Metalocalypse is an American animated television series, created by Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha, which premiered on August 6, 2006 on Adult Swim. The television program centers around the larger than life death metal band Dethklok, and often portrays dark and macabre content, including such subjects as violence, death, and the drawbacks of fame, with extremely hyperbolic black humor; which accounts for the cartoon's consistent TV-MA rating. The show can be seen as both a parody and celebration of heavy metal culture.
The music, written by guitarist/creator Brendon Small, is credited to the band, and is featured in most of the episodes. The animation is often carefully synced to the music, with the chord positions and fingering of the guitar parts shown in some detail.
One of the trademarks of the show is having the usual "bleeps" for extreme profanity replaced by pinch harmonics.
This tv show contains 148 potentially triggering events.
In the montage of Murderface’s sexual repression in S3E3 and also an NSFW music video for the song Andromeda but that’s supplementary (that one hasn’t even officially released other than concert pro shots).
No on-screen menstruation but there’s a few PMS jokes (mostly directed at cis men in an emasculating way), a woman in S3E6 keeps track of her menstrual cycle with the intent to have a child, and there’s songs in S4E6 and Dethalbum IV all about this
The main theme of the episode Fatherklok; Skwisgaar has numerous bastard children and any woman that has sex with him has to sign a waiver dissolving him of any legal paternity, and he himself feels abandoned by the fact that he never knew his own father due to growing up with a promiscuous mother.
Pretty much most of the parents that aren’t Nathan’s (maybe also Roy but the exact circumstances of how he raised Damien are unknown but otherwise at worse he’s shown to be stern towards his adult son and surrogate children figures)
Pickles is forced to forgive his brother as part of a 12 step program although it is very obviously a criticism of forcing people to forgive abusive relatives when it’s not earned
Depends on your definition since the reason why four of the five members of Dethklok are often cruel to each other and other people is because they were victims of child abuse (although granted in Nathan’s case his parents are mostly decent and he’s still a jerk).
Alcoholism throughout the band to varying degrees. Casual drinking, party drinking, drinking to excess, drinking to life-threatening amounts. These are done for any reason, including in response to stress and trauma.
I believe a dragon is slain in a CGI music video (in-universe CGI so it is still cartoon) and/or a dream sequence. No real dragons exist in this universe currently.
Dr. Rockzo; he committed statutory rape on a 14 year old and wrote a song about it, and while he did go to jail for it and was the reason why his band broke up the end of the episode very heavily indicates that he wants to groom his former victim’s daughter so he is VERY much still one
In "Dethdad," Toki's dying father slips under the ice of a frozen lake. He desperately paws at the underside of the clear ice with wild eyes and we see it from above.
s1e17 a clown puts his hand down a band member's pants (they scream and get him out of there). s3e9 implied prison assault, nothing shown. S3e9 an adult character has a sexual encounter with a minor (partially shown) and sees her as his soulmate. S4e10 a character suddenly pounces on another out of sexual frustration but it cuts away
See sexual assault for details but even the few times non-consensual sex does occur it’s either off screen or shot in a way where you don’t see any actual sex
the characters attempt bloodletting to cure a summer cold and lose consciousness from excessive blood loss. no one is shown inflicting the cuts on themselves but they are shown bleeding out
S2E1 has a serial killer that’s a child cannibal and there’s an end credits gag where he almost eats a baby but cuts before anything graphic happens. We also see a cannibal tribe in S2E9 and this time we actually see it in action
Dr. Twinkletits loses both arms by the end of the episode and it sticks throughout the rest of the series since they’re replaced with cybernetic prosthetics next time we see him. He’s only the most prominent examples though since there’s mutilation in more or less every episode
Season 3 episodes 6 and episode 9. Episode 6 William Murderface gets his dick bashed with a baseball bat after losing a bet. Episode 9 Dr Rockso gets shot in the dick after not paying the Ecuadorian drug cartel.
Probably multiple examples in the mass deaths and mutilations, but easily the most notable/plot important one is the battle between Charles and the Metal Masked Assassin where Charles twists his arm so that he stabs himself. MMA is even shown to have a brace the next time we see him
There’s several occasions in which people are brutalized on behalf of Dethklok (mainly on Offdensen’s orders) and often by antagonists groups too, in particular being a favorite past time of the Metal Masked Assassin
A major character loses his eyes and has then replaced with cybernetics in his introductory episode and the main villain sometimes makes people’s eyes explode when killing them
Oh LORD yes. Although granted this is toned down a bit in the second half of the series, but even then it will just plain not be for you if you can’t handle gore and violent imagery
A semi-important member of the Tribunal is killed near the end of Season 1 and replaced. A main character seemingly dies at the end of Season 2 but he comes back shortly after. And in Season 4 a supporting character is violently killed by the main antagonist…and that’s not even getting into the movie 😳
Notably in S1E13 (01:30) and S3E7 (will update with time codes later if you wish to watch the episode but just mute the eyes or something)…surprisingly not AS often for the standards of mid 2000’s adult animation
(S1E6-E7…and mentions in other episodes) Murderface’s backstory involves his parents being killed in a murder-suicide, and we even see their deaths semi on-screen in the latter episode (S2E15) The main theme of the episode Dethdad where a main character’s father is dying of cancer. He does die but not in the way you think (S4E11) A supporting character that’s a father is killed, his children are absent from the funeral that’s held in the next episode but the band considers him a father figure so it’s meant to carry the same gravity as a parental death.
