Salad Fingers
Encyclopedia
Salad Fingers is a post-apocalyptic psychological horror
Flash cartoon
series originally created by British
cartoonist David Firth
in July 2004 which gained rapid internet popularity in 2005. The San Francisco Chronicle
ranked it in the "Top 10" pop culture phenomena for that year.
The cartoon revolves around the eponymous Salad Fingers (Ryan Ross), a thin, green, mentally troubled man who inhabits a desolate world. Already a well-known Flash animation series available on the internet, Salad Fingers premiered in Australia
at the 2007 Sydney Underground Film Festival
at the Factory Theatre. The first seven episodes were shown back to back, along with a variety of other animated short films, during the "Re-Animation" session.
. The dark music in the soundtrack that appears when Salad Fingers is scared is actually Firth playing the guitar, slowed down and reversed. Other music included in Salad Fingers episodes includes work credited to Brian Eno
, Sigur Rós
, Aphex Twin
and Lustmord
. David Firth frequently inserts references to Aphex Twin in his flash cartoons; for example, the Aphex Twin logo can be found on the telephone in Salad Fingers episode five. Firth has also cited the works of David Lynch
, South Park
, Tim Burton
, The League of Gentlemen
, and Chris Morris
as sources of inspiration.
humanoid with light-green skin, and no visible nose or ears, who speaks with a Northern English accent. His long, strangely-shaped fingers are his most notable feature. They were the focus of the first episode of the series, where Salad Fingers is shown getting pleasure from rubbing various objects, particularly rusty metallic ones such as spoons, taps and a kettle. Salad Fingers is unable or purposefully unwilling to distinguish between living beings and inanimate objects, and is frequently found talking to various inert articles (notably his finger puppets and in two cases a human corpse). Furthermore, he often assigns such objects proper name
s and appears to believe that they can communicate with him directly, sometimes voicing their perceived thoughts himself. He lives alone
in a small shack (containing, among other things, an oven, bedroom, safety cupboard, radio, phone, and table) with the number 22
on the door. Salad Fingers appears to be somewhat masochistic, as he can be seen taking pleasure from impaling his finger on a hook or stepping onto a beartrap. His talents include playing the flute
and speaking French
. He also seems able to use Morse Code
, as shown in episode nine. It is implied that the desolate world Salad Fingers inhabits is the aftermath of the "Great War", a conflict which is referenced several times in the more recent episodes that may have destroyed the world and the stability of his mind. Interestingly enough, he is quite articulate, however he often spouts peculiar English sayings and phrases in situations where they do not fit.
Hubert Cumberdale, Marjory Stewart-Baxter, and Jeremy Fisher : Finger puppets who appear variously in episodes two, three, five, six, seven, eight and nine. They often appear in Salad Fingers' fantasies
as life sized beings. Jeremy Fisher is thought to be named after the Beatrix Potter
book The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
. In episode 2, Salad Fingers tastes these puppets, claiming Hubert Cumberdale tastes like "soot and poo" and Marjory Stewart-Baxter tastes like "sunshine dust". Jeremy Fisher is not tasted, which is revisited in a later episode. Salad Fingers has also referred to Jeremy Fisher as having been out fighting "The Great War". In episode five, Hubert Cumberdale is temporarily renamed Barbara Logan-Price. In episode six, Salad Fingers eats Jeremy Fisher in a moment of forgetfulness, and the puppet has not appeared or been mentioned since, indicating that he was killed off. In episode eight, Salad Fingers calls Cumberdale a "dirty immigrant" after dropping him in a chamber pot. In episode nine, Salad Fingers talks to Stewart-Baxter as if she is his partner and the mother of their 'child', Yvonne.
Harry/Milford Cubicle : Appearing in episode three, Cubicle is an aggressive, armless human-like being who wears an apron identifying him as being employed at a "BBQ". Though his nametag reads "Harry" and indicates that he is "Happy to help", Salad Fingers calls him Milford Cubicle. He bleeds to death after repeatedly banging his head on Salad Fingers' door. Salad Fingers then finds him and drags him inside his house and hangs him on a meat hook, believing him to be alive and conscious.
Bordois : Appearing in episode four, Bordois is a pill bug which Salad Fingers accidentally kills by attempting to pet her. He refers to this bug as "little sister". Once he squishes her, he says "You've gone flat, little sister. And you're all gooey. I shan't play with you again until you've had a wash."
Aunty Bainbridge : Appearing in episode one and episode nine, is a yellow bug-eyed creature who owns many rusty objects (which Salad Fingers strokes) and a small house. While Salad Fingers calls it Aunty Bainbridge in the ninth episode, he also calls it a "young child" in the first, intimating that he does not, in fact, know it at all. This is further evidenced when she backs away from Salad Fingers when he tries to hug her in the ninth episode. It is difficult to tell whether this is a person and what its sex is.
Mable: Appearing in episode five, Mable is a scuffed, grubby, scarred young girl who goes to a picnic with Salad Fingers. She is the first character other than Salad Fingers who can communicate in English
, and she is the first person other than Salad Fingers to actually speak— something that seems to shock and dismay Salad Fingers. When she sees Salad Fingers looking at her in dismay she says "What's wrong, Mr. Fingers? Do you not like my mouth-words?" While this is going on, she is seen with her eyes gouged out, although it seems unlikely Salad Fingers did this.
Kenneth : A decomposing corpse found in a hole (one which was apparently dug up completely by Salad Fingers' finger puppet, Hubert Cumberdale) near Salad Fingers' house in episode seven; Salad Fingers claims that it is his younger brother, "back from the Great War," and invites him in for dinner before eventually putting him back while singing "We'll meet again".
Roger : Appearing in episode eight, Roger is a broken radio that speaks in a robotic, aggressive manner (much like a Dalek
) and scares Salad Fingers into the cupboard twice. Roger, according to Salad Fingers, must be given 'sustenance' (in the form of small brown pellets which appear to be beans or marbles).
Horace Horsecollar
: A toy horse with which Salad Fingers indulges his senses.
Penny Pigtails : A character Salad Fingers' imagination created while hiding from Roger in the safety cupboard. She is nothing but Salad Fingers' hand 'walking' across the ledge. Salad Fingers imagines that she is denied raspberry jam by a market trader, who bases his actions on the grounds that her legs are "too long" and "made of cotton", which upsets him greatly.
Mr. Branches: A tree 21 yards from the house. Salad Fingers measures this distance, and then comments to the tree that it's "barely shuffled an inch all week"—implying that it moves (or, at least, he perceives it to) and that he regularly keeps track of this measurement. In episode nine, Salad Fingers bites one of its branches, causing it to cry in pain (with Salad Fingers imagining it with a face). It begs Salad Fingers to be let inside in the voice of a young boy/young girl, but is told that it has to "grow out of [its] branches" first. Mr. Branches then proceeds to tightly wrap its branch around Salad Fingers' stomach - although, it is implied that this entire scene was a fantasy, and not reality.
Yvonne : A black slimy object that Salad Fingers 'gives birth to' out of the front of his stomach in episode nine. It is implied that it is his long-awaited child, saying that he 'yearned for [the] day' it would arrive. He cradles it and reads it a poem, during which he names it "Baby Yvonne" and tells it that it has its mother's eyes, when in fact it has no human features at all. Unhappy with it, Salad Fingers decides to give it to Aunty Bainbridge, but ends up forgetting that it's his daughter. He then proceeds to clean Aunty Bainbridge's window, believing it to be a sponge.
Salad Fingers also ramblingly mentions he has an "old pal" named "Charlie" as well as a daughter, though neither of them are seen. It could be that neither of these characters are real, died in the supposed "Great War", or as they could be nothing more than the title character's delusions.
Unnamed Characters :
, and each one only follows a semblance of a story.
