Cartoon Cabal

The Cartoon Cabal boys dig into the 1995 anime classic, tracing its surprisingly accurate predictions about AI identity theft, cybernetic body ownership, and what happens when a rogue consciousness breaks out of its cage. They connect the film's core ideas to Cartesian duality, Hegelian dialectic, and the very real 2029 AGI timeline Ray Kurzweil has been warning about for decades. **Tags:** Ghost...

A cartoon about a mushroom that cures death sounds absurd until you realize how much of it is pulled straight from real conspiracy theory, mycology, and documented government experiments. Matt and Paranoid American break down Common Side Effects, the Adult swim animated series that Amazon rejected and Mike Judge co-signed, about a mycologist who discovers a miracle cure and immediately becomes a t...

MTV aired a cartoon about a schizophrenic homeless superhero in 1995 and it was way deeper than anyone realized. This episode dives deep into the pilot episode of The Maxx, Sam Keith's surrealist 1995 MTV animated series, breaking down its esoteric dream-world mythology, anti-authority symbolism, and the Aboriginal 'dreamtime' consciousness hidden inside a story about a hulking homeless man and a...

Aeon Flux was a beautiful blend of propaganda, sexuality, and esoteric mind control jam packed inside 12 minutes of MTV animation. We dig into the hidden symbolism, conspiratorial undertones, and dark esoteric themes buried inside Aeon Flux's original Liquid Television pilot. From its MK Ultra-adjacent imagery and Venus Eye Trap iconography to the sexually charged warfare between Aeon and Trevor t...

A demon alien living rent-free in your skull: MTV's 'The Head' was peak 90s weirdness and it left its mark on at least one of us. In this episode we dive deep into MTV Oddities' 1994 cult classic 'The Head,' unpacking its demonic alien symbology, symbiotic vs. parasitic alien archetypes, and surprisingly on-the-nose parallels to modern debates about interdimensional entities, transhumanism, and AI...

Satoshi Kon's Paprika is a terrifying conspiracy about dream control, corporate mind manipulation and Disney symbolism. This episode dives deep into Paprika, the 2006 anime masterpiece that inspired Inception and mapped out a blueprint for how corporations, media, and technology invade your subconscious. We break down the DC Mini as a metaphor for the internet, the nightmare parade as an assault o...

Cool World isn't a failed Roger Rabbit knockoff, it's a Bakshi-coded portal into demonic dimensions, sex magic, and Genesis 6. This episode (with special guest Anna Nicole Wordsmith) dives deep into Ralph Bakshi's 1992 cult misfire Cool World, uncovering layers of occult symbolism, Nephilim mythology, and esoteric subtext that Paramount never wanted you to notice. From the atomic bomb opening dime...

G.I. Joe was basically MK Ultra with a theme song and a toy line. In this episode, we break down the G.I. Joe Mass Device mini-series and expose the shockingly real CIA and military science embedded in its plot: from Dr. Jose Delgado's mind-control stimoceivers and MK Ultra Subproject 68's memory erasure program, to John C. Lilly's sensory deprivation tanks and the real-world 'god helmet' used to...

They made an animated film about government labs torturing dogs, and we watched it. Plague Dogs (1982) is a brutally dark animated film from the director of Watership Down, where two escaped lab dogs become the targets of a full military manhunt, and the government's cover story involves bubonic plague. From real Cold War animal experimentation to MKUltra parallels and the psychological horror of...

The Animatrix proves that sometimes the side stories are better than the main event, and here's why these 9 animated Matrix shorts deserve more love than the sequels. We're talking about The Animatrix, the 2003 animated anthology that expands the Matrix universe through Japanese animation studios and visionary directors. From the haunting robot uprising origin story to reality-bending glitches tha...

Don Hertzfeldt's "Rejected" basically invented internet humor 5 years before YouTube even existed. We're looking at the legendary 2000 animated short that became the blueprint for absurd online comedy. From "My spoon is too big" to existential stick figure breakdowns, this 10-minute masterpiece of deliberately terrible "rejected commercials" predicted the entire landscape of internet memes and ran...

One of the most infamous scenes in cartoon conspiracy history. Season 3, episode 13 of Ducktales: "Yuppy Ducks" contains background art that says "ASK ABOUT ILLUMINATI" in multiple scenes. Who did this? Why? We try to get to the bottom of it, in this episode of Cartoon Cabal. PLEASE remember to Like, Subscribe and Share this to someone else!

