Salad Fingers is a
surreal psychological horror Flash cartoon series originally created by
British cartoonist
David "Foyf" Firth in July 2004 which gained
rapid internet popularity in 2005. The
San Francisco Chronicle ranked it in
the "top 10" pop culture phenomena for that year.
Already a well-known
Flash animation
series available on the internet, Salad Fingers premiered in
Australia at the 2007
Sydney Underground Film
Festival at the Factory Theatre. The first seven episodes were
shown back to back, along with a variety of other animated
short films, during the "Re-animation" session.
The cartoons' musical score features
theremin played by
Clara
Rockmore.
Summary
In the
surreal cartoons, the
eponymous Salad Fingers inhabits a desolate,
sparsely populated
post-apocalyptic
world in which he revels in the delightful feeling of the
textures of various objects on his "salad fingers". He enjoys
rusty articles (especially spoons) and derives
similar pleasure from experiencing pain. He appears to enjoy
meeting new people, though many of his acquaintances are simply
avatars (such as finger puppets including
Hubert Cumberdale, Jeremy Fisher, and Marjory Stewart-Baxter) for
which he provides voice.
The eerie music featured in the background is the tune "Beware the
Friendly Stranger" by
Boards of
Canada. The dark music in the soundtrack that appears when
Salad Fingers is scared is actually Firth playing the guitar,
slowed down and reversed. Other music included in Salad Fingers
episodes includes work credited to
Brian
Eno,
Sigur Rós and
Aphex Twin. David Firth frequently inserts
references to Aphex Twin in his flash cartoons; for example, the
Aphex Twin logo can be found on the telephone in Salad Fingers
episode five. Firth has also
cited the works of
David Lynch,
South Park,
Tim Burton,
The League of Gentlemen and
Chris Morris as sources of
inspiration.
Characters
- Salad Fingers
- The main character is a bald, hunchbacked humanoid with light-green skin, and no
visible nose or ears. His long, strangely-shaped fingers are his
most notable feature. They were the focus of the first episode of
the series, where Salad Fingers is shown deriving pleasure from
rubbing various objects, particularly rusty spoons and taps. Salad
Fingers appears to suffer from psychosis,
and is unable or unwilling to distinguish between living beings and
inanimate objects, and is frequently found talking to various inert
articles (notably his finger puppets and in two cases a human
corpse). He often assigns such objects proper names and appears to believe that they
can communicate with him directly, sometimes voicing their
perceived thoughts himself. He lives alone in
a small shack (containing, among other things, an oven, bedroom,
safety cupboard, radio, phone, and table) with the number 22 on the door. His talents include playing the
flute and speaking French. It is implied that the desolate
world Salad Fingers inhabits is the aftermath of the "Great War", a
conflict which is referenced several times in the more recent
episodes.
- Salad Fingers takes up various habits, including a regular
measurement of the distance between his house and a tree, tasting
of the dirt ("floor-sugar"), and listening to his radio. It seems
from his ingestion of dirt ("floor sugar") that Salad Fingers
suffers from pica. The name "Salad
Fingers" was invented by Firth's co-writer, Christian 'Crust'
Pickup, who described Firth as having salad fingers while playing
the guitar.
- Hubert Cumberdale, Marjory Stewart-Baxter, and Jeremy
Fisher
- Finger puppets who appear variously in episodes two, three,
five, six, seven and eight. They often appear in Salad Fingers'
fantasies as life sized beings. Jeremy
Fisher is thought to be named after the Beatrix Potter book The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher.
Salad Fingers also enjoys "tasting" these puppets, claiming they
taste like "soot and poo" or "sunshine dust". Salad Fingers has
also referred to Jeremy Fisher as having been out fighting "The
Great War". In episode five, Hubert Cumberdale is temporarily
renamed Barbara Logan-Price.
- Harry/Milford Cubicle
- Appearing in episode three,
Cubicle is an aggressive, armless human-like being who wears an
apron identifying him as being employed at a "BBQ". Though his
nametag reads "Harry" and indicates that he is "Happy to help",
Salad Fingers calls him Milford Cubicle. He dies of exsanguination after repeatedly banging his
head on Salad Fingers' door. Salad Fingers then finds him and drags
him inside his house and hangs him on a meat hook, believing him to
be alive and conscious.