This episode introduces us to Salad Fingers and his love of touching rusty spoons. He explains how touching any form of rust—including spoons, a door bell panel, and a kettle—stimulates him ("The feeling of rust against my salad fingers is almost orgasm
ic"), and that he holds a particular love of spoons. Salad Fingers walks to the house of a strange young boy to see if he has any rusty spoons; the child screeches two times, at which point Salad Fingers leaves, after asking to caress a rusty kettle that is on a table beside him.
Salad Fingers has a get-together with his "friends"—finger puppets—whom Salad Fingers introduces as Hubert Cumberdale, Marjory Stewart-Baxter and Jeremy Fisher. He appears to believe that his "friends" are real, living beings. Wondering what his friends taste like, he briefly inserts them into his mouth, exclaiming that Marjory Stewart-Baxter tastes like "sunshine dust", while Hubert Cumberdale tastes like "soot and poo". Salad Fingers then tells them that he has a fish cooking in the oven and speaks a nonsensical phrase in French: "Alors. Habille-la. Comment t'appelles-tu? Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?." This roughly translates to: "So. Dress her. What's your name? What's the matter?".
In the next scene, a frightened child responds to Salad Fingers's call for help. Salad Fingers cannot reach the fish
cooking in his oven and asks the child to get it for him. As the child reaches into the oven, Salad Fingers sees a rusty nail jutting out of the wall and reaches to caress it, causing the oven door to close with the child still inside. Salad Fingers then impales his finger on the spike and begins bleeding, blissfully saying "I like it when the red water comes out."
Salad Fingers turns pale and passes out. Apparently dreaming, Salad Fingers walks through a large meat locker singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow to himself. While inside, he meets a full-size Hubert Cumberdale, who screams distorted electronic noises at him. When Salad Fingers awakens he sits in a pool of his own blood. The oven smokes as Salad Fingers states, "That fish smells about done," ignoring or forgetting the fact that it was the smoke from the "cooked alive" child that he'd forgotten about when 'dozing off'.
Salad Fingers is playing with nettles
and has irritated blisters all over his hands. He then comes across an empty perambulator
, which he calls a "nettle carrier" and then leaves with it. A deformed armless man wearing an apron labeled "BBQ" appears and chases after Salad Fingers, screaming and babbling unintelligibly. Salad Fingers is sitting on the floor at his home and brushing the nettle over his nipple (while appearing to have an orgasm), which makes him lactate, and says "It seems... Nettles... have made the milk... drop out... from inside my teat!", when the armless man runs to Salad Fingers' house and begins to bang his head on the door. Salad Fingers daydreams of "happy times" (in which he and a life-sized version of the Hubert Cumberdale puppet are getting hair-dried). Eventually, Salad Fingers comes outside and finds the man dead on the floor, his head bloodied. He names the man "Milford Cubicle", despite the man's name tag reading "Harry". Believing that the man is alive, Salad Fingers drags "Milford" inside and hangs him on a meat hook on the wall. Salad fingers then plays the flute, and offers "Milford" a "warm glass of milk", which presumably is the milk that came out of his teat when he milked himself using the nettles.
Salad Fingers wears a beret
and declares that he is going to try and find France
. However, he is frightened by a mutated boy with disproportionately large eyeballs that has been "watching him for a while". Salad Fingers becomes uncomfortable with the child's proximity and begins to leave. The boy, who speaks only in growls and grunts, approaches Salad Fingers, having apparently fallen in love with him. Salad Fingers holds out his hand to stop the boy coming closer, but the boy licks his hand, much to Salad Fingers' disgust.
Inside his house, Salad Fingers sees a gray woodlouse
coming out from a hole in the wall. He addresses the bug as "Bordois" and his "little sister." After asking what "she" has been collecting, he acts as though the bug gives him a response. Salad Fingers announces his enjoyment in the bug's body and goes to touch it, accidentally crushing it and looking at it in curiosity which turns to disgust. He then says to Bordois that she's "gone flat" and become "all gooey", and that he "shan't play with [her] again, until [she's] had a wash." Salad Fingers then hears a knock on the door, which he opens to find a "grubby tap" attached to a string on the ground. Salad Fingers becomes excited about this "gift" and begins to fantasize about taps. He attempts to fetch it, but it is drawn away on the string as bait. He is caught in a bear trap which causes him to lose blood and consciousness while savoring the desanguination
blissfully. He wakes up in a cage, and enjoys rubbing the rusted bars. The grotesque boy approaches the cage and holds out a ring (on which is mounted a human tooth
) as if proposing marriage. Salad Fingers becomes distraught, states "I don't like this game" and announces that he is "going home now". This angers the boy, who makes an unintelligible noise that sounds like "You're my own now." A rope appears, hanging down from the ceiling, which Salad Fingers pulls to draw down a curtain. When the curtain lifts, the boy, seeing that Salad Fingers has disappeared, begins to cry. The episode closes with Salad Fingers, wearing his beret, flying away gleefully on a giant tap
, presumably to France.
Salad Fingers talks to an apparently broken and disconnected phone, asking the operator
to connect him to his "old pal Charlie" so he can invite him to a picnic, but only garbled noises are heard. Whilst describing the picnic fare, Salad Fingers rubs his stomach in hunger, then claims to have been rudely disconnected. Hubert Cumberdale is on one of the fingers on Salad Fingers' other hand, but he seems dismayed to see him. Instead of referring to him as Hubert, he calls him "Barbara Logan-Price", and gives him a "friend-hat", which is a miniature captain's hat.
In the next scene, Salad Fingers wears a bridal train
and talks to himself in a mirror, declaring "You look so beautiful". He then goes outside for his picnic, which is attended by a strange crow (which appears in other David Firth cartoons) that makes garbled noises and a little girl with scars on her face, a filthy, stained pink dress and orange hair. Salad Fingers asks the orange-haired girl a question and answers it for her (as he seems to think that only he can speak), ending with "replied Mable". Salad Fingers calls her his new playmate and compliments her on her dress, and as he does this, Marjory Stewart-Baxter is seen in the window, jealous. Salad Fingers offers "Mable" some "Pease Pudding
", which he feeds to her with a dirty, rusty spoon. The crow then swoops down and steals Salad Fingers's spoon.
The little girl giggles and says that the crow must like spoons too. The shock of the girl speaking to him in English and not via Salad Finger's own voice (or the screeches his puppets and/or other living things made) drives Salad Fingers to temporary insanity, hallucinating, hearing screeching, distorted noises, and seeing the girl (complete with empty eye sockets) saying, "What's wrong, Mr. Fingers? Do you not like my mouth-words? Naughty mouth!"
The episode begins with Salad Fingers walking about his house. He sees Hubert Cumberdale on top of a cupboard, and instructs the finger puppet to come down at once. Hubert turns into a black, viscous, and apparently caustic fluid and oozes down the cupboard. A silhouette
is then seen walking through the house and Salad Fingers asks if somebody is there; it is, in fact, the Jeremy Fisher puppet on his finger. Salad Fingers remarks that he thought Jeremy was out "fighting the Great War". Jeremy Fisher/Salad Fingers responds in garbled gibberish which Fingers can't understand, musing that Fisher seems "to have adopted a strange dialect."
Another perspective shot shows Jeremy Fisher (now with arms) handing Salad Fingers a toy horse. Salad Fingers is pleased with the present
, and remarks on the pleasing texture. He then eats Jeremy Fisher and immediately forgets, wondering "Where have you gotten to?" He begins to play with the toy horse while making "neigh" sounds, walks outside with it, and goes to an abandoned toilet
with which he initiates a conversation. Suddenly, the mood changes and the music becomes sinister; he grows concerned and he begins defending himself, saying "You've got the wrong bloke, squire
." He then flushes the toilet to "wash those bad thoughts away".
