission and come up trumps.

Alas, the documentary team following these brave souls are accosted by T-Pain himself (and his identical family members) and it’s all very, very thrilling.

Of course, the FCU use their magical Galaxy Note’s (a generous 5.3-inch HD Super AMOLED touch screen, the splendid S Pen and whatnot) to check out these celebrity facts and capture evidence with the miracle of photography and editing software that comes on their device.

Watch them in action.

This advertorial was sponsored by Samsung Galaxy

What kind of monster empathises with animals? Is it because they’ve got the same colour blood as us? In fact, there’s people out there who have more sympathy for animals than they do people from different cultures.

Humans are stupid and this is proven by the need for them to have animals as pets.

Think about it. There’s people in this awful world that like nothing more than staring at silent fish in a tank. There’s people out there who like to dress their dogs up like little humans. There’s even people who think that cats are anything other than selfish, greedy snobs who only cohabit with humans to get an easy feed.

If aliens came to Earth, they’d almost certainly ask about our need to live with other species and not eat them. We spend years fattening these creatures up and then, somehow, we end up letting them lick us in our mouths and sleep on our beds while we leave the radio on for them so they don’t feel lonely while we’re at work.

Like animals have the clout to feel ‘loneliness’. The only thing they’re sufficiently able to do is produce waste-products from all that food we’ve given them.

And for what? A short life span which sees them absolutely dying before we do, leaving us to be thoroughly upset about something that never showed true kindness to us. It was an imagined kindness. We put human emotions on them because we’ve become unable to deal with our own. We’re too filled with fear to mix with other communities or people of different ages, divided by social spheres and musical tastes, and so, we transpose what we would like to see in people onto them.

This is how an actual conversation with your cat goes like:

Owner: Oh, hello Snookins! I’ve had an awful day. *puts plethora of bags down*

Snookins: FEED ME

Owner: Oooh! You are adorable! Have you missed me?

Snookins: FEED ME.

Owner: Just a second Snookins! Just let me pour myself a glass of wine.

Snookins: FEED ME. I HAVE URINATED BEHIND THE TELEVISION.

Owner: Aw, you! You’re the only person I need! You understand me don’t you? Oh Snookins, I don’t know what I’d do without you.

Snookins: FEED ME OR I’M GOING TO THAT OLD LADY’S HOUSE DOWN THE ROAD WHO BUYS CAT FOOD EVEN THOUGH SHE DOESN’T HAVE A CAT.

Owner: Oh, you are the most handsome cat in the whole world Snookins! Don’t you want letting out?

Snookins: I’M SCRATCHING AT THE DOOR BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT FEEDING ME FAST ENOUGH SO I’M GOING TO THE OLD LADY DOWN THE ROAD. THEN I’LL KILL SOMETHING AND BRING IT IN THE HOUSE. THEN I’LL DEMAND MORE FOOD. I AM INCAPABLE OF THIS THING YOU CALL LOVE.

Owner: Go on. Out you go Snookins. I’m not alone as long as I’ve got you.

Snookins: I HATE YOU BECAUSE YOU MADE SOMEONE CUT OUT MY REPRODUCTIVE ORGANS. I’LL WANT MORE FOOD LATER. I’LL STICK MY BUMHOLE IN YOUR FACE LATER.

Owner: I love you Snookins.

Snookins: I BARELY KNOW YOU BECAUSE YOU’RE A DIFFERENT SPECIES.

And that’s the truth of the matter. With dogs, they simply want feeding constantly. They won’t even show behaviour what looks like malice, unless you count the mindless violent they perform on postmen around the world.

It’s this inherent failing and loneliness in humans that has been our downfall. While animals get on with surviving, we’ve developed empathy which, in turns, enables the heartless to exploit us all one-by-one until all we have left is passive-aggressive status updates on various social networking sites.

And pets are entirely to blame.

This post was sponsored by Dos Equis

By now the haze of Christmas parties is bound to have worn off and you’ll be sitting there with nothing to show from the festive period but a photocopy of your genitals and an unplanned pregnancy; you’re probably looking back on the month or so preceding this and thinking, “Where did it all go wrong?”

That’s simple. You’re one of these people who gets so excited about the concept of Christmas that you vomit all over your facebook with excitement the first time you see that terrible Coca Cola advert.

