Stéphane
Aubier & Vincent Patar’s molded plastic toy characters are the natural
heirs to Mr. Bill, but unlike SNL’s
vintage put-upon victim, they give lip right back. If social justice warriors
think Cowboy and Indian sound offensive, just wait until they hear them start
to squawk and complain. Of course, their relentless immaturity makes them quite
a positive influence on youngsters. Therefore, as a special Art House Theater
Day gift to the future leaders of America, GKIDS is releasing the short film
collection A Town Called Panic: Double
Fun for one day only this Saturday, in participating cinemas.
In
Christmas Panic (a.k.a. The Christmas Log), the ever bickering
Cowboy and Indian have not matured one whit since the Panic feature film. They still live with the infinitely
more responsible Horse, trying his patience daily. When their fooling around
accidentally ruins the Christmas log for Horse’s dinner party, they finally
push him too far. Exasperated, Horse calls up Santa and cancels their gift
delivery. Naturally, Cowboy and Indian try to fix the situation, but only make
matters worse.
Right,
so Merry Christmas one and all. Do not look for any cheap sentiment here. Linus
will not explain the true meaning of Christmas, nor will the Grinch be joining
the citizenry of Whoville for a Christmas roast. Instead, Town Called Panic delivers a feast
of increasingly reckless lunacy that only small hardened plastic toys could
survive.
If
Christmas was chaotic, the first day of class in Back to School Panic will be utterly nutty. Naturally, Cowboy and
Indian are not down with it, but Horse lays down the law. As we would expect,
they are the bad kids who sit in the back and never study, but they suddenly
get interested when Yuri the Cosmonaut promises a trip to the moon to whichever
student can calculate its distance from the earth. Knowing they are idiots,
Cowboy and Indian resolve to cheat, but their scheme takes on trippily surreal
dimensions. Arguably, Back to School is
the weirdest Panic ever, but that is
a good thing.
As
a bonus, two fan favorite short Panic shorts
will play in the “intermission” between Christmas
and School. For a change, Cowboy
and Indian are not the ones acting badly in Lisa
& Jan Instead, it is the titular hipster hikers causing all the ill
will. Cowboy returns to being the culprit in Cow-Hulk, but really the alien shape-shifting virus is to blame for
all the damage.
