Some religions use the fear of Hell to fill seats, some religions use xenophobia to encourage acts of violence, and some religions use the glamour of celebrity to pad their bank accounts. Rooted firmly in the third category is Scientology, which has mastered the art of celebrity endorsement advertising to a level unprecedented in the history of bullshit faiths.

But usually when a big movie star shills for L. Ron Hubbard’s disciples, the reputation tarnished is theirs and theirs alone. So it’s understandable if I express a little outrage at the discovery that Scientology has crossed the line and ruthlessly exploited a classic icon from my TV-hungry youth. This week, without the permission of the Fox Broadcasting Company, Nancy Cartwright, who does the voice of Bart Simpson on The Simpsons, has recorded a telephone ad campaign in California illegally using Bart Simpson in the most degrading way possible. Luckily, a dutiful citizen recorded it for us. Listen:

Yeeeeeah. Wow. Feeling brainwashed yet? Apparently it’s the real deal. While the word “Scientology” is never used in the message, plenty of standard Hubbard jargon is. For example, listen closely and you’ll hear Cartwright say,

“I’m now auditing on New O.T. 7.”

O.T. stands for “Operating Thetan,” and the number is a sort of rank which, I’m assuming, refers to the number of zeroes on the check that the participant has written to the church. a “Thetan” is a parasitic soul monster that overtakes your body, and– oh, fuck it, it’s not important. All you need to know is that they’re manipulative assholes who want to take your money. Cartwright rattles off some more arcane crap, and Bart Simpson, with a metaphorical gun to his head, cheers, “It’s gonna be a blast, man!”

The owners of The Simpsons, as one might expect, are neither happy nor supportive of Nancy Cartwright’s little act of defiance. When asked about the cold-calling recording, Simpsons executive producer Al Jean said,

“This is not authorized by us. The Simpsons does not, and never has, endorsed any religion, philosophy or system of beliefs any more profound than Butterfinger bars.”

Good for them. Though, now that you mention it, I’m not seeing a clear distinction between Scientology and any other product hocked by celebrity endorsements. I mean, Pepsi wants our money, and the Church of Scientology wants our money. Though, granted, Pepsi is better about getting permission when using trademarked characters. Also, you don’t have to attend boring meetings to earn the privilege of buying Pepsi. You can just go right down to the corner shop and give them a dollar. So, at the very least, Scientology is guilty of having bad manners.

Ralph Bakshi has a message for all the amateur animators and cartoonists out there, and more generally, all us struggling artists. That message is:

“You guys are sitting today with the world in your hands.”

Bakshi, generally regarded as a groundbreaking animator and filmmaker, is best known for directing the film adaptation of R. Crumb’s X-rated Fritz the Cat. He struggled for much of his career against behemoth animation studios like Terrytoons and Disney, and witnessed the original death of theatrical animation in the 1950s. Bakshi discussed this on a panel at the 2008 San Diego Comic Con, and explained how he managed to beat the trend in a fading industry:

“I started to think about what I’d hated about the cartoons I’m looking at, and why the studios should close down. There’s no reason to keep stuff open that’s boring. In other words, why do you need another Terrytoons with a cat chasing a mouse in 1956?”

Soon realizing that he was in a room full of wide-eyed young geeks hanging on his every word, Bakshi took the opportunity to deliver a much-needed spanking to wannabe animators everywhere:

“You got these computers that can do this stuff for nothing! And what do you do with it? You try to get a job with some asshole studio.”

He has a point, of course, recognizable to everyone who watches original online cartoons, or even just Adult Swim. Coming from an aging animator who had to do it all the hard way, Bakshi is almost wistful when he talks about the amazing D.I.Y. possibilities available to today’s aspiring animators. If he sounds angry at all, it’s only because we’ve got it so much easier than he did (at least from a technological standpoint), and he suspects we may be wasting it.

