Web Animation / Napster Bad

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A series of humorous Flash-animated shorts, produced in the years 2000-2001 by Bob Cesca from a group then known as Camp Chaos, satirizing Metallica and their MP3 sharing crackdown.

First, a little history. In 2000, Metallica sued the peer-to-peer service Napster, devoted specifically to sharing MP3 files, for having Metallica songs freely available on their network. The lawsuit ended up forcing Napster to ban hundreds of thousands of users, and eventually resulted in the Napster company going bankrupt.

The Napster Bad! series caricatures Metallica—specifically, drummer Lars Ulrich (mispronounced as ul-RICH) and frontman James Hetfield—as a group of greedy primitives, upset about their fans giving them slightly smaller oodles of money than usual due to Napster. Other music celebrities, such as Dr. Dre and Sheryl Crow, also get a lot of flak.

Understandably, these movies aren't very popular with most Metallica fans. And stay away if you don't like off-color humor, either. Followed by the 2003 VH1 series ILL-ustrated, featuring new Camp Chaos animated cartoons satirizing celebrities and pop culture, though not Metallica here.

The series includes:

• Napster Bad! (May 2000) — Lars and James rant at length (well, Lars does), first thanking their fans for making them rich, then dissing Napster users for downloading their songs, and warning them about the consequences. Camp Chaos released a "Special Fucking Edition" in August 2000 featuring extra creator notes, a game called "Slapster Bad" (objective: slap Lars), a deleted scene, and actual hate mail that Camp Chaos recieved from Metallica fans.
• Metallicops (June 2000) — A pastiche of COPS, with Lars and James apprehending a music pirate in his house.
• Metalligreed (June 2000) — Mötley Crüe (voiced by most of the actual band) stand up for Napster while calling out Metallica over the Napster lawsuit, suggesting that they're using it as publicity for their summer tour... while Mötley Crüe openly promotes their own summer tour. Camp Chaos also animated the music video for Mötley Crüe's then-new single "Hell On High Heels".
• Metallica Millionaire (July 2000) — James Hetfield competes on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?, and his usual Dumb Muscle depiction is taken to extremes, much to host Regis Philbin's chagrin.
• MP3 Music: Good or Goblin? (July 2000) — Nutty McShithead, the literally-named spokesman for the "Recording Association for Popsong Economics", gives a PSA on the evils of Napster. In July 2003, a lazily updated version of MP3 Music: Good Or Goblin was released, where all references to Napster were replaced by a synthesized voice saying "Kazaa/Limewire" or just "Kazaa", reflecting two of the then-extant P2P file sharing services after Napster was shut down the previous year.
• Sue All The World (July 2000) — Celebrities opposed to MP3 sharing gather to perform a Charity Motivation Song, namely a parody of "We Are the World" by USA For Africa.
• Napster Dead? (August 2000) — Lars, James and Nutty are celebrating Napster's apparent shutdown in a beer-filled bathtub.
• Fire Bad! (September 2000) — A Flash game where you have to keep James from spontaneously combusting by shooting him with a water gun, while Lars pops up every so often as a target for bonus points. Still playable today on Newgrounds via the Flash emulator Ruffle.
• Bizarro Napster Bad! (March 2001) — Metallicock, a band which happens to be very similar to Metallica, lays out their own grievances against Metallica, Napster, you and Your Mom.

Tropes good!:

• Black Comedy Rape: MP3 Music: Good or Goblin?, though it's just audible and not visible.
• The Cameo: After being referenced in the original Napster Bad!, then-Metallica bassist Jason Newsted turns up in Sue All The World to perform with James and Lars, and his head is seen bobbing in the bathtub in Napster Dead?. Oddly, lead guitarist Kirk Hammett never appeared in the series.
• Charity Motivation Song: Parodied in Sue All The World.
• Cluster F-Bomb: Lars.
• The Ditz: Sheryl Crow in MP3 Music: Good or Goblin?.
• Dumb Muscle: Hetfield.
• Fun with Acronyms: Recording Association for Popsong Economics.
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: Hetfield has one, a demonic clone of Ulrich, in Metallica Millionaire.
• Greed: The entire music industry is characterized as this.
• Hulk Speak: Hetfield, and once he gets a chance to speak in Metalligreed, Mick Mars.
• Hypocritical Humor: Mötley Crüe openly promoting their 2000 summer tour in Metalligreed despite alleging that Metallica suing fans over downloading music from Napster was publicity for their own summer tour. At least Mötley Crüe were honest about it, and weren't suing their own fans!
• Laugh Track: Throughout Metallica Millionaire, presumably to reflect that Who Wants To Be A Millionaire had a studio audience.
• Like Is, Like, a Comma: Ulrich. His very first line is "Like, good afternoon!"
• New Media Are Evil: A lot of shorts feature the characters complaining about the threat that this new "interweb" invention poses to life at large.
• The Noseless: Everyone.
• Our Lawyers Advised This Trope: The original Flash version of the Napster Bad! short opens with a disclaimer to save the authors from Metallica's legal wrath (the disclaimer is cut from the video version on the production team's current website though).
• The Quiet One: Then-Mötley Crüe drummer Randy Castillo in Metalligreed, which may have been due to the duodenal ulcer and ruptured stomach that he suffered in June 2000, which knocked him out of the tour that Mötley Crüe were promoting in that same cartoon.
  • Mick Mars was also very quiet in this cartoon, but not for a lack of trying!
• Repetitive Audio Glitch: Vince Neil in Metalligreed.
  And we would never ever, never ever, never ever, ever, ever, never, never ever, ever, never ever *Nikki smacks Vince* resort to ridiculous gimmicks and devices to promote ourselves or our new album called New Tattoo and our summer tour called Maximum Rock 2000.
• Robotic Reveal: Regis in Metallica Millionaire.
• Running Gag: Regis Philbin dancing to the WWTBaM theme song throughout Metallica Millionaire.
• Scatting: In Sue All The World:
  There are people stealin' our copyrighted tunes
  Bwaighlo weirhlo, bwaighlo weirhlo lailolailo... prunes!
• Scenery Censor: Lars's bodily details are covered up with foam throughout "Napster Dead?", as he was having the group bath in that one. When Lars appears as a bonus item in Fire Bad!, he retains the foam and the lack of clothing.
• Shout-Out: Hetfield's line "FIRE BAD!"
• The Slacker: The guy and admitted Napster user interviewed by Nutty in MP3 Music: Good or Goblin?
• Stock Money Bag: The background of the original Napster Bad! and the spinoff games is full of them.
• Talking Poo: Nutty McShithead, the spokesman of the Recording Association for Popsong Economics. Apparently also a Gasshole.
• Toilet Humor: Reaches its peak in MP3 Music: Good or Goblin?