SO YOU’VE PROBABLY ALREADY GUESSED THAT I’M GOING TO RUB IT IN YOUR FACE WHILE YOU RUB YOURSELF AND WONDER IF YOU MIGHT HAVE CRABS.

After all, that’s what Christmas is all about.

Let’s talk turkey (aha!), the Coca Cola advert is an unmitigated disaster zone of hackneyed ideas and 50s’-style ‘buy this, it’s good for what ails ye’ advertising. The fact that so many people see it as a sign of the festive period beginning is enough to make any sensible person run out into the street with a bolt-gun to start euthanising children before their parents manage to indoctrinate them into believing that advertising has anything to do with the start of the Christmas period.

Of course, I wouldn’t do that as I’m far too afraid of the brutal honesty of children to ever go near them whether I’m armed or otherwise.

Regardless of that fact, the Coke advert signifies the beginning of Christmas to many people who like to pour onto social networks proclaiming, “OMGCOKEADVERTITZTOTALLYCHRIMBOYAAAAAALOLMAO.”

The obvious question is ‘What has Coke ever done for Christmas?’. That is, aside from inventing Santa Claus in his current form and covering up your relatives’ alcohol problem on Christmas day. Coca Cola isn’t a particularly festive drink and therefore they’ve taken to disguising it with picture-postcard, Werthers Original style visuals and a song that is, I’m afraid to say, worse than Cliff Richard’s Millenium Prayer.

Coca Cola doesn’t bring the joy of the season and the idea of millions of people suddenly rushing to put their trees up when the Coke advert comes on fills me with a sense of dread usually reserved for a nuclear holocaust and a new Michelle MacManus album. Have you ever actually seen a Coca Cola truck like that? Are they like TV License Detector vans? There’s only one and it spends its life on a thankless PR dirge around the country?

Yes, Coca Cola invented Santa Claus, the red suited jolly version at least and we’re supposed to be infinitely grateful to them for allowing us to use him in our children’s folklore. Of course we should be! Thank you Coca Cola! Given the size of the company, they could easily charge you royalties every time you put out a mince pie and a glass of sherry on Christmas eve.

But wait. If we are to assume that the ‘accepted’ version of Santa Claus as the big, jolly red-coated gent that we see today comes directly from the marketing bods at the Coca Cola Company* then we might as well be telling the children of the world that their presents will be delivered by Ronald McDonald or those dickheads from the Pepsi adverts. Christmas owes nothing to Coca Cola and the mere suggestion that it ‘marks the beginning’ of festivities is often made by the same people that complain when there’s Hallowe’en costumes in supermarkets in mid-September.

Still, if you are one of the bleating sheep that rely on Coca Cola to tell you when you can start being nice to people then think of it this way: when you’re a kid, you believe that Santa Claus is real and maybe you believe that he’s directly responsible for delivering Coke. Then you grow up and you find out Santa isn’t real and you actually have to go out and buy gifts for the people you love. Maybe you want to cling on to part of that Christmas magic and the first sight of the Coca Cola trucks gives you that sense of wonder and joy that you’ve been lacking since you hit puberty.

It’s a nice thought isn’t it? It still means you’re being manipulated into feeling an emotion by an advertising company though. Maybe that’s what Christmas is all about after all.

Still, Merry Christmas an’ all that.

*In fact the depiction of Santa Claus in his ‘current form’ predates the advertising of Coca Cola but given that Father Christmas is essentially a series of lies to build the hopes of children and amuse the dull lives of adults (much as Hecklerspray do), we thought we’d keep the lie going. You’re welcome. Merry Christmas.

This Christmas, you may be pushing the boat out and spoiling yourself something rotten. You may have bought a load of cheeses that you wouldn’t normally buy. You may have got three bottles of drink in an attempt to make cocktails. It is the only time of year you ever buy pâté.

Feels good doesn’t it?

Well, Sean Diddy Combes lives like that all the time. He can have pâté whenever he wants. He’s so wealthy that he could mash-up Frosties in pâté just to see what it’s like. And, because he can, he’s decided to start a new Rat Pack and takeover of Vegas. And there’s a film to accompany it.