“Four guys can get together and make their own movie in a year. But nobody does except Bill Plympton… That’s what I would do if I was young. I wouldn’t even get a job! I’d get a couple of computers and a bunch of guys. We’d eat crap for a year, and be millionaires the next year.”

I’m not sure how realistic this plan is, but it’s nice to hear a successful old pro, especially one who appears to be coherent and sober, say the sort of shit that young writers usually tell each other around beer #6. If you’re any variety of starving artist struggling to make a living, particularly in the current trainwreck economy, I recommend you watch the full clip of Ralph Bakshi’s wonderful 9-minute impromptu lecture below:

Well, you heard the man.

It’s a basic holiday fact that for every truly wonderful and original Christmas song, there are about a thousand horrible ones. But in the right hands, even the worst Christmas music has high comedic potential. And in the realm of turning coal to gold, few hands are more capable than Jackson Publick and Doc Hammer, creators of the excellent Adult Swim series, The Venture Bros. Every Christmas since 2004, Publick and Hammer have crafted special Venture Bros. Christmas songs for Quick Stop Entertainment. The songs are covers of dubious classics, performed by characters from the TV show. This year’s song just went online today, and it does not disappoint.

(Note: If you’ve never seen an episode of The Venture Bros., I’m in no mood to summarize it for you. Instead, here are some episodes you can stream.)

This year, Henchmen #21 and #24 sing a cover of Paul McCartney’s 1979 classic, “Wonderful Christmastime.” They butcher the song terribly, and ad lib when McCartney’s original lyrics start to get repetitive, and it’s all quite hilarious and fun.

But there’s a deeper subtext here, relating to the broader plot of the show. As anyone who’s seen the finale of season 3 knows, 24 dies at the end, his head flying out of an exploding car in the final moments of the episode. So how does this song fit in with the canon? As 21 explains in the introduction, they recorded the song in June so that they’d have it out of the way when Christmas came, in order to focus on the plans for their big Christmas Break vacation to Cancun. Their spirits are high, and all seems well for The Monarch’s two most unkillable minions. But, alas, shortly after this recording, 24 is indeed killed, robbing 21 of his best buddy in the world. And then Christmas rolls around, and because Quick Stop Entertainment demands satisfaction, 21 is forced to send in the song anyway, the shipping envelope’s adhesive sealed with his own tears. That, dear readers, is some unquestionably rich and brutal subtext to a seemingly goofy holiday song. I hope you’re taking notes.

Publick and Hammer’s previous holiday forays are equally brilliant. In 2004, The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend reenacted a 1977 sketch performed by David Bowie and Bing Crosby. Verbatim. With The Monarch taking the part of Bowie and Dr. Girlfriend taking the part of Crosby, they sing “The Little Drummer Boy,” banter, and even replicate all of Crosby’s cheesy jokes about how ancient he is. Not only is it surreal, but it also has this wonderful, “holy shit they’re really going to do the whole thing,” quality.

In 2005, The Monarch and Henchmen #21 and #24 sing the song “Hard Candy Christmas,” from The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas, made famous by Dolly Parton. At this time in the series The Monarch is incarcerated in a prison full of supervillains, and Dr. Girlfriend has left him for Phantom Limb. The Monarch is thus at his lowest point, and easily matches the despair of Parton’s prostitute. 21 and 24, taking on the roles of all the other whores, provide comic relief.

Focus shifted from the villains somewhat in 2006, when Dr. Thaddeus Venture assembled his family, friends, and enemies for Venture Aid 2006 and performed “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” The original song was performed by Band Aid, a fundraising group created by Bob Geldof and featuring a large section of the best pop musicians 1984 had to offer. In 2006, instead of Freddie Mercury, Simon Le Bon, George Michael and Bono, Venture Industries assembled the likes of Dr. Byron Orpheus, Pete White, Master Billy Quizboy, Hank and Dean Venture, and the entire Monarch Horde. Far from the well-meaning post-colonial famine-induced sympathy of the original, Venture’s version highlights the sinister implications of the song’s lyrics. One feels distinctly uneasy as Orpheus sings of “the clanging chimes of doom,” and delightfully horrified when Dean Venture enthusiastically shouts, “Thanks, God!” that it’s the Ethiopians, and not him, who are starving.