- Bordois
- Appearing in episode four,
Bordois is a woodlouse which Salad Fingers
accidentally kills by attempting to pet her. He refers to this bug
as "little sister". Once he squishes her, he says "You've gone all
flat, little sister. And you're all gooey! I shalln't play with you
again until you've had a wash."
- Mable: Appearing in episode five, Mable is a scuffed, grubby,
scarred young girl who goes to a picnic with Salad Fingers. She is
the first character other than Salad Fingers who can communicate in
English, and she is the first
person other than Salad Fingers to actually speak— something that
seems to shock and dismay Salad Fingers. When she sees Salad
Fingers looking at her in dismay she says "What's wrong? Do you not
like my mouth-words?" While this is going on, she is seen with her
eyes gouged out and bleeding; this is likely a mental vision or
hallucination in Salad Fingers' mind, as he is seen cowering in the
corner of his house between the shots of the "eyeless Mable".
Nothing is known as to what happened to her as she could have left
the picnic, or (rather less likely) was killed by Salad Fingers.
Either way, she has never reappeared.
- Kenneth
- A decomposing corpse found in a hole (one which was apparently
dug up completely by Salad Fingers' finger puppet, Hubert
Cumberdale) near Salad Fingers' house in episode seven; Salad
Fingers claims that it is his little brother, "back from the Great
War," and invites him in for dinner before eventually putting him
back while singing "We'll
meet again".
- Roger
- Appearing in episode eight, Roger is a broken radio that speaks
in a robotic, aggressive manner (much like a Dalek) and scares Salad Fingers into the cupboard
twice. Roger, according to Salad Fingers, must be given
'sustenance' (in the form of small brown pellets which appear to be
beans or marbles).
- Horace Horsecollar
- A toy horse with which Salad Fingers indulges his senses.
- Penny Pigtails
- A character Salad Fingers' imagination created while hiding
from Roger in the safety cupboard. She is nothing but Salad
Finger's hand 'walking' across the ledge. Salad Fingers imagines
that she is denied raspberry jam by a market trader, who bases his
actions on the grounds that her legs are "too long" and "made of
cotton".
- Mr. Branches: A tree 21 yards from the house. Salad Fingers
measures this distance, and then comments to the tree that it's
"barely shuffled an inch this week"—implying that it moves (or, at
least, he perceives it to) and that he regularly keeps track of
this measurement.
Salad Fingers also ramblingly mentions he has an "old pal" named
"Charlie" as well as a daughter, though neither of them are seen.
It could be that neither of these characters are real, as they
could be nothing more than the title character's delusions.
- Unnamed Characters
- A screeching child whom Salad Fingers visits to "enquire about
his spoons" in episode one. He
(or she) appears to have a wrinkled complexion.
- A young child wearing a varsity-type jacket whom Salad Fingers
appears to have accidentally cooked in an oven in episode two.
- A big-eyed, grotesque, small mutant creature who falls in love
with Salad Fingers in episode four. This character was originally
created by Jimi Hollis, who refers to it as the "bug-eyed kid". It
uses a bear trap and a grubby tap to capture him, then cages him
and proposes with a ring topped with a human molar.
Episodes
Each episode is 1–6 minutes long; the narratives themselves are
quite surreal, and each one only follows a semblance of a
story.
Episode 1 - Spoons
- Release date: July 1, 2004
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David
Firth. Written by David Firth and Christian "Crust" Pickup. Music by Boards of Canada (in particular, the song
"Beware the Friendly Stranger").
This episode introduces us to Salad Fingers and his love of
touching rusty spoons. He explains how touching any form of
rust—including spoons, a door bell panel, and a kettle—stimulates
him ("
The feeling of rust against my salad fingers is almost
orgasmic"), and that he holds a
particular love of spoons. Salad Fingers walks to the house of a
strange young boy to see if he has any rusty spoons; the child
screeches two times, at which point Salad Fingers leaves, after
asking to caress a rusty kettle that is on a table beside
him.
Episode 2 - Friends
- Release date: July 15, 2004
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David
Firth. Written by David Firth and Christian "Crust" Pickup. Music
by Boards of Canada and David
Firth.