Upon arriving home, Salad Fingers gasps and sees himself sitting inside. The Salad Fingers inside appears to be hallucinating
, seeing the "outside" Salad Fingers as a life-size Jeremy Fisher. The "inside" Salad Fingers speaks in a slightly different voice and also has rougher text showing what he is saying. The conversation starts off just like the earlier one with Jeremy Fisher, but goes on to include accusations that Jeremy Fisher has been "tailgating [his] daughter with aspirations of deflowering her rose". This appears to be the other "side" of the conversation Salad Fingers had into the toilet.
The inside Salad Fingers is now seen with the Jeremy Fisher finger puppet. Fisher never responds verbally, but at one point unfastens a clasp over his mouth from which green ooze bubbles and drips to the floor. Salad Fingers caresses Fisher's hair and remarks that he never did "sample the delights of your flavor", a reference to when he tasted his other two "friends" Hubert Cumberdale and Marjory Stewart-Baxter in episode two. He begins putting the finger-puppet in his mouth, but the scene quickly changes to a bloody scene of the "inside" Salad Fingers eating the "outside" Salad Fingers' head/brains, suggesting that Salad Fingers is actually experiencing the personalities he invents
. The episode ends with an external shot of the house panning back to reveal the toilet.
As Salad Fingers is digging holes outside with his finger puppets, occasionally tasting the sand (which he calls "floor sugar"), he finds the decomposing torso of an old corpse. Salad Fingers immediately "recognizes" the cadaver as "Kenneth," his "younger brother" who is back from the previously mentioned "Great War" on shore leave. Salad Fingers pulls the gruesome, dismembered corpse out of the hole, saying it was rude of him to leave for "the Great War" without him, but promises to draw him a hot bath
.
The next scene shows Salad Fingers turning a cog
which pulls a clothesline, drawing Kenneth out of a wardrobe, now dressed in a white dinner jacket
. He starts to talk about life with the women of the great war. Salad Fingers has prepared a dinner of sand
for his guest, saying "I—hope you like... SAND". At one point Kenneth slumps forward, prompting Salad Fingers to suppose that he's sleepy and props Kenneth up by inserting a "wooden dent-rail" into his empty socket. Salad Fingers tells Kenneth of his life, keeping busy with "every shift I can... [and] sing[ing] at all the functions". There is a flashback in which Salad Fingers measures the distance from his door to a tree named "Mr. Branches" with a clickwheel
and subsequently teases it for its slow movement.
It is now evening, and Salad Fingers is with Kenneth outside near the same hole he found him in. He cries over the fact that Kenneth has to go "back to the ghastly trenches
". He salute
s Kenneth and sings "We'll Meet Again
" for him, after exclaiming, somewhat futilely, "I only ask that our creator return you unspoilt from the cruel hand of war". He then kicks Kenneth back into the hole. A dream-like sequence follows in which Salad Fingers sings the same song, in a white dress, on a stage in front of an audience of a theatre
. After singing a few strains, he complains to the pianist - who is shown as the silhouette
of a marionette
, with strings attached - that the key is wrong, walks off the stage, and the screen fades to black.
In this episode Salad Fingers mentions the Scottish town of Cowdenbeath
, indicating he is aware of real-life places.
Salad Fingers is sitting in his armchair, trying to tune his radio which he calls "Roger." If he is lucky, Salad Fingers says he may chance upon a broadcast from "Croxley", which so happens to be a small town in Hertfordshire. "Croxleyheath" also occurs in Shore Leave. After feeding Roger his "sustenance" (which seems to be marbles, peas, rocks or beans), it begins to emit a strange, piercing frequency. A gurgling sound comes from Salad Fingers' own stomach, insinuating upset in reaction to the "unpleasant frequencies" coming from the radio. He decides to wait out the tormenting event in his "safety cupboard."
When in the cupboard, Salad Fingers begins to converse with his hands. One hand enacts "Penny Pigtails," the other a market vendor. The "market vendor" refuses to sell raspberry
jam to "Penny Pigtails" on the grounds that her legs are "made of cotton" and "far too long" (an event that Salad Fingers finds most upsetting). After Salad Fingers cries for a bit, "Penny Pigtails
" discovers a long strand of hair, which Salad Fingers rubs over his eyeball, apparently causing him great pleasure although it makes his eye red and inflamed. After emerging from the cupboard, he tapes the hair to a wall with four other hairs of assorted colours that he has collected. Salad Fingers speaks to the hairs, calling them "beautiple" and "a gay little quintette" Next, he goes to bed with the Hubert Cumberdale puppet. Before going to sleep, Salad Fingers sings "Three in the Bed," and instructs Hubert Cumberdale to "roll over"; as a result, the finger puppet is sent off the bed into a bowl of a filthy, brown substance (likely a chamberpot). Salad Fingers orders Hubert Cumberdale to "scrub that muck off at once!" as he doesn't want any "dirty immigrants" in his house.
Later that night, the radio begins to emit strange sounds again and wakes up Salad Fingers. Salad Fingers approaches it warily and threatens Roger with expulsion from the house. The radio replies it was rude of Salad to take his hair. The radio speaks in a static voice, instructing Salad Fingers to return its hair, as well as to tidy the house. Salad Fingers declares that he "shan't", on the grounds that it isn't "his turn" and that it is an extremely unpleasant job. The radio continues to torment him, causing him to eat all of the hairs from his quintet, tape and all, and return to his cupboard in tears.
Salad Fingers is holding a piece of torn newspaper, imagining it is a letter from the Great War (presumably from his "brother") and reading it aloud to himself. As he reads, a tentacle-like branch snakes in through the door to Salad Fingers' bedroom. Salad Fingers picks up the branch and bites off the tip, resulting in something sobbing "Daddy, that really hurt!" off-screen. Salad Fingers goes to the window and sees the branch-tentacle being retracted into the tree outside. He walks out to the tree, calling it "Mr. Branches" and has a conversation with it about its injury, apparently forgetting it was he himself that bit it. The tree cries, calling Salad Fingers "Daddy" and asking to be let inside, but Salad Fingers refuses until it "grows out of those branches". The tree wraps a branch around Salad Fingers' waist.
Salad Fingers wakes up in his room, very pale and his stomach growling. Salad Fingers worries that he may be dying and taps out an S.O.S. on the metal fire grate beside him. Suddenly a strange gooey black mass bursts out of his stomach, causing him to pass out.
When he wakes up, he is overjoyed, and believes he has given birth to a daughter whom he names Yvonne. Sitting in a wheelchair and appearing to feel better despite his wound, he pulls back the skin of one finger revealing a strange solid tip and dips it in ink to write a "letter" consisting only of scribbles, saying he cannot attend the Great War as he is still feeling "under the weather". He keeps Yvonne (which appears to be a bundle of newspapers) down in a pit and tells her off for not doing her exercises.
The scene then switches back to Salad Fingers lying on the floor, pale, with his stomach still wounded, and seems to be pumping air into his chest, suggesting that he's relapsed into illness. He tells Yvonne he may be too ill to care for her and speaks for her as he usually does for his other inanimate characters, saying "That's a shame; you were doing a first-rate job". He then taps another message on the fire grate, requesting a home for "a meddlesome child".
Salad Fingers is then outside in his wheelchair with Yvonne in a bucket, telling her that "good old Aunty Bainbridge" has agreed to look after her. He arrives at the house from episode 1, where the small, yellow-skinned human-like creature with big eyes lives. Salad Fingers refers to the creature as "Aunty Bainbridge" and asks for a hug, but the creature takes a step back and makes an odd wailing noise. Salad Fingers recalls some memories of Aunty Bainbridge "all in faded days".
