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Perfect Hair Forever
Format	Animated Comedy
Created by	Mike Lazzo Matt Harrigan Matt Maiellaro
Voices of	Carey Means Kim Manning Dave Willis Nick Ingkatanuwat George Lowe Dan Dumile
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	7 (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Mike Lazzo
Producer(s)	Scott Fry Matt Harrigan Dave Willis
Running time	11 1/2 minutes
Production company(s)	Radical Axis (studio)
Broadcast
Original channel	Adult Swim
Picture format	NTSC (480i)
Audio format	Stereophonic sound
Original run	November 7, 2004 – April 1, 2007
External links
Official website

Perfect Hair Forever is an American comedy animated television series which is largely a parody of anime. It was created and produced by Williams Street, and primarily aired in 2005 on Adult Swim and The Detour in the US and Canada respectively.

On October 27, 2009 Adult Swim and distributor Warner Home Video released Adult Swim in a Box, a 7 disc DVD box set of a variety of different Adult Swim shows, the pilot episode of Perfect Hair Forever is featured on this box set on a special DVD along with Welcome to Eltingville, Korgoth of Barbaria and the currently unaired pilot, Totally for Teens.^[1]

Overview

Perfect Hair Forever is a parody of stereotypical anime clichés combined with Williams Street's now well-established style of absurdist humor first developed in series such as Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Aqua Teen Hunger Force and Sealab 2021. The series blends frenetic visual montages and anime subculture references.

The series concerns a young boy named Gerald who is on a quest to find the perfect hair to remedy his premature baldness. He is joined on his wanderings by an array of strange companions. Gerald is opposed by the evil Coiffio and his minions for reasons which are never stated in the series.

Perfect Hair Forever employs an ongoing serial format, a style that had been uncommon to previous Williams Street projects, due to their lack of emphasis on continuity. Each episode of the series thus far has featured different opening sequence music and visuals. The style and music of the end credits has also varied from episode to episode.

Following the first six episodes, members of the Perfect Hair Forever creative team posted on the official Adult Swim message board that they weren't interested in continuing the show to a second season, and at the Adult Swim panel at Comic-Con 2006, the cancellation of the series was announced.

In October 2006, Adultswim.com confirmed that Perfect Hair Forever is back in production with 16 episodes to be aired on its online streaming network The Fix. However, this was apparently incorrect or premature, since after the first episode of the second season, the series has yet to be continued.

Episode 7 premiered April 1, 2007, as part of Adult Swim's April Fool's Day joke. It is also available on Adult Swim's "The Fix" website.

Pilot episode

The Perfect Hair Forever pilot first aired on November 7, 2004, in the time slot that had been advertised as the premiere of the Squidbillies pilot. Unknown to the audience at the time, the existing Squidbillies pilot had fallen behind and wasn't ready to air^[2]. Williams Street continued advertising the Squidbillies premiere up to and including the bump directly preceding the show, which talked about wanting to make the show "perfect" for you and your "hair" "forever", revealing the title "Perfect Hair Forever." The night's confusion continued when, instead of seeing the opening titles for Squidbillies, viewers were confronted with a title card for an episode of Space Ghost called "Perfect Hair Forever", thus starting the pilot episode.

After the ending credits ran, a bumper card appeared, apologizing for the apparent scheduling mixup only for it to fade out to a fake "Technical Difficulties" card featuring a selection of Perfect Hair Forever's characters. This was shown on screen for several seconds, accompanied by typical music before the card faded to static whilst the Action Hot Dog's "Do da la la la la!" echoed. The card returned and the music was replaced with a techno remix of Action Hot Dog's chant^[2].

Major characters

Gerald Bald Z 

The main protagonist of the story, Gerald is a young boy suffering from extremely premature hair loss. Because of this, he goes off on a journey to acquire "Perfect Hair Forever" (a reference to the golden Super Saiyan hair, found in Dragon Ball Z). He is portrayed as a sometimes melancholy, yet optimistic young lad who believes that his goal is possible.

Action Hotdog 

The first character to join Gerald's journey. Action Hotdog is a hotdog which flies around and is only capable of uttering the words "Doo da la-la-la-la-la-la la la-la-laaaaa-la-la!".

Coiffio 

The main "villain" of the series, Coiffio is a self-centered old man with an enormous, multi-colored coif atop his head, who otherwise looks like a more fit version of Uncle Grandfather with a slightly different beard. He speaks in an odd, indeterminable accent, and possesses a unique censor sound, wherein all his uses of the "F-Word" are consored by the sound of Coiffio yelling "EFF!"

Catman 

A grumpy, fat man in a cat suit who is Coiffio's main henchman. Catman lives in a large, litterbox-shaped house, and is shown working at a convenience store in several episodes.

Norman Douglas 

A talking tree, also known as the Inappropriate Comedy Tree. Originally an agent of Coiffio, his task was to follow Gerald and watch him. The character talks loudly and shares the same facial animations as Terry/Twisty.

Uncle Grandfather 

Described by producer Matt Harrigan as a "bald, pot-bellied, dirty old man", Uncle Grandfather is Gerald's father figure of sorts. He spends almost all of his time snacking, watching Brenda put on lewd displays, or reading pornography. He also exhibits a stereotypical Asian speech impediment, where he pronounces English 'r' sounds as 'l' sounds.

Terry/Twisty 

A pathological, sentient tornado that appears to suffer from dissociative identity disorder.

Young Man 

A young, enthusiastic man in a bright purple suit that claims to be from the "Ministry of Planning" and calls himself the "King of All Animals".

Rod, the Anime God 

An entity made of fire, who calls himself the "god" of anime. Rod is introduced early in the series, and pops in at seemingly random intervals. Rod is the focus of a secondary plot in the series involving Coffio attempting to sell him a house.

Adult Swim References

In addition to various references to other anime series, PHF has included several visual references to other Adult Swim shows.

• Clown Planet - Several PHF episodes have references to Clown Planet, which is a reference to an episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force, "The Clowning".

• 12 Oz. Mouse - Pictures of Mouse Fitzgerald (protagonist of 12 Oz. Mouse) and Skillet (Fitz's sidekick) are found in episodes 5 and 6.

• Aqua Teen Hunger Force - A special airing of the episodes on April 1, 2007 had subtitles which were actually lines from ATHF episodes. Additionally, images of Master Shake are visible at various points in the series.

• Space Ghost Coast to Coast - Space Ghost appears in every episode, either as a character with an actual role, or in the background.

References

External links

• Adult Swim
• AdultSwim.co.uk
• Perfect Hair Forever at the Internet Movie Database
• Perfect Hair Forever at TV.com
• Perfect Hair Central
• Perfect Hair Forever review from The Hollywood Reporter
• Perfect Hair Forever review from TV Squad