With the help of Cîroc Ultra Premium Vodka, P. Diddy takes us plebs on a journey to Vegas with him as he rolls big, round Sin City, soundtracked by Sinatra’s ‘Luck Be A Lady’.

Combs said, eyeing his bank statement:

“Frank Sinatra made some of the most iconic records of our time; it is truly an honor to use his music again for this campaign. The Rat Pack defined the art of celebrating in style. I cannot imagine a Spirit more suitable for commemorating life with family and friends than Cîroc; a brand that has become synonymous with celebratory occasions.”

Diddy is joined by some of Hollywood’s brightest upstarts. Like who? There’s Chad Michael Murray of One Tree Hill, Michael K. Williams of Boardwalk Empire, Jesse Williams of Grey’s Anatomy, Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul, Vegas headliner Matt Goss super model Lisa Seiffert and others.

So while you’re sat in your underpants watching Christmas television and eating a ring of frozen prawns, remember this: P Diddy and his pals are having a much better time than you.

Furthermore, they look much cooler while they’re doing it. Merry Christmas!

This post was sponsored by Cîroc

So, Christmas is upon us. It’s a time of goodwill, presents, stuffing your face and, if you’re us, a constant reminder of how absolutely no-one ever wants to spend any time at all with us. No. We’re not getting used to it.

However, you might be loved by so-called ‘people’.

In that case, chances are you’ll be having some kind of soiree and you’ll be putting out the nibbles, sporting your best clobber, feverishly tidying the house so people think you don’t normally live in a cesspit and pouring drinks while burping up witticisms stolen from other parties you went to that made you jealous. You’ll be needing to invite people, right? Let us help.

Of course, we’re not the people to ask about inviting other humans to a party. We’re so despairingly unpopular that we may as well send messages in bottles to faraway shores and hope it lands at the feet of a pitying millionaire who wants to give something back to the community.

Not you though. You’re brilliant. People love hanging around with you. They love that unobtrusive music you put on. They love your coronation chicken recipe (we won’t tell anyone you bought it from a shop and sneakily plopped it into your own ramekins.

So if you want to send an invite that’s a little different from the usual store-bought card which you sprinkled a bit of glitter on to make it look like you’d made them yourself, how about inviting them with a bespoke video?

That’s what Absolut Vodka are offering and you can find out how to do it by watching the video below. Look at how clean the host’s house is.

You’re competing with that!

This post was sponsored by Absolut, if you hadn’t guessed.

Christmas is-a-coming, and the geese are getting fat. Handy really as they’ll probably be eaten soon along with turkeys, vegetables, pudding and of course, lots of mulled wine and the like.

As much as it pains us, we really like Christmas. It’s all about eating, drinking and allowing us the opportunity to crack a smile once a year. Of course, we’ll be sulking after watching an hour of Christmas television, but the idea of Christmas is overwhelmingly brilliant for a period.

And we’re not the only ones getting in the Yuletide spirit! And what better way to get you in the mood than Christmas music which, despite what the shops blurt out, ain’t all bad at all!

It goes without saying that a lot of Christmas music is lousier than a lousy wheelbarrow filled with lousiness, but sometimes, Christmas music can blindside you and really get you in the swing of things.

hecklerspray is known for weeping salty tears of sentimental weakness in the face of an old brass band playing in the winter wind.

So imagine, you’re out doing your Christmas shopping and suddenly, you’re surrounded by a T-Mobile flashmob and they make you go all Yuley.

Imagine no more. Watch this. Then you can have a listen to some of our favourite Christmas songs!

See? People smiling and having fun and, most importantly, being slightly bewildered initially! That’s what the festive season is all about, right? Bewilderment and dancing! So, here’s a selection of our fave festive numbers and there’s absolutely no Wonderful Christmastime or Mud.

Mabel Scott Boogie Woogie Santa Claus

Elvis Santa Bring My Baby Back

Rotary Connection Christmas Love

Stevie Christmas Song

Marvin Purple Snowflakes

Go-Go’s I’m Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek

Clarence Carter Back Door Santa

Frank Cosmo Merry Christmas

Big Joe Turner Christmas Date Boogie

Honey And The Bees Jing A Ling

This post was sponsored by T-Mobile, which is nice.