Salad Fingers then appears to forget his reason for visiting, and, noticing the bucket of black ooze on his lap, claims he has come to clean the windows. Using the bundle/Yvonne, he smears the windows with black ooze as the yellow creature looks on. Job done, Salad Fingers begins to eat a sandwich, implying that that was the object wrapped up in the newspaper and black ooze.
Psychological horror
Psychological horror is a subgenre of horror fiction that relies on character fears, guilt, beliefs, eerie sound effects, relevant music and emotional instability to build tension and further the plot...
Flash cartoon
Flash cartoon
A Flash animation or Flash cartoon is an animated film which is created using Adobe Flash or similar animation software and often distributed in the .swf file format. The term Flash animation not only refers to the file format but to a certain kind of movement and visual style which, in many...
series originally created by British
British people
The British are citizens of the United Kingdom, of the Isle of Man, any of the Channel Islands, or of any of the British overseas territories, and their descendants...
cartoonist David Firth
David Firth
David Firth is an English animator, video artist, amateur filmmaker, and musician. As a cartoonist Firth's work is largely distributed via the Internet...
in July 2004 which gained rapid internet popularity in 2005. The San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
ranked it in the "Top 10" pop culture phenomena for that year.
The cartoon revolves around the eponymous Salad Fingers (Ryan Ross), a thin, green, mentally troubled man who inhabits a desolate world. Already a well-known Flash animation series available on the internet, Salad Fingers premiered in Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
at the 2007 Sydney Underground Film Festival
Sydney Underground Film Festival
The Sydney Underground Film Festival is an annual film festival that takes place in Sydney, Australia, and shows independent, experimental and arthouse films from Australia and abroad...
at the Factory Theatre. The first seven episodes were shown back to back, along with a variety of other animated short films, during the "Re-Animation" session.
Music
The eerie music featured in the background is the tune "Beware the Friendly Stranger" by Boards of CanadaBoards of Canada
Boards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin...
. The dark music in the soundtrack that appears when Salad Fingers is scared is actually Firth playing the guitar, slowed down and reversed. Other music included in Salad Fingers episodes includes work credited to Brian Eno
Brian Eno
Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
, Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós is an Icelandic post-rock band with classicaland minimalist elements. The band is known for its ethereal sound, and frontman Jónsi Birgisson's falsetto vocals and use of bowed guitar. In January 2010, the band announced that they will be on hiatus. Since then, it has since been announced...
, Aphex Twin
Aphex Twin
Richard David James , best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born electronic musician and composer described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music"...
and Lustmord
Lustmord
Brian Williams is a British electronic musician often credited for creating the dark ambient genre with albums recorded under the name Lustmord.- History :Williams started recording as Lustmord in 1980 before joining SPK in 1982...
. David Firth frequently inserts references to Aphex Twin in his flash cartoons; for example, the Aphex Twin logo can be found on the telephone in Salad Fingers episode five. Firth has also cited the works of David Lynch
David Lynch
David Keith Lynch is an American filmmaker, television director, visual artist, musician and occasional actor. Known for his surrealist films, he has developed his own unique cinematic style, which has been dubbed "Lynchian", and which is characterized by its dream imagery and meticulous sound...
, South Park
South Park
South Park is an American animated television series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone for the Comedy Central television network. Intended for mature audiences, the show has become famous for its crude language, surreal, satirical, and dark humor that lampoons a wide range of topics...
, Tim Burton
Tim Burton
Timothy William "Tim" Burton is an American film director, film producer, writer and artist. He is famous for dark, quirky-themed movies such as Beetlejuice, Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Ed Wood, Sleepy Hollow, Corpse Bride and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet...
, The League of Gentlemen
The League of Gentlemen
The League of Gentlemen are a group of British comedians formed in 1995, best known for their radio and television series.The League of Gentlemen may also refer to:* The League of Gentlemen ,...
, and Chris Morris
Chris Morris (satirist)
Christopher Morris is an English satirist, writer, director and actor. A former radio DJ, he is best known for anchoring the spoof news and current affairs television programmes The Day Today and Brass Eye, as well as his frequent engagement with controversial subject matter.In 2010 Morris...
as sources of inspiration.
Characters
Salad Fingers : The main character is a bald hunchbackedKyphosis
Kyphosis , also called roundback or Kelso's hunchback, is a condition of over-curvature of the thoracic vertebrae...
humanoid with light-green skin, and no visible nose or ears, who speaks with a Northern English accent. His long, strangely-shaped fingers are his most notable feature. They were the focus of the first episode of the series, where Salad Fingers is shown getting pleasure from rubbing various objects, particularly rusty metallic ones such as spoons, taps and a kettle. Salad Fingers is unable or purposefully unwilling to distinguish between living beings and inanimate objects, and is frequently found talking to various inert articles (notably his finger puppets and in two cases a human corpse). Furthermore, he often assigns such objects proper name
Proper name
"A proper name [is] a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about" writes John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic , "but not of telling anything about it"...
s and appears to believe that they can communicate with him directly, sometimes voicing their perceived thoughts himself. He lives alone
Hermit
A hermit is a person who lives, to some degree, in seclusion from society.In Christianity, the term was originally applied to a Christian who lives the eremitic life out of a religious conviction, namely the Desert Theology of the Old Testament .In the...
in a small shack (containing, among other things, an oven, bedroom, safety cupboard, radio, phone, and table) with the number 22
22 (number)
22 is the natural number following 21 and preceding 23.- In mathematics :Twenty-two is an even composite number, its proper divisors being 1, 2 and 11....
on the door. Salad Fingers appears to be somewhat masochistic, as he can be seen taking pleasure from impaling his finger on a hook or stepping onto a beartrap. His talents include playing the flute
Flute
The flute is a musical instrument of the woodwind family. Unlike woodwind instruments with reeds, a flute is an aerophone or reedless wind instrument that produces its sound from the flow of air across an opening...
and speaking French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
. He also seems able to use Morse Code
Morse code
Morse code is a method of transmitting textual information as a series of on-off tones, lights, or clicks that can be directly understood by a skilled listener or observer without special equipment...
, as shown in episode nine. It is implied that the desolate world Salad Fingers inhabits is the aftermath of the "Great War", a conflict which is referenced several times in the more recent episodes that may have destroyed the world and the stability of his mind. Interestingly enough, he is quite articulate, however he often spouts peculiar English sayings and phrases in situations where they do not fit.
- Salad Fingers takes up various habits, including a regular measurement of the distance between his house and a tree, tasting of the dirt ("floor-sugar"), and listening to his radio. Sometimes he also displays a raspy asthmaAsthmaAsthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...
tic-like breathing when he becomes mesmerized at something or experiences extreme pleasure. The name "Salad Fingers" was invented by Firth's co-writer, Christian 'Crust' Pickup, who described Firth as having salad fingers while playing the guitar.
Hubert Cumberdale, Marjory Stewart-Baxter, and Jeremy Fisher : Finger puppets who appear variously in episodes two, three, five, six, seven, eight and nine. They often appear in Salad Fingers' fantasies
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
as life sized beings. Jeremy Fisher is thought to be named after the Beatrix Potter
Beatrix Potter
Helen Beatrix Potter was an English author, illustrator, natural scientist and conservationist best known for her imaginative children’s books featuring animals such as those in The Tale of Peter Rabbit which celebrated the British landscape and country life.Born into a privileged Unitarian...
book The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher
The Tale of Mr. Jeremy Fisher is a children's book, written and illustrated by Beatrix Potter. It was released by Frederick Warne & Co. in July 1906. Jeremy's origin lies in a letter she wrote to a child in 1893. She revised it in 1906, and moved its setting from the River Tay to the English Lake...