Salad Fingers has a get-together with his "friends"—finger
puppets—whom Salad Fingers introduces as Hubert Cumberdale, Marjory
Stewart-Baxter and Jeremy Fisher. He appears to believe that his
"friends" are real, living beings. Wondering what his friends taste
like, he briefly inserts them into his mouth, exclaiming that
Marjory Stewart-Baxter tastes like "sunshine dust", while Hubert
Cumberdale tastes like "soot and poo". Salad Fingers then tells
them that he has a fish cooking in the oven and speaks a
nonsensical phrase in French: "Alors. Habille-la. Comment
t'appelles-tu? Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?." This roughly translates to,
"So then. Dress it. What's your name? What's the matter? or What is
there?"
In the next scene, a frightened child responds to Salad Fingers's
call for help. Salad Fingers cannot reach the
fish cooking in his oven and asks the child to get it
for him. As the child reaches into the oven, Salad Fingers sees a
rusty nail jutting out of the wall and reaches to stroke it,
causing the oven door to close with the child still inside. Salad
Fingers then impales his finger on the spike and begins bleeding,
blissfully saying "I like it when the red water comes out."
Salad Fingers pales and passes out. Apparently dreaming, Salad
Fingers walks through a large
meat
locker singing
Somewhere
Over the Rainbow to himself. While inside, he meets a full-size
Hubert Cumberdale, who screams distorted electronic noises at him.
When Salad Fingers awakens he sits in a pool of his own blood. The
oven smokes and oozes as Salad Fingers states, "That fish smells
about done," ignoring the fact that it was the smoke from the
"cooked alive" child that he'd forgotten about when 'dozing
off'.
Episode 3 - Nettles
- Release date: August 1, 2004
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David
Firth. Written by David Firth and Christian "Crust" Pickup. Music
by Boards of Canada, Brian Eno and
a yoga flute.
Salad Fingers is playing with
nettles and has irritated blisters all over
his hands. He then comes across an empty
baby carriage, which he calls a "nettle
carrier" and then leaves with it. A deformed armless man wearing an
apron labeled "BBQ" appears and chases after Salad Fingers,
screaming and babbling unintelligibly. Salad Fingers is sitting on
the floor at his home and brushing the nettle over his nipple
(while appearing to have an orgasm), which makes him lactate, and
says "It seems... Nettles... have made the milk... drop out... from
inside my teat!", when the armless man runs to Salad Fingers' house
and begins to bang his head on the door. Salad Fingers daydreams of
"happy times" (in which he and a life-sized version of the Hubert
Cumberdale puppet are getting hair-dried). Eventually, Salad
Fingers comes outside and finds the man dead on the floor, his head
bloodied. He names the man "Milford Cubicle", ignoring the man's
name tag reading "Harry". Ignorant that the man is dead, Salad
Fingers then drags "Milford" inside, hangs him on a meat hook on
the wall, plays the flute, and offers him a "warm glass of milk"
(which presumably is the milk that dropped "out from inside [his]
teat").
Episode 4 - Cage
- Release date: August 20, 2004
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David
Firth. Written by David Firth, Christian "Crust" Pickup, and Jimi
Mwng. Additional character design by Jimi Mwng. Music by Boards of Canada, Aphex Twin and David
Firth.
Salad
Fingers wears a beret and declares that he is
going to try and find France
.
However, he is frightened by a mutated boy with disproportionately
large eyeballs that has been "watching him for a while". Salad
Fingers becomes uncomfortable with the child's proximity and begins
to leave. The boy, who speaks only in growls and grunts, approaches
Salad Fingers, having apparently fallen in love with him.Inside his
house, Salad Fingers sees a gray millipede-like bug coming out from
a hole in the wall. He addresses the bug as "Bordois" and his
"little sister." Feeling very comforted by its presence, he starts
talking to the bug. He becomes zealous and goes to touch it and, in
doing so, accidentally crushes it and looks at it in curiosity
which turns to disgust. He then says to Bordois that she's "gone
flat" and become "all gooey", and that he "shalln't play with [her]
again, until [she's] had a wash." Salad Fingers then hears a knock
on the door, which he opens to find a "grubby tap" attached to a
string on the ground. Salad Fingers becomes excited about this
"gift" and begins to fantasize about taps. He attempts to fetch it,
but it is drawn away on the string as bait. He is caught in a
bear
trap which causes him to lose blood and consciousness while
savoring the pain blissfully. He wakes up in a cage, and enjoys
rubbing the rusted bars. The grotesque boy approaches the cage and
holds out a ring (on which is mounted a human
tooth) as if proposing marriage. Salad Fingers becomes
distraught, states "I don't like this game", then pulls a curtain
down over the window of the cage, angering the boy. Once angered,
the boy makes an unintelligible noise that sounds like "You're my
own now." When the curtain lifts, the boy, seeing that Salad
Fingers has disappeared, begins to cry. The episode closes with
Salad Fingers, wearing his beret, flying away gleefully on a giant
tap.
