By Jonathan Klotz
| Published
Back in 1991, when MTV was still known for music videos and not endless reruns of Ridiculousness, it was a haven for the experimental, strange, and boundary-breaking series Liquid Television. The 30-minute show featured animated shorts of different genres and animation styles, ranging from Beavis and Butt-Head to the history-making sci-fi series Æon Flux. One of the single most creative pieces of animation to come out of the 90s, the off-kilter series won countless awards, influenced decades of future sci-fi, and has turned up on streaming thanks to Paramount+.
The Cartoon That Changed Everything
Æon Flux doesn’t look like any other piece of animation from 1991, which for perspective, also included the debut of Nickeldeon’s Doug and Rugrats, Darkwing Duck, and The Pirates of Dark Water, but over the course of short, two-minute episodes, it left a lasting impression. The shorts for Liquid Television were created by Peter Chung and featured what would become his signature style, which dropped fine details and often background art to enhance the visual expression of each character. They often included tall, lanky figures that moved like marionettes. Assuming that the six, two-minute sequences would be the end of the series, Chung killed off Æon, but it proved to be popular that the shorts were brought back for a second season, and this time, expanded to five minutes.
With more screentime to flesh out the futuristic sci-fi dystopia of Æon Flux, Chung instead kept with tradition and had Æon, a talented assassin working for the city-state of Monica, die in ways varying from the horrible and accidental to the comical, in each and every five-minute episode. Æon’s relationship with Trevor Goodchild, the gifted scientist leading the nation of Bregna, was shown to be one of love and hate, alternating trying to kill each other with their doomed love, and was at the center of most of Season 2. The running joke of Æon constantly dying and each episode taking place in a separate continuity sounds like a gag from Rick and Morty, but in 1991, it was especially odd, as no cartoon had ever done anything like this before, but that was only one of the ways the series stood out.
Æon Flux Season 3
During Seasons 1 and 2 of Æon Flux, no one talked. Every short was devoid of dialogue and was largely silent, yet Chung’s animation managed to tell complete stories in each episode, aided greatly by the expressive faces of his characters. That changed with Season 3, when instead of shorts, the cartoon earned a full-fledged season of 30-minute episodes, and it’s these that are available now to stream on Paramount+. Finally, Æon stopped dying in every episode, and with the addition of dialogue, the characters were even further fleshed out, with Trevor, in particular, standing out as an amazing villain you’ll love to hate.
While not as beloved as the initial silent shorts, Æon Flux Season 3 maintains the high quality of animation while also telling a dark story that makes you question who’s right, Æon or Trevor. By the end of episode 10, you won’t have an answer, but you’ll have a lot to think about and debate with the rest of the fandom, which persists 30 years later. Cartoons aimed at adults that explore dark and mature themes are fairly common today, especially thanks to the increased accessibility of anime, but in 1995, this was mind-blowing.
The impact of Æon Flux on American animation can’t be understated because this series inspired a generation of animators to experiment with bold, brazen designs and to utilize animation as a different type of story-telling medium, going beyond Saturday Morning Cartoons. Regrettably, most of the public today first thinks of the 2005 live-action film starring Charlize Theron, which has very little to do with the groundbreaking cartoon and would go on to be one of the year’s biggest box office disasters. If you’ve seen the film, know that the original animation is far superior.
Æon Flux Season 3, the only one with “normal” length episodes and dialogue, is currently streaming on Paramount+.