. In episode 2, Salad Fingers tastes these puppets, claiming Hubert Cumberdale tastes like "soot and poo" and Marjory Stewart-Baxter tastes like "sunshine dust". Jeremy Fisher is not tasted, which is revisited in a later episode. Salad Fingers has also referred to Jeremy Fisher as having been out fighting "The Great War". In episode five, Hubert Cumberdale is temporarily renamed Barbara Logan-Price. In episode six, Salad Fingers eats Jeremy Fisher in a moment of forgetfulness, and the puppet has not appeared or been mentioned since, indicating that he was killed off. In episode eight, Salad Fingers calls Cumberdale a "dirty immigrant" after dropping him in a chamber pot. In episode nine, Salad Fingers talks to Stewart-Baxter as if she is his partner and the mother of their 'child', Yvonne.
Harry/Milford Cubicle : Appearing in episode three, Cubicle is an aggressive, armless human-like being who wears an apron identifying him as being employed at a "BBQ". Though his nametag reads "Harry" and indicates that he is "Happy to help", Salad Fingers calls him Milford Cubicle. He bleeds to death after repeatedly banging his head on Salad Fingers' door. Salad Fingers then finds him and drags him inside his house and hangs him on a meat hook, believing him to be alive and conscious.
Bordois : Appearing in episode four, Bordois is a pill bug which Salad Fingers accidentally kills by attempting to pet her. He refers to this bug as "little sister". Once he squishes her, he says "You've gone flat, little sister. And you're all gooey. I shan't play with you again until you've had a wash."
Aunty Bainbridge : Appearing in episode one and episode nine, is a yellow bug-eyed creature who owns many rusty objects (which Salad Fingers strokes) and a small house. While Salad Fingers calls it Aunty Bainbridge in the ninth episode, he also calls it a "young child" in the first, intimating that he does not, in fact, know it at all. This is further evidenced when she backs away from Salad Fingers when he tries to hug her in the ninth episode. It is difficult to tell whether this is a person and what its sex is.
Mable: Appearing in episode five, Mable is a scuffed, grubby, scarred young girl who goes to a picnic with Salad Fingers. She is the first character other than Salad Fingers who can communicate in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, and she is the first person other than Salad Fingers to actually speak— something that seems to shock and dismay Salad Fingers. When she sees Salad Fingers looking at her in dismay she says "What's wrong, Mr. Fingers? Do you not like my mouth-words?" While this is going on, she is seen with her eyes gouged out, although it seems unlikely Salad Fingers did this.
Kenneth : A decomposing corpse found in a hole (one which was apparently dug up completely by Salad Fingers' finger puppet, Hubert Cumberdale) near Salad Fingers' house in episode seven; Salad Fingers claims that it is his younger brother, "back from the Great War," and invites him in for dinner before eventually putting him back while singing "We'll meet again".
Roger : Appearing in episode eight, Roger is a broken radio that speaks in a robotic, aggressive manner (much like a Dalek
Dalek
The Daleks are a fictional extraterrestrial race of mutants from the British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Within the series, Daleks are cyborgs from the planet Skaro, created by the scientist Davros during the final years of a thousand-year war against the Thals...
) and scares Salad Fingers into the cupboard twice. Roger, according to Salad Fingers, must be given 'sustenance' (in the form of small brown pellets which appear to be beans or marbles).
Horace Horsecollar
Horace Horsecollar
Horace Horsecollar is a funny animal cartoon character created by Ub Iwerks and Walt Disney. He is an anthropomorphic horse, one of Mickey Mouse's best friends. Horace first appeared as Mickey's plough horse in the cartoon "The Plow Boy" in 1929...
: A toy horse with which Salad Fingers indulges his senses.
Penny Pigtails : A character Salad Fingers' imagination created while hiding from Roger in the safety cupboard. She is nothing but Salad Fingers' hand 'walking' across the ledge. Salad Fingers imagines that she is denied raspberry jam by a market trader, who bases his actions on the grounds that her legs are "too long" and "made of cotton", which upsets him greatly.
Mr. Branches: A tree 21 yards from the house. Salad Fingers measures this distance, and then comments to the tree that it's "barely shuffled an inch all week"—implying that it moves (or, at least, he perceives it to) and that he regularly keeps track of this measurement. In episode nine, Salad Fingers bites one of its branches, causing it to cry in pain (with Salad Fingers imagining it with a face). It begs Salad Fingers to be let inside in the voice of a young boy/young girl, but is told that it has to "grow out of [its] branches" first. Mr. Branches then proceeds to tightly wrap its branch around Salad Fingers' stomach - although, it is implied that this entire scene was a fantasy, and not reality.
Yvonne : A black slimy object that Salad Fingers 'gives birth to' out of the front of his stomach in episode nine. It is implied that it is his long-awaited child, saying that he 'yearned for [the] day' it would arrive. He cradles it and reads it a poem, during which he names it "Baby Yvonne" and tells it that it has its mother's eyes, when in fact it has no human features at all. Unhappy with it, Salad Fingers decides to give it to Aunty Bainbridge, but ends up forgetting that it's his daughter. He then proceeds to clean Aunty Bainbridge's window, believing it to be a sponge.
Salad Fingers also ramblingly mentions he has an "old pal" named "Charlie" as well as a daughter, though neither of them are seen. It could be that neither of these characters are real, died in the supposed "Great War", or as they could be nothing more than the title character's delusions.
Unnamed Characters :
- A young, relatively normal looking child, wearing a varsity-type jacket whom Salad Fingers appears to have accidentally cooked in an oven in episode two.
- A big-eyed, grotesque, small mutant creature who falls in love with Salad Fingers in episode four. This character was originally created by Jimi Hollis, who refers to it as the "bug-eyed kid". It uses a bear trap and a grubby tap to capture Salad Fingers, then cages him and proposes with a ring topped with a human molarMolar (tooth)Molars are the rearmost and most complicated kind of tooth in most mammals. In many mammals they grind food; hence the Latin name mola, "millstone"....
.
Episodes
Each episode is 1–6 minutes long (with the exception of the ninth running for more than eight); the narratives themselves are quite oneiricOneiric (film theory)
In a film theory context, the term oneiric refers to the depiction of dream-like states in films, or to the use of the metaphor of a dream or the dream-state to analyze a film. The connection between dreams and films has been long established; "The dream factory" “...has become a household...
, and each one only follows a semblance of a story.
Episode 1 - Spoons
- Release date: July 1, 2004
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David Firth. Written by David Firth and Christian "Crust" Pickup. Music by Boards of CanadaBoards of CanadaBoards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin...
(in particular, the song "Beware the Friendly Stranger").
This episode introduces us to Salad Fingers and his love of touching rusty spoons. He explains how touching any form of rust—including spoons, a door bell panel, and a kettle—stimulates him ("The feeling of rust against my salad fingers is almost orgasm
Orgasm
Orgasm is the peak of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure...
ic"), and that he holds a particular love of spoons. Salad Fingers walks to the house of a strange young boy to see if he has any rusty spoons; the child screeches two times, at which point Salad Fingers leaves, after asking to caress a rusty kettle that is on a table beside him.
Episode 2 - Friends
- Release date: July 15, 2004
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David Firth. Written by David Firth and Christian "Crust" Pickup. Music by Boards of CanadaBoards of CanadaBoards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin...
and David Firth.
Salad Fingers has a get-together with his "friends"—finger puppets—whom Salad Fingers introduces as Hubert Cumberdale, Marjory Stewart-Baxter and Jeremy Fisher. He appears to believe that his "friends" are real, living beings. Wondering what his friends taste like, he briefly inserts them into his mouth, exclaiming that Marjory Stewart-Baxter tastes like "sunshine dust", while Hubert Cumberdale tastes like "soot and poo". Salad Fingers then tells them that he has a fish cooking in the oven and speaks a nonsensical phrase in French: "Alors. Habille-la. Comment t'appelles-tu? Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?." This roughly translates to: "So. Dress her. What's your name? What's the matter?".