We all dream of doing something cool for a living, right? Becoming a bass-player in a hot band or making ice-sculptures for obscenely wealthy investor balls. Well, some people actually have the nerve to go and do it.

We’re not jealous at all. Nope.

Okay. We’re hugely envious of these people. However, listening to them speak can be rather inspiring, mainly because the cynic in you thinks ‘Hey! Look at this bozo! I could do his job!‘ Well, Sailor Jerry have made a buncha short films looking at people who have enviously great jobs but aren’t idiots with it.

Of course, not all cool jobs will make you grotesquely wealthy overnight.

The films made by Sailor Jerry look at labours of love and people who can’t quite believe their luck, which is irritatingly sweet for jaded hacks like us.

And so, here’s a selection of videos that show off those who decided to go for broke in the world of tattooing, motorcycles and more.

God, we’re so unswervingly pathetic in comparison.

This article is sponsored by Sailor Jerry, which is just swell

Bruce Willis. Actor. Man who made being bald cool. Ex of Demi Moore. Singer who was signed to Motown Records (yes, really). Funny and seemingly pretty decent bloke. So what else can he do?

Is there any end to his talents?

Seemingly not as ol’ Willzo is a booze innovator. Basically, you’ve all been tackling your liquor all wrong. You have. You’ve just been drinking it, haven’t you? Straight from the bottle or pouring it into a glass like a big, boring berk. It is time for Bruce Willis to teach you in the ways of alcoholic righteousness.

See, there’s a reason that Bruce Willis is gigantically famous and adored by millions of humans. It’s because he looks at the world at large and tries to make it a better place.

For you. And for me. And the entire human race.

And what do you do? You just sit there, covered in crumbs and sheets, waiting for luminaries like Bruce Willis to come along and save your day from the unending tedium of your life.

So, with these videos, Brucie Boy is going to show you just how versatile a bottle of drink can be. It is clearly more than a simple receptacle and potential lazy candle holder.

Hark.

More? He’s teaming with ideas!

Need more proof? This is our favourite.

This post was sponsored by Sobieski, which is nice of them.

Ladies and gentlemen, let’s not dilly-dally around the issue of Christmas advertising. It’s everywhere and it’s so aggressive that 90% of the time you feel less like it’s the most wonderful time of the year™ and is more akin to being drugged and lured onto a railway platform by a sexually excited Jeremy Clarkson.

It’s only really supermarkets that show any interest in being nurturing and suggesting that your entire Christmas experience will be easier if you shop with them. That is until you step through their front door to be confronted by a modern-day reenactment of the Battle of the Somme. You’ve all seen it. Grandmothers entrenched in the biscuit aisle launching barrage after barrage of garibaldis on the “boche” in their dugouts made from microwavable Christmas puddings and tiny tubs of brandy butter.

There’s obviously some digression in there. The long and short of it is that Christmas marketing is mostly lies and aggressive selling to make us feel bad that we haven’t spent enough money.

That is until you hit the kids’ market. What’s the best way to make you, the adult, feel like you haven’t spent enough on your little bundles of joy? That’s the easiest job in marketing. Tell the kids about all this great stuff that they don’t have. You don’t even have to mention it explicitly; kids are so inherently evil that they know exactly what features the latest all-singing, all-dancing Optimus Prime figure has without even needing to be told so marketing becomes even easier.

The real problem is, what do you do when you’re not shouting directly at the children? You need a song. You need a really, really catchy song. You need a song that people can recite the lyrics to despite not having heard it in 300 days. Why not try something like this?

Yes! That’s it, that’s the one. You’re singing it now. There could be anything written on this line and you wouldn’t have a bloody clue. Your child is hideously ugly. Anyway, let’s move on. Toys R’ Us gave us one of the most iconic Christmas adverts of all time with this effort. You can’t see any of the products but you know it sells toys and an absolute ton of them at that. Easy, right?

Subsequently they have updated the advert every year to take into account new advances in animation etc. As you can see in this one from last year they just updated the animation without removing any of the message from the advert. You can buy pretty much any toys you want from this superstore from a massive, anthropomorphic giraffe. Why change a winning a winning formula?

Well, they did and now we have this.

Oh.