Episode 5 - Picnic
Salad Fingers talks to an apparently broken and disconnected phone,
asking the
operator to connect
him to his "old pal Charlie" so he can invite him to a picnic, but
only garbled noises are heard. Whilst describing the picnic fare,
Salad Fingers rubs his stomach in hunger, then claims to have been
rudely disconnected. Hubert Cumberdale is on one of the fingers on
Salad Fingers' other hand, but he seems dismayed to see him.
Instead of referring to him as Hubert, he instead calls him
"Barbara Logan-Price", and gives him a "friend-hat", which is a
miniature captain's hat.
In the next scene, Salad Fingers wears a
bridal train and talks to himself in a mirror,
declaring "You look so beautiful". He then goes outside for his
picnic, which is attended by a strange crow (which appears in other
David Firth cartoons) and a little girl with scars on her face, a
filthy, stained pink dress, and orange hair. Salad Fingers asks the
orange-haired girl a question and answers it for her (as he seems
to think that only he can speak), ending with "replied Mable".
Salad Fingers calls her his new playmate and compliments her on her
dress, and as he does this, Marjory Stewart-Baxter is seen in the
window, jealous. Salad Fingers offers "Mable" some "
Pease Pudding", which he feeds to her with a
dirty, rusty spoon. The crow then swoops down and steals Salad
Fingers's spoon.
The little girl giggles and says that the crow must like spoons
too. The shock of the girl speaking to him in English and not via
Salad Finger's own voice drives Salad Fingers to temporary
insanity, hallucinating, hearing screeching, distorted noises, and
seeing the girl (complete with empty eye sockets) saying, "What's
wrong, Mr. Fingers? Do you not like my mouth-words?"
Episode 6 - Present
The episode begins with Salad Fingers walking about his house. He
sees Hubert Cumberdale on top of a cupboard, and instructs the
finger puppet to come down at once. Hubert turns into a black,
viscous fluid and oozes down the cupboard. A
silhouette is then seen walking through the house
and Salad Fingers asks if somebody is there; it is, in fact, the
Jeremy Fisher puppet on his finger. Salad Fingers remarks that he
thought Jeremy was out "fighting the Great War".
Another perspective shot shows Jeremy Fisher (now with arms)
handing Salad Fingers a toy horse. Salad Fingers is pleased with
the
present, and remarks on the pleasing
texture of the toy. He then eats Jeremy Fisher and plays with the
toy horse while making "neigh" sounds. He walks outside with it and
goes to an abandoned
toilet which he starts
having a conversation with. Suddenly, the mood changes and the
music becomes sinister; he grows concerned and he begins defending
himself, saying "You've got the wrong bloke,
squire." He then flushes the toilet to "wash those
bad thoughts away".
Upon arriving home, Salad Fingers gasps and sees himself sitting
inside. The Salad Fingers inside appears to be
hallucinating, seeing the "outside" Salad
Fingers as a life-size Jeremy Fisher. The "inside" Salad Fingers
speaks in a slightly different voice and also has rougher text
showing what he is saying. The conversation starts off just like
the earlier one with Jeremy Fisher, but goes on to include
accusations that Jeremy Fisher has been "tailgating [his] daughter
with aspirations of
deflowering her rose". This
appears to be the other "side" of the conversation Salad Fingers
had into the toilet.
The inside Salad Fingers is now seen with the Jeremy Fisher finger
puppet. Salad Fingers remarks that he never did "sample the
delights of your flavour", and begins putting the finger-puppet in
his mouth, but the scene quickly changes to a bloody scene of the
"inside" Salad Fingers eating the "outside" Salad Fingers'
head/brains, suggesting that Salad Fingers is actually experiencing
the personalities he invents
. The episode ends
abruptly.
Episode 7 - Shore Leave
- Release date: January 28, 2006
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David
Firth. Written by David Firth, Christian Pickup and Jimi Mwng.
Music by Boards of Canada, Chris Gladwin and Brian
Eno.