There are also other, slightly less spoilerly abductions thoughout the series such as the rest of the band kidnapping Nathan for an intervention in S1E18, a teenager being among MANY imprisoned extrajudicially for pirating music in S2E3, journalists abducted and brutalized to retract negative statements in S3E2, and Toki being fake kidnapped for a surprise birthday party in S3E6; among many examples (also protip: Doomstar has its own page)
9/11 is not alluded to (even among its signature edgelordy jokes) despite being set in the mid to late 2000s and the main antagonists being heavily aligned with US military. That said there are multiple terrorist attacks throughout the series and I’m tempted to change my answer to account for how there are multiple occasions of major cities shown in ruins which make it true in the secondary sense
Im not sure what the other comment is on about personally. Because the fact that Dethklok has its own police force and has UN-sanctioned authorization to do the kind stuff that would considered war crimes IRL is played for very dark comedy and framed as a bad thing
Use of the T-slur to refer to a presumably cis male in a derogatory way. This is fortunately the only use of transphobic slurs in the series but there’s still other kinds of transphobic content even in the same episode
Pickles ,who is not necessarily canonically trans but allegedly Brendon Small confirmed that him not having a penis in Rehabklok was a deliberate choice, is no more sexual than the other five band members and while there is a conversation to be have about groupie culture it is consensual by the in-universe terms. And according to supplementary material it is at least canon that the groupies are carded so there’s no underage sex going on.
Although you could argue Fertilityklok has a trans-coded character (cis woman with masculine features that are painted as undesirable) that won’t take no for an answer
Characters are consistently referred to by the names they want to be called. Rockzo is only referred to as Leonard Rockstein mainly during a brief phase where he went clean (and once by an ex-lover)
I mean technically Skwisgaar is heavily implied to be bisexual by the creators (the specific words is that his sexuality is “European”…also god the sake of transparency I’m having a hard time finding the source of this quote and even if I could it’s meant to be ambiguous so grain of salt) and he is not exactly a pinnacle of ethical non-monogamy. Although arguably it’s more the general promiscuous bisexual stereotype, the vast majority of his hookups are purely casual sex with groupies and the only time he’s seen with bed with a man is a three way in S2E13 with no cheating as far as we can tell. Although the subject is brought up in S2E7 when he claims that marriage is only good for tax breaks and adultery
Numerous times either on accident and/or due to the band’s reckless apathy. The Pyramid of Giza and other cultural monuments are occasionally destroyed if we were to count that
Yes S2 E12 The band cuts themselves too drain blood because they think itll help their cold. Murderface is seen on a screen stabbing himself with a knife in the arm and im sure theres other examples but thats all i can think of.
Not explicitly confirmed but it’s noted that Nathan did not speak until he was five years old so some possible autistic coding is going on there. Also personally sus of Charles albeit some could make a case for the most of the main cast frankly. Closest we get to misrepresentation is Nathan in later seasons having supernatural abilities but this isn’t explicitly connected to neurodivergency
While the show does use the R-slur a few times (granted mostly to show how immature the band is). Autism itself is not directly made fun of, and in fact that there has been some speculation that Nathan might be autistic-coded to which if that’s the case he’s treated no less immaturely than the rest of Dethklok and he’s arguably one of the more well adjusted members at least by comparison. Although in S2E1 they call Offdensen (who may have some autistic traits but isn’t really confirmed) a “robot” and other variants of emotionless which you could argue borders on it
s2e5 and s4e8. Both episodes involve their perceptions of theirselves being affected by public and private scrutiny of others, and them trying to change for it. S4e8 more specifically deals with dysmorphia, with themes of self-hatred and body alteration (plastic surgery, corsets, tanning, injections).
