Isn't There Already a Music Video for This Song?
The Soup Squad, another one of those incomprehensible Spam Crews founded in February of this year, returns to debut a music video that takes literal inspiration from the song chosen: "Fucking Wasted" by Adam Sandler. It might almost be cute if it weren't for the fact that it's so crude and out of touch.
If you don't know who Adam Sandler is, or that he is an accomplished musician besides being a passable low-brow comedian, then you will probably not even bother voting or rating a Crew-based Flash and just click to some other cartoon. While I sympathize, you might be missing out. While crude and Spartan in design like the rest of them, this is a Flash about drug culture. Frankly put, it ain't for anybody who doesn't find humor in drugs, so it's not meant for everybody, and neither is the Soup Squad.
First few complaints always revolve around the inconsistency and general crudity of all scenes in this video, mostly because all the parts are submitted by multiple authors. Many authors who wish to submit cartoons but are not very serious about making artistic strides choose to participate in the Crews in order to stay motivated and see their productions through the Portal without worrying about whether they get blammed or not. This practice has inadvertently fueled Newgrounds with a small group of decent artisans, although few of this bunch are serious and their methods have been met with their compatriots' undying scorn. If you tried to get any of these miniature clips through the Portal, they would get diced to pieces by the critics. In other words, they don't stand on their own.
Adam Sandler's song is another point of contention: a copyrighted song. These days, the admins, mods, and even the better-known artisans have been pushing the implementation of the Audio Portal, original material, and dodging any copyright issues (without trying to "smart-ass" our way past them). If someone petitioned a musician or three to produce a cover of the song "Fucking Wasted", then this would not be as major an issue. In fact, it might be even funnier, given some interpretation of the music. Not to say the song does not fit at all (it does) or making a free tribute to Mr. Sandler that he'll never see or even hear about is dishonorable (it isn't), but much of the humor of the video is derived from the song--every clip follows the "story" without skipping a beat, embellishing, or providing a similar story with different scenes--and without the song, this video falls flat.
Finally, an honorable mention goes out to Tomato Soup, aka Little-Rena, who has collaborated with and stood aside Crews for many years. The Easter Egg sucks. There wasn't enough effort placed into the Egg itself, let alone in hiding it. Altering the tint on a large poster in the background of the title screen does not constitute an Easter Egg. A faux-static clip of wasted soup cans on the couch only reinforces most people's contempt of crews. It is that reason, and that reason alone, that made me hesitate to recommend "Fucking Wasted" to any collections, because there were no buttons that correspond to Spam.
Although this is still a step above most of the Crews in terms of their quality during their founding year, "Fucking Wasted" is an unimaginative visualization of Adam Sandler's classic that fails to promote it or provide extra humor. Having fallen into the old infringement issue that has marred this site's reputation for years does not help its case any better. Despite this, it's an honorable effort for all those involved, even if their efforts would never have gotten through a bunch of grizzled, unaffiliated-with-crews critics. I'm giving this weak little laugh a 4 of 10.