Toy Story 3 is one of the most nefarious movies of all time. I've been saying this for over a decade, and I finally feel vindicated since many of the points get brought up in this Season 2, Episode 7 of China, IL called "Total Validation"

This isn't your grandpa's sonic the hedgehog. Sonic X was a Japanese anime that was re-released in the US. This episode jumps right into the middle of the series where Sonic discovers an artificially created hedgehog named Shadow. This one goes deep!

So here's the actual end of the series. Last episode we covered the movie called "The End of Evangelion" but really, this is the end. Confusing? Welcome to the Neon Genesis Evangelion club!

It all finally makes sense! (or does it?) The End of Evangelion is a 1997 Japanese animated apocalyptic science fiction film directed by Hideaki Anno and Kazuya Tsurumaki, written by Anno, and animated by Gainax and Production I.G. It serves as an alternate ending to the television series Neon Genesis Evangelion, which aired from 1995 to 1996.

The Human Instrumentality Project begins, merging the souls of humankind into a single entity. Shinji, Rei, Misato, and Asuka struggle with their reasons for existence. Shinji discovers that he has created a solitary existence for himself, a world in which he alone can exist.

As Asuka's depression has grown to the point that she is reduced to catatonia, SEELE sends Kaworu Nagisa to NERV in order to be the replacement pilot for Unit-02. At first Shinji and Kaworu bond and quickly become friends. However, it is soon revealed that Kaworu is in fact the final Angel and has been sent to merge with Adam in Terminal Dogma at the bottom level of NERV headquarters. Kaworu comma...

Following the last Angel's assault on her mind, Asuka sinks into clinical depression. The next Angel, Armisael attacks, and attempts to merge itself with Unit-00, causing it to make contact with Rei's mind, as past Angels did with Shinji and Asuka. In order to save Shinji, Rei self-destructs Unit-00 in order to destroy Armisael. Rei is revealed to be "recovered" after a supposed near-death experie...

After being defeated yet again by an Angel, Asuka's synchronization ratio continues to drop, affecting her ability to pilot Unit-02. Flashbacks reveal Asuka's tragic childhood, which shaped her current abrasive personality. A new Angel, Arael, appears in Earth's orbit, well outside the range of any Earth-based weaponry, including the Evangelions. Asuka is told that she will be Rei's backup for the...

Ryoji Kaji begins to make clandestine investigations into NERV's dark secrets, after which he, Misato, and Ritsuko attend a wedding. Meanwhile, Rei and Shinji stay after class to clean up while Asuka goes on a blind date. Shinji meets Gendo at his mother's grave. Later that night, at Misato's apartment, Asuka kisses Shinji out of boredom, nearly suffocating him. Misato finds out that Kaji is a spy...

The first half of this episode is a clip show, in the form of a report by SEELE reviewing Gendo's actions, summarizing the first season of episodes and the story up until this point. In the second half, Ritsuko conducts an experiment to determine if pilots can be switched between the Evangelions they normally pilot. Rei can synchronize with Unit-01 fairly well, but when Shinji attempts to synchron...

The pilots are undergoing a synchronization test directed by Ritsuko deep within NERV headquarters when a new Angel, Ireul, appears within the base itself, being initially mistaken for corrosion. This Angel is actually a collection of millions of microscopic organisms, which interact to create a living biological computer circuit. Iruel infects NERV's computer network, and then infiltrates two of...

A massive Angel, Sahaquiel, appears in Earth's orbit, well beyond the reach of the Evangelions, and launching several N² bombs at it has no effect. The Angel attacks by dropping small pieces of itself onto Earth below, calibrating its aim: once it has zeroed in on Tokyo-3, the main body of Sahaquiel will fall to Earth in a massive kamikaze attack to destroy Tokyo-3. All three Evangelions are deplo...

The electrical power in Tokyo-3 is completely cut off as a result of sabotage by parties unknown, trapping most NERV personnel inside, and worse, trapping all three Evangelion pilots outside of the base. A new Angel, Matarael, appears and begins to burn its way down to NERV headquarters by using a corrosive acid attack, and everyone inside must struggle to power up the Evangelions, as the pilots t...