In 2007, The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend treated us to a rendition of The Pogues’ beautiful and tragic holiday song of love, entrapment, and desperation, “Fairytale of New York.” The song tells the story of a young Irish couple who emigrate to New York City, fall in love, and make each other’s lives miserable. The pain and devotion mirror The Monarch and Dr. Girlfriend’s own storyline, as they (at the end of season 2), reunite and get married.

Taken as a whole, the annual Venture Bros. Christmas songs are both delicious fan candy and a welcome departure from the sentimentality typically found in most holiday music. Hopefully they’ll keep it up, at least as long as the series runs on television. At any rate, enjoy these songs, and enjoy the genius of The Venture Bros. in general. But keep an eye out on Christmas Eve, lest the Krampus appear at your house to punish the wicked:

We’ve been naughty, too. Oh, and if you want to see “A Very Venture Christmas” in its entirety, click here for a free stream courtesy of Adult Swim.

In October 2001, probably in a fit of hysteria (at a time when nearly everyone in the U.S. was in a state of hysteria), David Rees created what I still consider to be the greatest post-9/11 comic strip in existence: Get Your War On. Oh, plenty of cartoonists did great work after 9/11; “The Adventures of Flagee and Ribbon” from Aaron McGruder’s The Boondocks comes to mind. But Get Your War On was spawned directly by the attack, the resulting war, and the wounded rage of a blindsided superpower. And it was fucking hilarious.

Rees never really had a plan with the comic, more like a frustrated and unwieldy muse. He was going to quit the comic after the attack on Afghanistan ended. Then he was going to end the comic after the war in Iraq. Only, the war didn’t end. Then he was going to quit doing the comic after the Bush administration, which took twice as long as we’d hoped. Instead, almost seven years after a clip art office worker shouted, “Oh yeah! Operation: Enduring Our Freedom is in the motherfucking house!” he wasn’t canned. No, was animated.

The two most prominent clip art characters in the comic are now the stars of the show, which runs about two minutes per episode. The black guy is now known as Accounts Receivable, and the white guy is known as Accounts Payable. They talk on the phone, during office hours, about current events. That’s the entire formula, hilarity amongst the mundane, and on the laugh-a-minute ratio, it’s as good as Seinfeld or The Office.

Whether it’s Accounts Payable singing about how he’s in love with Cindy McCain,

“You know what I like about her? She seems like she’d be up for anything.”

or Accounts Receivable explaining John McCain’s cross in the sand story,

“In that moment, he knew that if he ever decided to run for president, he had a corny-ass story to tell evangelical voters.”

or just pondering the purpose of the Surge,

“The goal of the surge was to just, y’know, get our troops surging like never before, y’know, like a mighty surge and… and… all the troops, and the planes, and the tanks and all that shit, all in one place just surging at the same time, right, basically just surge like a motherfucker, y’know?”

Get Your War On: The Animated Series is the logical end result of Seven Years of This Crazy Shit.

Look, just go watch the damn thing. It will be the funniest two minutes of your day.

Last year, I made an animated Beaksmas special for a few friends, and they liked it. This year, I made a new one and posted it on YouTube so that more than ten people will have a chance to see it.

The usual warnings apply — it’s got a lot of inside jokes and senseless violence. Plus some foul language, though not as much as usual. On the upside, it has Christmas Ogres.

Those of you with long memories may recall Night of the Ponies, a cartoon I posted last year. I promised a follow-up, then failed to deliver it for a very long time. Then my cousin got married and I turned it into a cartoon, creatively titled My Cousin Got Married.

Like every other artsy type out there, I’m not entirely satisfied with the end product, but you didn’t come here to listen to me apologize. So watch it.