Film
Rejected
A 10-minute animated film of rejected TV spots that were too bizarre for the Family Learning Channel. Hertzfeldt's stick-figure world spirals into absurdism: talking food, existential dread, and narrative collapse presented as commercials. It's anarchic, profoundly funny, and weirdly moving. For anyone who loves comedy that rewires your brain.
Should you watch it?
Watch it if you enjoy deadpan, sharply absurd animation that lurches from cheerful nonsense to bleak gags, and you don't mind being jolted every few seconds by a new idea.
Skip it if you want polished, conventional jokes that build patiently, since this is rough, scrappy and throws its gags at you faster than they land.
What it asks of you: Just ten minutes, but nearly every second changes tone or image, so it wants full attention rather than background half-watching.
Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.
If you liked this
Adventure Time: Distant Lands2020
Similarly absurdist but with genuine emotional weight. Starts as goofy then reveals an entire mythical world beneath the jokes. Each episode surprises you, and the show respects your intelligence enough to get weird.
But Fifteen seasons is a commitment. The pacing meanders in early episodes, and some humour leans heavily on internet culture that hasn't aged equally.
The Midnight Gospel2020
Animated conversations across trippy, impossible worlds. Tone-shifts from hilarious to devastating within single episodes. Hertzfeldt's spiritual descendant in how it blends surrealism with genuine philosophy about death and meaning.
But Only eight 25-minute episodes, and the ending divides people—some find it profound, others feel lectured to. The animation is deliberately crude in places.
Over the Garden Wall2014
Ten episodes of atmospheric, darkly funny Americana that gets progressively weirder. Mystery unfolds beautifully. Every frame is composed with care, and it trusts you to piece together what's happening.
But Autumn-gothic mood won't appeal if you want jokes-per-minute. The pacing is deliberate, almost meditative. Some plot threads feel intentionally unresolved.
Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Rejected
The wildcard
Something you would not have found on your own.
Creature Comforts1989
Both distil human anxiety into tiny perfect forms. Both use the mismatch between cute, crude aesthetics and bleak subject matter as the actual joke.
Stop-motion plasticine animals discussing their lives. Sounds cosy; actually about desire, disappointment, and what we settle for. Finds existential comedy in mundane complaints. Wallace & Gromit's darker sibling.
But The animation is charming but deliberately rough. Some viewers find the premise gimmicky and the dialogue occasionally tedious. British sensibility won't land for everyone.
More like this (6)
Monty Python's Flying Circus1969
Proto-absurdist sketch comedy that redefined what comedy could be. Anarchic, non-sequiturs, characters who break the fourth wall. Hertzfeldt clearly studied this. Holds up remarkably well.
But Some sketches outstay their welcome. British TV budget shows. The gender politics are completely of their time and uncomfortable by modern standards.
Home Movies1999
Crude animation about amateur filmmaking. Self-aware, funny about failure and friendship. The crude UPA-influenced style has aged into its own aesthetic. Genuinely touching underneath the weirdness.
But The early seasons are hard to watch technically—the animation is almost unfinished. Relies on characters you have to warm to gradually. Some episodes feel like inside jokes.
Aqua Teen Hunger Force2000
Absurdist comedy about three anthropomorphic foods solving nothing. Non-plot-driven, purely gag-based. The indifference to coherence mirrors Rejected's rejection of TV logic. Infinitely weird.
But Actively hostile to narrative satisfaction. Deliberately cheap animation. Some jokes are genuinely too stupid, and that's apparently the point—which doesn't help when you're bored.
Too Many Cooks2014
11-minute funhouse-mirror version of a TV theme song that becomes horror. Formally playful, increasingly disturbing. Shares Rejected's ability to make comedy and dread coexist, and its use of rejected-format ideas as premise.
But The horror creeps up gradually, so early minutes feel pointless before the pivot. Relies on recognising TV tropes. Some viewers find the shift manipulative rather than clever.
Children of Men2006
Not a comedy, but shares Rejected's found-footage aesthetic and rejection of conventional filmmaking. Long takes, no score, documentary feel telling an impossible story. Technically brilliant and hypnotic.
But Bleak throughout and entirely serious. Action sequences are confusing. If you want lightness or conventional narrative, this will feel like homework.
Synecdoche, New York2008
Both reject conventional narrative structure entirely. Both treat failed, rejected work as the actual story rather than dismissing it. Both believe the mess is the point.
Philip Seymour Hoffman in a film about a theatre director whose life becomes indistinguishable from his work. Layers of reality collapse recursively. Formally inventive in ways that feel like animated logic applied to live-action.
But Deliberately opaque and frustratingly abstract. Three hours of unrelenting sadness. Requires patience and multiple viewings to approach understanding. Some find it pretentious nonsense.
People
Cast
- Robert MayGuy #1 / Guy #2 / Fluffy Guy / Ticks Announcer / Left Hand Characters (voice)
Don HertzfeldtSpoon Guy / Banana / Queen of France (voice)