As Salad Fingers is digging holes outside with his finger puppets,
occasionally tasting the sand (which he calls "floor sugar"), he
finds the decomposing torso of an old
corpse. Salad Fingers immediately "recognizes" the
cadaver as "Kenneth," his "younger brother" who is back from the
previously mentioned "Great War" on shore leave. Salad Fingers
pulls the gruesome, dismembered corpse out of the hole, saying it
was rude of him to leave for the "the Great War" without him, but
promises to draw him a hot
bath.
The next scene shows Salad Fingers turning a
cog
which pulls a clothesline, drawing Kenneth out of a wardrobe, now
dressed in a white
dinner jacket. He
starts to talk about life with the women of the great war. Salad
Fingers has prepared a dinner of
sand for his
guest, saying "I—hope you like...
SAND". Salad Fingers
tells Kenneth of his life, keeping busy with "every shift I can...
[and] sing[ing] at all the functions". There is a
flashback in which Salad
Fingers measures the distance from his door to a tree named "Mr.
Branches" with a
clickwheel and
subsequently teases it for its slow movement.
It is now evening, and Salad Fingers is with Kenneth outside near
the same hole he found him in. He cries over the fact that Kenneth
has to go "back to the
ghastly
trenches". He
salutes Kenneth and sings
"
We'll Meet Again" for him.
He then kicks Kenneth back into the hole. A dream-like sequence
follows in which Salad Fingers sings the same song, in a white
dress, on a stage in front of an audience of a
theatre. After singing a few strains, he complains
to the pianist - who is shown as the
silhouette of a
marionette, with strings attached - that the key
is wrong, walks off the stage, and the screen fades to black.
Episode 8 - Cupboard
- Release date: September 22, 2007
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David
Firth. Written by David Firth and Christian "Crust" Pickup. Music
by Boards of Canada, Lustmord and dyzv0r
Salad Fingers is sitting in his armchair, trying to tune his radio,
which he calls "Roger." After feeding Roger his "sustenance" (which
seems to be marbles, peas, rocks or beans), it begins to emit a
strange, piercing frequency. He decides to wait out the tormenting
event in his "safety cupboard."
When in the cupboard, Salad Fingers begins to converse with his
hands. One hand enacts "Penny Pigtails," the other a market vendor.
After being refused her purchase of
raspberry jam on the grounds
that her legs are "made of cotton" and "far too long" (an event
that Salad Fingers finds most upsetting), Penny Pigtails discovers
a long strand of hair, which Salad rubs over his eyeball,
apparently causing him great pleasure, although it makes his eye
red and inflamed. He then leaves the cupboard and tapes it to a
wall to form a "quintette" with four other hairs he has collected.
Next, he goes to bed with the Hubert Cumberdale puppet. Before
going to sleep, Salad Fingers sings "Three in the Bed," and
instructs Hubert Cumberdale to "roll over"; as a result, the finger
puppet is sent off the bed into a bowl of a filthy, brown substance
(likely a
chamberpot). Salad Fingers
orders Hubert Cumberdale to "scrub that muck off at once!" as he
doesn't want any "dirty immigrants" in his house.
Later that night, the radio begins to emit strange sounds again and
wakes up Salad Fingers. Salad Fingers approaches it warily and
threatens Roger with expulsion from the house. The radio replies it
was rude of Salad to take his hair. The radio speaks in a static
voice, instructing Salad Fingers to return its hair, as well as to
tidy the house. Salad Fingers declares that he shan't, on the
grounds that it isn't "his turn" and that it is an extremely
unpleasant job. The radio continues to torment him, causing him to
eat all of the hairs from his quintette, tape and all, and return
to his cupboard in tears.
The Great War
A recurring reference made in the series is to the "great war"; for
example, in Episode 6, Salad fingers says of his "friend" Jeremy
Fisher: "I thought you were out fighting the great war." Salad
Fingers says the corpse he identifies as his "brother Kenneth" in
Episode 7 is "on shore leave" from the "great war" as well. And in
Episode 8 he references how he enjoys listening to the war on his
radio.
References
- " Salad Fingers' Stream Of Consciousness Entertains
Viewers." The Daily Campus Online Edition. December 8,
2005
- " 2005 In Review: Pop Culture." The San Francisco
Chronicle. December 25, 2005.
- Syndey Underground Film Festival 2007
Program
- " Interview with Salad Fingers Creator David
Firth."
- Encyclopedia Database: Salad Fingers [1]
See also
External links
Episodes
David Firth
Wikis
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