Usually we’d spent another 500 words picking the ad apart and referring back to what was said in the opening paragraphs. That’s pretty much the structure of one of these articles. To break from the tradition though, here’s an impassioned plea from people who grew up thinking Toys R’ Us was the most magical and wonderful place in the universe (because we could bully our parents into buying us toys).

Toys R’ Us isn’t Argos. It’s not somewhere to pragmatically advertise the product and the price in a bland ineffective way. You’re trying to capture the imagination of kids without having to resort to a Bieber-esque musical number about remaining a target for paedophiles well into your late thirties.

Change it back.

Go on.

Seriously. You know what you’ve done, that’s why you’ve disabled the comments on your new ad. You know it’s terrible as well. You’ve paid good money to inflict that upon the public and now you can’t take it back. We know that and we don’t blame you for it. Next year though, eh? Let’s see a triumphant return to the good ol’ days.

If you don’t, you’ll probably lose an entire generation of Toys R’ Us kids, kids, kids, kid, kid, ki, ki, ki, k.

Oi! You look like a bright spark! You look like a regularly little sleuth who can work tricky puzzles out in the name of gain! A regular little Carmen Sandiego aren’t you?

Unless, of course, you’re more of an Inspector Gadget and continually mess things up, forever to be bailed out by your niece and her dog. Seriously. Have a word with yourself or you’ll end up with Matthew Broderick playing you in a film, and no-one wants that.

No, you’re needed to travel through time. Yes you are. You need to go back to 1780, specifically to Dublin, so you can find the missing barrel. WoooOOOOoOo. YEAH?

So what do you need to find this missing barrel?

Well, you’ll need concentration! You’ll need COURAGE! And you’ll need a Facebook account. The latter isn’t as dramatic, granted, but y’know, Dublin in the 1700′s actually did have Facebook accounts. They were ahead of their time the Irish. Honest they were.

Anyway, you’ll need to watch this video and then visit Jameson1780.com to find out more.

It really is terribly exciting and, should you need to sharpen your mind, we advice drinking some whisky first because, as we all know, humans definitely think better when they’ve had a glass of adult pop.

Just look at Inspector Morse. He was always doing a bit of ‘thinking’ in the pub. Perhaps we should rebrand whisky as ‘think-drink’?

Anyway, watch this. Solve a mystery.

The word retro is often misused. People tend to mean ‘old’, rather than something new, that looks vintage. That’s what retro is. Anyway, we got thinking about retro things and, in particular, cartoons.

That’s because cartoons are the best thing ever, ever, EVER.

Of course, there was a golden age of cartoons with Bugs Bunny, Tom & Jenny, Roadrunner et all, providing us with snappy jokes, immediate punchlines and amazing, hair-raising action! But cartoons didn’t stop being good. In fact, in recent years, some ‘toons have tried to recreate that vintage animation spectacle, capturing the spirit of getting hit in the face with a pan, or better yet, a complete and utter disregard for being remotely realistic. In short, let’s look at the best retro cartoons!

Naturally, being retro cartoons, they have to be pretty modern, yet hark back to a different age. It goes without saying that all cartoons owe something to The Flintstones or Elmer Fudd, but we’re interested in those that explicitly lean on the great cartoons of yesteryear.

Sometimes it’s in the spirit of the show, sometimes you’ll find it in the drawings themselves.

What got us thinking about old ‘toons was Müller’s wünderful stuff campaign that brings back Muttley, The Mr Men and Yogi Bear. We loved all those shows. If you haven’t seen the commercial yet (seriously? It’s everywhere!), have a look at it now.

Anyway, onto our favourite cartoons, all that definitely a vibe of the past about them. You’re advised to disagree with us and spout off in the comments.

Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends

Johnny Bravo

Ren & Stimpy

Dexter’s Lab

Aqua Teen Hunger Force

Adventure Time

Power Puff Girls

Fairly OddParents

The Regular Show

Samurai Jack

This post was sponsored by Muller, which is nice of them, eh?

It’s christmas. Woopdeedoo and loop de loop and all that. Yes, that’s right, since you all asked so fucking nicely, we didn’t bother to do a video this week as it’s the festive season and is therefore all about building up your hopes in order to dash them.

