Got Slide?

It seems that there's been a bit of renewed interest in this fantastic '90's Nicktoon, "AHHhh! Real Monsters!" lately, and I couldn't be happier. You see, this was the first animated series that I watched as an adult, the catalyst that re-introduced me to animation as a story-telling and character-developing media, and changed my grown-up mind about animation being "only for kids". Unlike many fans of this series, created by the animation team of Klasky-Csupo, Inc., I was already an adult, with a career, when it first aired. I had not watched "cartoons" since I was 12, believing myself to be too old and sophisticated for such childish entertainment. One rainy Saturday, I was flipping through cable channels and discovered this series, and was hooked. I won't go into all the reasons WHY I found it so appealing here, but this little guy was one of the main reasons.

His name is "Ickis", and he's a monster. OK, maybe not the scariest monster, hence his perpetual underdog status. Ickis attended a monster academy underneath a huge landfill outside of New York City, where young monsters learned how to terrify humans, without getting caught by them(that would be a Bad Thing). Ickis had the misfortune to have been born cute and adorable, big handicaps for a monster, and his long gremlin-like ears and big feet and soft fur(yes, he was furry) led many of his potential scare victims to think that he was a big bunny rabbit. As a result, humans were more likely to pick him up and give him a hug than run away screaming, and he often found himself the object of ridicule from other monsters. Oddly enough, though, Ickis had a borderline obsession with humans and our culture, music, etc., and harbored no particular ill will against our species, even knowing how dangerous we could be. He wound up befriending and helping several humans throughout the course of the series, even though doing so was strictly forbidden by monster rules. In one episode, "Monster Blues", the inspiration behind this painting, Ickis ran away from the Monster Academy and tried to find a place of his own, choosing a run-down, abandoned tenement building. He soon discovered, though, that it was not as abandoned as it might seem, and was home to an old blind man, a veteran Delta Blues musician by the name of Ellis Robinson(voiced by a very genuine Bluesman, the incomparable Taj Mahal). After failing to scare the old guy(he's blind, so he does not know that Ickis is anything other than a human kid), Ickis strikes up a friendship with him, and in turn, Mr. Robinson teaches him about the Blues. Ickis proves to be a very apt pupil, to the point that the word "prodigy" comes to mind; as the butt of many a joke, many a put-down, who seems to attract bad luck like a magnet attracts iron, he can absolutely relate to what the Blues is all about, and with some guidance from his new-found friend, he quickly masters the harmonica in just a few minutes. I'm a huge fan of the Blues myself, so this episode especially appealed to me. In my "head-canon" Ickis continued to visit his friend, learning everything he could of the old Blues masters, picking up not only the harmonica, but the guitar as well, even after his mentor had departed this world at last. He had to keep it a secret, though, telling no one, not even his closest friends, sneaking off to practice in some dark alley at night whenever he could find time, even building his own guitar from assorted bits and pieces he found in the junkyard, no biggie, actually, since he once built a fully-functional satellite tv system from stuff he'd gathered in the same junkyard, including a trash-can lid for a dish receiver!

Derek Trucks had better watch out, that's all I gotta say!

Ickis is not my property, but still belongs to Viacom Entertainment.

pitbulllady