I am – Hercules!!


Constituting what one imagines could be an April Fool’s joke, the Cartoon Network has been running promos for the “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” movie. These promos suggest the movie will be shown on the channel Sunday night.

My TiVo says “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” is running from 11:30 p.m. to 11:45 p.m. ET Sunday night. “Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show, Great Job” follows on that channel from 11:45 to midnight. But “Aqua Teen Hunger Force Colon Movie Film for Theaters” is said to be about 75 minutes in length, so that doesn’t really add up.

Maybe the channel will show the first 15 minutes of the movie? Or something?

According to IMDb, First Look is releasing “Colon Movie Film for Theaters” to cinemas April 13.

In the unlikely event that Cartoon Network does somehow run the whole thing Sunday night (strictly speaking, it wouldn’t be the first movie to hit TV screens before cinemas), we should point out that a screening of the film held last summer in Century City, Calif., did not yield a lot of reviews kind to the project:

“The Raindog” said:

The first 10 minutes was like a sub par episode of aqua teen, then it stretched on and on, and on. With a running time of 75 minutes, it was quite a feat to make it seem like 4 hours. … bored me to the point of wanting to leave, but I knew the end had to come soon, so I stuck it out. Normally I would attribute my take on the movie to me being in a bad mood, or just having gotten off a 12 hour shift at work, but the theatre was filled with hardcore aqua teen fans, and there were only a few chuckles here and there throughout the film. And most of the chuckles came from when they would rehash a joke from the TV show. They need to scrap the film and start over, or just play it on TV, i don't even know if it's straight to DVD worthy.

“Chris” said:

This movie was flat joke after flat joke complete with lame wire-esque fight scenes, which I pray for the producers are incomplete. Just tired, tired humor. The thing that struck me is that it wasn't so much that a lot of the jokes failed as it was that there didn't seem to actually BE a lot of jokes.

“D” said:

Awful. There are some fun ideas, but the execution of them is lousy. I wasn't following the show before the screening, but I watched about ten episodes online before heading in, and it definitely doesn't stand up to the show. … the silence of the crowd was painful, especially in the last 30 minutes. My friend is obsessed with the show, and fell asleep during the movie. Not a good sign. …

In January, “Samoan Joe” apparently found the project tolerable as he partook of “herbal enhancement”:

… While I was definitely disappointed, I still liked it better than previous reviewers on your site. The movie plays like a very long Aqua Teen episode - entertaining, unpredictable and at times mind-bogglingly bizarre. The film-makers were evidently not willing to sacrifice any of the show's insanity for the sake of a more mainstream audience. That's cool and all, but it would have been nice if the movie had made at least a little bit of sense. The plot itself is hardly worth explaining (not sure if I understood it anyway). …

So maybe if Cartoon Network cuts the movie off after 15 minutes, not too many will mind!

UPDATE!! Cartoon Network showed the first three minutes of "Colon" at 10 p.m. before it turned off its sound and shrunk it into a box taking up about 3 percent of the TV screen. The audio and the rest of the screen were taken up with regular programming, specifically a "Futurama" repeat.