In the next scene, a frightened child responds to Salad Fingers's call for help. Salad Fingers cannot reach the fish
Fish
Fish are a paraphyletic group of organisms that consist of all gill-bearing aquatic vertebrate animals that lack limbs with digits. Included in this definition are the living hagfish, lampreys, and cartilaginous and bony fish, as well as various extinct related groups...
cooking in his oven and asks the child to get it for him. As the child reaches into the oven, Salad Fingers sees a rusty nail jutting out of the wall and reaches to caress it, causing the oven door to close with the child still inside. Salad Fingers then impales his finger on the spike and begins bleeding, blissfully saying "I like it when the red water comes out."
Salad Fingers turns pale and passes out. Apparently dreaming, Salad Fingers walks through a large meat locker singing Somewhere Over the Rainbow to himself. While inside, he meets a full-size Hubert Cumberdale, who screams distorted electronic noises at him. When Salad Fingers awakens he sits in a pool of his own blood. The oven smokes as Salad Fingers states, "That fish smells about done," ignoring or forgetting the fact that it was the smoke from the "cooked alive" child that he'd forgotten about when 'dozing off'.
Episode 3 - Nettles
- Release date: August 1, 2004
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David Firth. Written by David Firth and Christian "Crust" Pickup. Music by Boards of CanadaBoards of CanadaBoards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin...
, Brian Eno and a yoga flute.
Salad Fingers is playing with nettles
Stinging nettle
Stinging nettle or common nettle, Urtica dioica, is a herbaceous perennial flowering plant, native to Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and North America, and is the best-known member of the nettle genus Urtica...
and has irritated blisters all over his hands. He then comes across an empty perambulator
Perambulator
Perambulator may refer to*a kind of baby transport*a surveyor's wheel...
, which he calls a "nettle carrier" and then leaves with it. A deformed armless man wearing an apron labeled "BBQ" appears and chases after Salad Fingers, screaming and babbling unintelligibly. Salad Fingers is sitting on the floor at his home and brushing the nettle over his nipple (while appearing to have an orgasm), which makes him lactate, and says "It seems... Nettles... have made the milk... drop out... from inside my teat!", when the armless man runs to Salad Fingers' house and begins to bang his head on the door. Salad Fingers daydreams of "happy times" (in which he and a life-sized version of the Hubert Cumberdale puppet are getting hair-dried). Eventually, Salad Fingers comes outside and finds the man dead on the floor, his head bloodied. He names the man "Milford Cubicle", despite the man's name tag reading "Harry". Believing that the man is alive, Salad Fingers drags "Milford" inside and hangs him on a meat hook on the wall. Salad fingers then plays the flute, and offers "Milford" a "warm glass of milk", which presumably is the milk that came out of his teat when he milked himself using the nettles.
Episode 4 - Cage
- Release date: August 20, 2004
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David Firth. Written by David Firth, Christian "Crust" Pickup, and Jimi Mwng. Additional character design by Jimi Mwng. Music by Boards of CanadaBoards of CanadaBoards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin...
, Aphex TwinAphex TwinRichard David James , best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born electronic musician and composer described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music"...
and David FirthDavid FirthDavid Firth is an English animator, video artist, amateur filmmaker, and musician. As a cartoonist Firth's work is largely distributed via the Internet...
.
Salad Fingers wears a beret
Beret
A beret is a soft, round, flat-crowned hat, designated a "cap", usually of woven, hand-knitted wool, crocheted cotton, or wool felt, or acrylic fiber....
and declares that he is going to try and find France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. However, he is frightened by a mutated boy with disproportionately large eyeballs that has been "watching him for a while". Salad Fingers becomes uncomfortable with the child's proximity and begins to leave. The boy, who speaks only in growls and grunts, approaches Salad Fingers, having apparently fallen in love with him. Salad Fingers holds out his hand to stop the boy coming closer, but the boy licks his hand, much to Salad Fingers' disgust.
Inside his house, Salad Fingers sees a gray woodlouse
Woodlouse
A woodlouse is a crustacean with a rigid, segmented, long exoskeleton and fourteen jointed limbs...
coming out from a hole in the wall. He addresses the bug as "Bordois" and his "little sister." After asking what "she" has been collecting, he acts as though the bug gives him a response. Salad Fingers announces his enjoyment in the bug's body and goes to touch it, accidentally crushing it and looking at it in curiosity which turns to disgust. He then says to Bordois that she's "gone flat" and become "all gooey", and that he "shan't play with [her] again, until [she's] had a wash." Salad Fingers then hears a knock on the door, which he opens to find a "grubby tap" attached to a string on the ground. Salad Fingers becomes excited about this "gift" and begins to fantasize about taps. He attempts to fetch it, but it is drawn away on the string as bait. He is caught in a bear trap which causes him to lose blood and consciousness while savoring the desanguination
Bleeding
Bleeding, technically known as hemorrhaging or haemorrhaging is the loss of blood or blood escape from the circulatory system...
blissfully. He wakes up in a cage, and enjoys rubbing the rusted bars. The grotesque boy approaches the cage and holds out a ring (on which is mounted a human tooth
Tooth
Teeth are small, calcified, whitish structures found in the jaws of many vertebrates that are used to break down food. Some animals, particularly carnivores, also use teeth for hunting or for defensive purposes. The roots of teeth are embedded in the Mandible bone or the Maxillary bone and are...
) as if proposing marriage. Salad Fingers becomes distraught, states "I don't like this game" and announces that he is "going home now". This angers the boy, who makes an unintelligible noise that sounds like "You're my own now." A rope appears, hanging down from the ceiling, which Salad Fingers pulls to draw down a curtain. When the curtain lifts, the boy, seeing that Salad Fingers has disappeared, begins to cry. The episode closes with Salad Fingers, wearing his beret, flying away gleefully on a giant tap
Tap (valve)
A tap is a valve controlling release of liquids or gas. In the British Isles and most of the Commonwealth, the word is used for any everyday type of valve, particularly the fittings that control water supply to bathtubs and sinks. In the U.S., the term "tap" is more often used for beer taps,...
, presumably to France.
Episode 5 - Picnic
- Release date: November 25, 2004
- Credits: Designed, animated, voiced and written by David FirthDavid FirthDavid Firth is an English animator, video artist, amateur filmmaker, and musician. As a cartoonist Firth's work is largely distributed via the Internet...
. Additional writing and the voice of Mable by Christian "Crust" Pickup (who also plays MC Devvo). Music by Boards of CanadaBoards of CanadaBoards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin...
, Aphex TwinAphex TwinRichard David James , best known under the pseudonym Aphex Twin, is an Irish-born electronic musician and composer described as "the most inventive and influential figure in contemporary electronic music"...
and David FirthDavid FirthDavid Firth is an English animator, video artist, amateur filmmaker, and musician. As a cartoonist Firth's work is largely distributed via the Internet...
.
Salad Fingers talks to an apparently broken and disconnected phone, asking the operator
Telephone operator
A telephone operator is either* a person who provides assistance to a telephone caller, usually in the placing of operator assisted telephone calls such as calls from a pay phone, collect calls , calls which are billed to a credit card, station-to-station and person-to-person calls, and certain...
to connect him to his "old pal Charlie" so he can invite him to a picnic, but only garbled noises are heard. Whilst describing the picnic fare, Salad Fingers rubs his stomach in hunger, then claims to have been rudely disconnected. Hubert Cumberdale is on one of the fingers on Salad Fingers' other hand, but he seems dismayed to see him. Instead of referring to him as Hubert, he calls him "Barbara Logan-Price", and gives him a "friend-hat", which is a miniature captain's hat.