Toki is sent underwater in a tank filled with liquid oxygen to record his guitar parts. he hallucinates (?) and sings a song about his "underwater friends"
Especially all over the place. What's also worth noting is that for the versions on DVD and streaming Seasons 1 & 2 are censored (in classic network TV fashion where the swearing is bleeped), but 3 and 4 are not; so keep that in mind
Closest is Dethcomedy where they reference [adult swim] but there’s no direct acknowledgement that they’re in a TV show, only mentioning the network in a self-deprecating light
Closest is the Murmaider music video where a bunch of eggs gets slaughtered and you see a bunch of dead fetuses. However that’s supplementary material, nothing like this happens in the show itself
Well half-right anyway, the F-slur is sometimes used but not super often. Albeit they do indeed say “gay” as an insult a lot. Also fun fact, the above T-slur is only used once and the guy dies as a result of his hate speech so that’s something
In addition to at least three instances of the R-slur over the series’ run (see below) Edgar is subjected to rather ableist jokes by Dethklok about being a wheelchair user in his debut episode
You could argue that while there’s no obvious antisemitic intent some common tropes pop up concerning the Tribunal being a parody of the “Illuminati style group that secretly controls the world” trope (and multiple episodes confirm that they literally control the media). There are also a couple jokes making fun of N@zis and some asks if they’re Jewish when told they’re the Chosen Ones in S4E12
Maybe (see the misgendering comment above). Although surprisingly not a lot, albeit there are occasions where men voicing women are played for laughs, and in the case of S3E6 there is some unfortunate transphobic subtext in that a cis woman is presented as unattractive due to having masculine features (made even weirder by the fact that an offensive comedian that uses the T slur is killed albeit he’s more killed for racist remarks than transphobia)
Pretty bad fatphobia to anyone heavier than the band. Names, insults, looking down upon, and fat people are depicted as non-stop eating pigs with no regard for health
On top of the Fertilityklok example, the characters make fun of Offdensen saying it’s a bad idea to go to a pornography awards show despite not getting paid by calling him a eunuch. Bare in mind he’s pretty much one of the few male characters in the show that isn’t sex-crazed to some degree and is even speculated to be some variety of queer
Japanese guy with a stereotypical accent (S2E11) and depicting a Middle Eastern country as barbaric (S4E6…and unfortunately that one is plot important). In my opinion S1E14 BluesKlok is a decent look into blues and how African-American culture shapes it (if admittedly involving a spoof of the “magical Negro” trope) but even then all three examples I listed involve BIPOC characters voiced by white dudes so yeeeeeah 😬. Also dishonorable mention to a woman in S3E6 that is cis as far as we know but has transphobic coding
Nathan has indigenous ancestry and is often called "Tonto" by others in a derogatory manner. In s4e04, the Tribunal expert smashes together a bunch of slurs and derogatory terms into nonsensical speech.
Sort of? A character does this with leeches while singing Al Jolson. Although to a lesser extent you have the awkwardness of a few BIPOC characters voiced by white guys doing rather thick accents.
S03E09 features a side character's pedophilia scandal receiving sexual acts from a 14-year-old girl while he himself is an adult. he faces actual consequences for this in the narrative, but jokes and lighthearted comments about it are also present and might leave one feeling pretty uncomfortable.
Toki is a survivor of extreme religious abuse. Religion (just in general) is also the focus of an episode appropriately titled Religionklok and more importantly in Season 4 we’re introduced to an important faction called The Church of the Black Klok that’s heavily inspired by Catholicism
It’s a show that’s an affectionate parody of heavy metal so there is a lot of Satanic imagery and at least two episodes dealing with demons/hell such as a devil of Blues Music in S1E14 (Bluesklok) and a cold open depicting hell in a dream sequence in S2E1 (Dethecution)
A man has intrusive sexual thoughts about animals (which is shown via stuff like a dog in a bikini or a toucan with a ball gag) along with other bizarre imagery though it’s possible we’re probably not supposed to take it super literally, probably more supposed to indicate that his internalized homophobia associates normal expressions of homosexuality on the same level as zoophilia
Discussions of sex throughout the show, and there are scenes before and after sex, but I wouldn't say any "sex scenes." Sexual and non-sexual nudity. Skwisgaar is shown having sex in a music video but this is just acting, there's even behind the scenes footage of it. He also has a sexual encounter on screen but the audio is just him dirty talking and the visual is a still image of his silhouette.
No albeit it is never brought up in the episode Fatherklok when it comes to the hundreds of not thousands of women that had bastard children with Skwisgaar, but honestly that’s more of a weird nitpick. The only mention of the subject is an old radio interview where Dethklok takes a centrist view of the topic “we think death is awesome but we also think it’s awesome to have a horrible life”, not sure if this is 100% canon though
Plenty of explosions throughout the series but not nuclear ones as far as I can recall. There is however an episode that largely centers on the threat of nuclear war