Cartoon fans who take a moment to study a mysterious, fast-paced GIF called “Overload” on Imgur might find themselves getting disoriented rather quickly. At first, it seems like the faces of dozens of cartoon characters are flying by, one at a time. But, then, if these characters are so famous, then why isn’t a single one of them immediately identifiable? Viewers might feel like they saw Garfield or Lisa Simpson or the Pink Panther or Meg from Family Guy for a split second. But have they? Well, yes and no. Only when the individual images are studied does the awful truth become clear: The GIF’s creator has taken various iconic characters and combined their features in a sick but brilliant genetics experiment straight out of The Island Of Lost Souls. Martin from The Simpsons, for instance, has Popeye’s face. Meg is a Ninja Turtle. Jay Sherman has become one with Dr. Zoidberg. And so on and so forth.
This simultaneously wonderful, terrible thing is the creation of artist Olly Moss. Most of the pairings here seem pretty random, e.g. Ned Flanders and Spock from Star Trek: The Animated Series, but occasionally there is some method to the Moreau-like madness on display. Chuckie from Rugrats has been mated with Dexter from Dexter’s Laboratory, for instance, which is appropriate since the late actress Christine Cavanaugh voiced both characters. That’s sweet, though it scarcely makes the results any less upsetting.
The mesmerizing GIF recently came up for debate on a Facebook forum devoted to The Ren And Stimpy Show. Both Ren and Stimpy are thrown into the blender here as well. Ren, for instance, is morphed into both Bambi and George Jetson.
And Ren’s friend/victim/occasional lover Stimpy has been likewise cross-pollinated with the friendly adolescent protagonist of Doug. Again, there’s a voice actor connection here; both characters were played by Billy West on Nickelodeon.
There’s an image that will stay with a person for a while.