In the next scene, Salad Fingers wears a bridal train
Wedding dress
A wedding dress or wedding gown is the clothing worn by a bride during a wedding ceremony. Color, style and ceremonial importance of the gown can depend on the religion and culture of the wedding participants.- Western culture :...
and talks to himself in a mirror, declaring "You look so beautiful". He then goes outside for his picnic, which is attended by a strange crow (which appears in other David Firth cartoons) that makes garbled noises and a little girl with scars on her face, a filthy, stained pink dress and orange hair. Salad Fingers asks the orange-haired girl a question and answers it for her (as he seems to think that only he can speak), ending with "replied Mable". Salad Fingers calls her his new playmate and compliments her on her dress, and as he does this, Marjory Stewart-Baxter is seen in the window, jealous. Salad Fingers offers "Mable" some "Pease Pudding
Pease pudding
Pease pudding, sometimes known as pease pottage or pease porridge, is a boiled vegetable product, which mainly consists of split yellow or Carlin peas, water, salt, and spices, often cooked with a bacon or ham joint...
", which he feeds to her with a dirty, rusty spoon. The crow then swoops down and steals Salad Fingers's spoon.
The little girl giggles and says that the crow must like spoons too. The shock of the girl speaking to him in English and not via Salad Finger's own voice (or the screeches his puppets and/or other living things made) drives Salad Fingers to temporary insanity, hallucinating, hearing screeching, distorted noises, and seeing the girl (complete with empty eye sockets) saying, "What's wrong, Mr. Fingers? Do you not like my mouth-words? Naughty mouth!"
Episode 6 - Present
- Release date: July 24, 2005
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David Firth. Written by David Firth and Christian "Crust" Pickup. Music by Boards of CanadaBoards of CanadaBoards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin...
, Chris GladwinChris GladwinChris Gladwin was an English cricketer. He played for Essex, Derbyshire and Suffolk in a nine-year first-class career.Gladwin played four Youth test matches for England Young Cricketers...
and David FirthDavid FirthDavid Firth is an English animator, video artist, amateur filmmaker, and musician. As a cartoonist Firth's work is largely distributed via the Internet...
.
The episode begins with Salad Fingers walking about his house. He sees Hubert Cumberdale on top of a cupboard, and instructs the finger puppet to come down at once. Hubert turns into a black, viscous, and apparently caustic fluid and oozes down the cupboard. A silhouette
Silhouette
A silhouette is the image of a person, an object or scene consisting of the outline and a basically featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black. Although the art form has been popular since the mid-18th century, the term “silhouette” was seldom used until the early decades...
is then seen walking through the house and Salad Fingers asks if somebody is there; it is, in fact, the Jeremy Fisher puppet on his finger. Salad Fingers remarks that he thought Jeremy was out "fighting the Great War". Jeremy Fisher/Salad Fingers responds in garbled gibberish which Fingers can't understand, musing that Fisher seems "to have adopted a strange dialect."
Another perspective shot shows Jeremy Fisher (now with arms) handing Salad Fingers a toy horse. Salad Fingers is pleased with the present
Gift
A gift or a present is the transfer of something without the expectation of receiving something in return. Although gift-giving might involve an expectation of reciprocity, a gift is meant to be free. In many human societies, the act of mutually exchanging money, goods, etc. may contribute to...
, and remarks on the pleasing texture. He then eats Jeremy Fisher and immediately forgets, wondering "Where have you gotten to?" He begins to play with the toy horse while making "neigh" sounds, walks outside with it, and goes to an abandoned toilet
Toilet
A toilet is a sanitation fixture used primarily for the disposal of human excrement, often found in a small room referred to as a toilet/bathroom/lavatory...
with which he initiates a conversation. Suddenly, the mood changes and the music becomes sinister; he grows concerned and he begins defending himself, saying "You've got the wrong bloke, squire
Squire
The English word squire is a shortened version of the word Esquire, from the Old French , itself derived from the Late Latin , in medieval or Old English a scutifer. The Classical Latin equivalent was , "arms bearer"...
." He then flushes the toilet to "wash those bad thoughts away".
Upon arriving home, Salad Fingers gasps and sees himself sitting inside. The Salad Fingers inside appears to be hallucinating
Hallucination
A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...
, seeing the "outside" Salad Fingers as a life-size Jeremy Fisher. The "inside" Salad Fingers speaks in a slightly different voice and also has rougher text showing what he is saying. The conversation starts off just like the earlier one with Jeremy Fisher, but goes on to include accusations that Jeremy Fisher has been "tailgating [his] daughter with aspirations of deflowering her rose". This appears to be the other "side" of the conversation Salad Fingers had into the toilet.
The inside Salad Fingers is now seen with the Jeremy Fisher finger puppet. Fisher never responds verbally, but at one point unfastens a clasp over his mouth from which green ooze bubbles and drips to the floor. Salad Fingers caresses Fisher's hair and remarks that he never did "sample the delights of your flavor", a reference to when he tasted his other two "friends" Hubert Cumberdale and Marjory Stewart-Baxter in episode two. He begins putting the finger-puppet in his mouth, but the scene quickly changes to a bloody scene of the "inside" Salad Fingers eating the "outside" Salad Fingers' head/brains, suggesting that Salad Fingers is actually experiencing the personalities he invents
Dissociative identity disorder
Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis and describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities , each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment....
. The episode ends with an external shot of the house panning back to reveal the toilet.
Episode 7 - Shore Leave
- Release date: January 28, 2006
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David Firth. Written by David Firth, Christian Pickup and Jimi Mwng. Music by Boards of CanadaBoards of CanadaBoards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin...
, Chris GladwinChris GladwinChris Gladwin was an English cricketer. He played for Essex, Derbyshire and Suffolk in a nine-year first-class career.Gladwin played four Youth test matches for England Young Cricketers...
and Brian EnoBrian EnoBrian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno , commonly known as Brian Eno or simply as Eno , is an English musician, composer, record producer, singer and visual artist, known as one of the principal innovators of ambient music.Eno studied at Colchester Institute art school in Essex,...
.
As Salad Fingers is digging holes outside with his finger puppets, occasionally tasting the sand (which he calls "floor sugar"), he finds the decomposing torso of an old corpse. Salad Fingers immediately "recognizes" the cadaver as "Kenneth," his "younger brother" who is back from the previously mentioned "Great War" on shore leave. Salad Fingers pulls the gruesome, dismembered corpse out of the hole, saying it was rude of him to leave for "the Great War" without him, but promises to draw him a hot bath
Bathing
Bathing is the washing or cleansing of the body in a fluid, usually water or an aqueous solution. It may be practised for personal hygiene, religious ritual or therapeutic purposes or as a recreational activity....
.
The next scene shows Salad Fingers turning a cog
Cog
Cog may refer to:* A part of a gear system* Cog , a small sailing vessel* A tenon that extends all the way through another piece of wood, in joinery* The evil robots in Toontown Online...
which pulls a clothesline, drawing Kenneth out of a wardrobe, now dressed in a white dinner jacket
Black tie
Black tie is a dress code for evening events and social functions. For a man, the main component is a usually black jacket, known as a dinner jacket or tuxedo...
. He starts to talk about life with the women of the great war. Salad Fingers has prepared a dinner of sand
Sand
Sand is a naturally occurring granular material composed of finely divided rock and mineral particles.The composition of sand is highly variable, depending on the local rock sources and conditions, but the most common constituent of sand in inland continental settings and non-tropical coastal...
for his guest, saying "I—hope you like... SAND". At one point Kenneth slumps forward, prompting Salad Fingers to suppose that he's sleepy and props Kenneth up by inserting a "wooden dent-rail" into his empty socket. Salad Fingers tells Kenneth of his life, keeping busy with "every shift I can... [and] sing[ing] at all the functions". There is a flashback in which Salad Fingers measures the distance from his door to a tree named "Mr. Branches" with a clickwheel
Surveyor's wheel
A surveyor's wheel, also called a clickwheel, hodometer, waywiser, trundle wheel, measuring wheel, or perambulator is a device for measuring distance.-Origin:...
and subsequently teases it for its slow movement.