In fact, we’re so set on driving you all to distraction that we’re going to have Christmas specials every week now because that’s exactly what christmas is all about. Incessant disappointment until you eat so much chocolate and drink so much cheap sherry that you may as well check into Dignitas on Boxing Day.

Still, euthanasia aside, it’s always best to start the Christmas period as early as possible because that’s where you make the most money and since all of you dribbling gits out there in internet land believe that the Christmas period can only officially begin when the Coca Cola advert has tugged its way around your heartstrings, we decided to start as soon as they do.

Really early.

Christmas adverts take a few very set, very distinct and very dull paths. They either play to your sentimental side like Coca Cola or John Lewis, they play it for laughs like DFS (no, they really are) or they traipse out some washed-up celebrities in order to point at them and shout, “LOOK! THESE CELEBRITIES ENJOY CHRISTMAS AND THAT MEANS IT’S OKAY FOR YOU TO HAVE A NICE TIME AS WELL!”

That is unless you’re a child, in which case the advertising is still shouting at you but it’s more likely to be saying, “YOU WILL FORCE YOUR USELESS PEON PARENTS TO BANKRUPT THEMSELVES BUYING THIS TOY THAT YOU WILL PLAY WITH A MAXIMUM OF FIVE TIMES BEFORE IT BREAKS AND IS FORGOTTEN ABOUT IN A BOX! THERE IS NO SANTA CLAUS! BUY OUR PRODUCTS!” It’s a tough lesson but it’s one that children should learn from an early age.

Some adverts actually go out of their way to combine all these elements into 30 second mini-dramas with a narrative and a heart and real, genuine drama. Step forward, Very.co.uk.

Drama. It opens with a Sergio Leone/Ennio Morricone duel close-up. The forlorn strings of a guitar warble out in the distance. The slightly odd sight of two television presenters going up against the Il Duce of Christmas himself is completely offset by the sudden sense of tension…

…oh, what’s that hyper-irritating version of ‘Anything You Can Do…’ doing there?

In an effort to explain the sudden appearance of this jaunty brainworm, spokesmorons and celebrity bum-chums Holly & Fearne are quickly shown beating Santa at his own game of counter-intuitive housebreaking. Where Santa seems to fail is that he can’t just wander through someone’s front door at 8 in the evening.

Why?

He’s not bloody famous, that’s why.

Besides Fearne thinking she can ‘bring back’ a hairstyle that looks like a ploughed field, they’re showing him up by interacting with a family. It’s cosy, it’s sentimental. That’s where TV presenters and Santa Claus differ you see, Santa Claus isn’t a self-praising narcissist. If they really wanted to do Santa’s job better than him then they could do worse than to disappear from existence in a puff of smoke, becoming a lie that parents tell their kids so that they don’t grow up to be self-involved twat baskets.

Look at that family mocking santa claus. “He’s not even real!” they mockingly cry as the poor old bastard tries to stuff a wooden train under their smart-price christmas tree. Holly and Fearne look on with derision. Humour. Sick, sick humour. How can he ever hope to gain the thanks of millions of children all over the world with his paltry offerings of wooden toys, handmade with love and affection by tiny little people than Ricky Gervais thinks are hilarious? None of these things are a Nintendo 3DS (CHILDREN! YOU WANT A 3DS!)

Dirty tactics! That’s what it is. Holding back the poor, decrepit old man who just wants to finish his annual paper route without being held back by two tarts with a glorified catalogue. Sure they might have more presents than ol’ Sanity Clause himself but do they have the magical powers to skoot round the earth delivering presents like they’ve just inhaled a kilo of amphetamines and broken the face of Bernard’s watch?

Of course they don’t. They’re bloody TV presenters! TV presenters can just smile and read from an autocue. They can’t even drive that van. They had to get the cameraman to move slightly to the left because Fearne Cotton just sat staring at the pedals like a brain-damaged horse. There’s no magic there.

So what’s the outcome? Have the spokesmorons actually managed to upset the balance of Christmas forever? Will the festive season ever be the same again? Does their defeat of Santa mean that Fearne Cotton & Holly Willoughby will become an ethereal, fictional presence that children make macaroni images of in primary schools?

FIND OUT IN PART TWO!