Rock & Ruled
Picture it, TiNY Dancers – it’s the early 1980s, probably ’83 or ’84, and young Dib is crashing around his grandmother’s living room, action figures and molded plastic weaponry and tattered Marvel comics strewn every which way, the place a shambles, the detritus of hyperactive 10 yr old boy clogging every corner, and the ragamuffin that was me, towheaded and Dickensian, missing several teeth, and whooping around to beat the band is romping gleefully. The tv is going but I have more important things on my fresh little brain, like where did I stash that taun-taun and just ‘cause I dig the hell out of Snake-Eyes does that mean I’ve somehow betrayed George Lucas. This is the most coherent thinking I can recall having done in my tender days. So all this is going on in my head and there’s a gaggle of goofy toys grabbin’ at my short attention span when BAM! I have my first encounter with Lou Reed.
No, uncle Lou hadn’t come a’callin’ to set this lil’ Dibbin on his glassy knee and set a boy straight on the ins and outs of dating trannies. Lou was on the tube and not Lou exactly either but a hideous elongated cartoon face, gums and glands stretchy and this nasally, prickish voice comin’ out of it’s freakish kisser. This was Mok, the villainous sorcerer rock star of Rock & Rule; a bizarre, frightening, utterly fantastic animated flick that dropped with a splat out of Canada’s hinder and onto HBO.
Here I’ll pause a moment and get with the critic pose for your enlightenment. The plot goes like this – Mok, a Bowie-Iggy-Lou amalgam, is the biggest rock star the post-apocalyptic world has ever seen. That’s right, the bomb done got dropped and all us humans are merely sand in the Vaseline of a new world order wherein cats, dogs, and rats (basically all the street beasts) have gone all upright and thumby becoming the dominant life forms. Which is basically what all those Disney cartoons were pushing with ducks and mice wearing sailor caps, but had cleaned up with a bright, playful palette. Old Walt was a prophet of nuclear doom, didn’t ya know. But Rock & Rule is grimy. The whole flick looks like it was dropped in a vat of Greasey Black. Anyway, Mok wants ultimate power and via the mathematic machinations of his giant computer, which has also sprouted actual gargantuan brains pink and spilling all over, he’s discovered the Armageddon Key. This will allow the Mokster to summon a giant bad-ass demon from another dimension into this world where it will munch and crunch at Mok’s command. Only problem with the plan – the key will only activate if the one perfect voice sings a particular pattern of notes. Rockin’! Jump to a shitty bar where a battle of the bands is going down. Meet Angel, owner of said delicious pipes, and Omar, a growly jack-ass with a mean way with a Fender. Long story short, Mok connives to kidnap Angel and in togs reminiscent of both S&M gear and those rags the natives wore on Kong Island tortures the girl into songbirding the beast through the door. Omar must get over himself and a drug addiction to do glammy battle and save the world.
All of this despicable wackiness was enthralling enough to my pre-pubed orbs, lots of tits and ass in this toon to be sure, but my ears were on fire. The tunes to this flick are provided by Cheap Trick, Debbie Harry, Iggy Pop, Earth, Wind & Fire, and of course Lou Reed. The blonde mouse girl with the golden throat - well Debbie Harry of course. The rancid meat beast from hell - Iggy Pop naturally. The reluctant guitar hero - Robin Zander, man. To quote Ed Steck, “That’s insane!”
It’s only now that I can really appreciate the devastation this flick wreaked on my subconscious. I dug the hell out of it as a kid and must’ve seen it three or four times while it was in rotation on HBO. I went around humming the tunes and replaying scenes on my skull screen. But like everything else when you’re a kid, something comes along that supplants the flavor of the moment.
I’d return to Rock & Rule many times growing up. I never saw it again and no one I knew had ever heard of the thing. It was unlikely that I imagined the whole movie. No amount of ice cream overdoses or flavored marker sniffing could produce this far out a fever dream. It had it’s hooks in me for sure, but the lasting effects wouldn’t show up until much later.
Rock & Rule was the first time an adult world was presented to me as mine. As a kid I had no idea there were cartoons made explicitly for an adult audience. I’d never even heard a hushed whisper shooshed at the dinner table regarding Fritz the Cat. So I made the assumption that if it was animated then it was for kids. The bands represented on the soundtrack continue to inform my musical taste. Much like The Monkees had installed a deep appreciation for Sixties Pop, so Rock & Rule gave me my first long draught of the punky seventies. Hell, I’ve listened to 4 of the 5 bands on the soundtrack this week alone, before even getting the gig to write up this brief. This flick gave me a taste for the snotty and the seedy.
Rock & Rule fucked me up. What better endorsement could I possibly give it?
Dib Cochrane isn’t worried that he finds Debbie Harry more attractive as a mutant mouse, but he probably should be.