It is now evening, and Salad Fingers is with Kenneth outside near the same hole he found him in. He cries over the fact that Kenneth has to go "back to the ghastly trenches
Trench warfare
Trench warfare is a form of occupied fighting lines, consisting largely of trenches, in which troops are largely immune to the enemy's small arms fire and are substantially sheltered from artillery...
". He salute
Salute
A salute is a gesture or other action used to display respect. Salutes are primarily associated with armed forces, but other organizations and civil people also use salutes.-Military salutes:...
s Kenneth and sings "We'll Meet Again
We'll Meet Again (song)
"We'll Meet Again" is a 1939 song made famous by British singer Vera Lynn with music and lyrics written by Ross Parker and Hughie Charles ....
" for him, after exclaiming, somewhat futilely, "I only ask that our creator return you unspoilt from the cruel hand of war". He then kicks Kenneth back into the hole. A dream-like sequence follows in which Salad Fingers sings the same song, in a white dress, on a stage in front of an audience of a theatre
Theatre
Theatre is a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance...
. After singing a few strains, he complains to the pianist - who is shown as the silhouette
Silhouette
A silhouette is the image of a person, an object or scene consisting of the outline and a basically featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black. Although the art form has been popular since the mid-18th century, the term “silhouette” was seldom used until the early decades...
of a marionette
Marionette
A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms...
, with strings attached - that the key is wrong, walks off the stage, and the screen fades to black.
In this episode Salad Fingers mentions the Scottish town of Cowdenbeath
Cowdenbeath
Cowdenbeath is a town and burgh in west Fife, Scotland. It is 5 miles north-east of Dunfermline and 18 miles north of the capital, Edinburgh. The town grew up around the extensive coalfields of the area and became a Police Burgh in 1890...
, indicating he is aware of real-life places.
Episode 8 - Cupboard
- Release date: September 22, 2007
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David Firth. Written by David Firth and Christian "Crust" Pickup. Music by Boards of CanadaBoards of CanadaBoards of Canada are a Scottish electronic music duo consisting of brothers Mike Sandison and Marcus Eoin...
, LustmordLustmordBrian Williams is a British electronic musician often credited for creating the dark ambient genre with albums recorded under the name Lustmord.- History :Williams started recording as Lustmord in 1980 before joining SPK in 1982...
and dyzv0r
Salad Fingers is sitting in his armchair, trying to tune his radio which he calls "Roger." If he is lucky, Salad Fingers says he may chance upon a broadcast from "Croxley", which so happens to be a small town in Hertfordshire. "Croxleyheath" also occurs in Shore Leave. After feeding Roger his "sustenance" (which seems to be marbles, peas, rocks or beans), it begins to emit a strange, piercing frequency. A gurgling sound comes from Salad Fingers' own stomach, insinuating upset in reaction to the "unpleasant frequencies" coming from the radio. He decides to wait out the tormenting event in his "safety cupboard."
When in the cupboard, Salad Fingers begins to converse with his hands. One hand enacts "Penny Pigtails," the other a market vendor. The "market vendor" refuses to sell raspberry
Raspberry
The raspberry or hindberry is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the genus Rubus, most of which are in the subgenus Idaeobatus; the name also applies to these plants themselves...
jam to "Penny Pigtails" on the grounds that her legs are "made of cotton" and "far too long" (an event that Salad Fingers finds most upsetting). After Salad Fingers cries for a bit, "Penny Pigtails
Pigtails
In the context of hairstyles, the usage of the term pigtail shows considerable variation. According to most dictionaries, a pigtail is a braid of tightly woven hair. The name is based on the short, thin and kinked tail of a pig, referring to the way a short, tight braid may stand out from the...
" discovers a long strand of hair, which Salad Fingers rubs over his eyeball, apparently causing him great pleasure although it makes his eye red and inflamed. After emerging from the cupboard, he tapes the hair to a wall with four other hairs of assorted colours that he has collected. Salad Fingers speaks to the hairs, calling them "beautiple" and "a gay little quintette" Next, he goes to bed with the Hubert Cumberdale puppet. Before going to sleep, Salad Fingers sings "Three in the Bed," and instructs Hubert Cumberdale to "roll over"; as a result, the finger puppet is sent off the bed into a bowl of a filthy, brown substance (likely a chamberpot). Salad Fingers orders Hubert Cumberdale to "scrub that muck off at once!" as he doesn't want any "dirty immigrants" in his house.
Later that night, the radio begins to emit strange sounds again and wakes up Salad Fingers. Salad Fingers approaches it warily and threatens Roger with expulsion from the house. The radio replies it was rude of Salad to take his hair. The radio speaks in a static voice, instructing Salad Fingers to return its hair, as well as to tidy the house. Salad Fingers declares that he "shan't", on the grounds that it isn't "his turn" and that it is an extremely unpleasant job. The radio continues to torment him, causing him to eat all of the hairs from his quintet, tape and all, and return to his cupboard in tears.
Episode 9 - Letter
- Release date: May 26, 2011
- Credits: Drawn, animated and voiced by David Firth. Written by David Firth. Music by Markus Fjellström.
Salad Fingers is holding a piece of torn newspaper, imagining it is a letter from the Great War (presumably from his "brother") and reading it aloud to himself. As he reads, a tentacle-like branch snakes in through the door to Salad Fingers' bedroom. Salad Fingers picks up the branch and bites off the tip, resulting in something sobbing "Daddy, that really hurt!" off-screen. Salad Fingers goes to the window and sees the branch-tentacle being retracted into the tree outside. He walks out to the tree, calling it "Mr. Branches" and has a conversation with it about its injury, apparently forgetting it was he himself that bit it. The tree cries, calling Salad Fingers "Daddy" and asking to be let inside, but Salad Fingers refuses until it "grows out of those branches". The tree wraps a branch around Salad Fingers' waist.
Salad Fingers wakes up in his room, very pale and his stomach growling. Salad Fingers worries that he may be dying and taps out an S.O.S. on the metal fire grate beside him. Suddenly a strange gooey black mass bursts out of his stomach, causing him to pass out.
When he wakes up, he is overjoyed, and believes he has given birth to a daughter whom he names Yvonne. Sitting in a wheelchair and appearing to feel better despite his wound, he pulls back the skin of one finger revealing a strange solid tip and dips it in ink to write a "letter" consisting only of scribbles, saying he cannot attend the Great War as he is still feeling "under the weather". He keeps Yvonne (which appears to be a bundle of newspapers) down in a pit and tells her off for not doing her exercises.
The scene then switches back to Salad Fingers lying on the floor, pale, with his stomach still wounded, and seems to be pumping air into his chest, suggesting that he's relapsed into illness. He tells Yvonne he may be too ill to care for her and speaks for her as he usually does for his other inanimate characters, saying "That's a shame; you were doing a first-rate job". He then taps another message on the fire grate, requesting a home for "a meddlesome child".
Salad Fingers is then outside in his wheelchair with Yvonne in a bucket, telling her that "good old Aunty Bainbridge" has agreed to look after her. He arrives at the house from episode 1, where the small, yellow-skinned human-like creature with big eyes lives. Salad Fingers refers to the creature as "Aunty Bainbridge" and asks for a hug, but the creature takes a step back and makes an odd wailing noise. Salad Fingers recalls some memories of Aunty Bainbridge "all in faded days".
Salad Fingers then appears to forget his reason for visiting, and, noticing the bucket of black ooze on his lap, claims he has come to clean the windows. Using the bundle/Yvonne, he smears the windows with black ooze as the yellow creature looks on. Job done, Salad Fingers begins to eat a sandwich, implying that that was the object wrapped up in the newspaper and black ooze.