McTucky Fried High webseries addresses teen LGBTQ issues

On January 26, the first episode of an interesting new animated webseries aired. McTucky Fried High aims to address issues that today’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) teens face. The five-episode series was created by Robert-Carnilius with a grant from the Chicago Digital Media Production Fund and airs bi-monthly. The second episode is slated to air on February 9.

In the first episode, we are introduced to five different social groups. All of the characters are different foods. The “mean girls” are an ice cream cone and a soda, the “jock” is a container of french fries, the “politician” is a baby carrot, the “wiener” is a hot dog on a roll, and the “activists” claims an eggplant, a peanut, a blueberry and a pizza slice as members. Unfortunately, since the episode is only a little over four minutes long, we don’t learn a whole lot about these characters. Since this is a LGBTQ series, it is unsurprising that the two plots of the episode are whether the hot dog is gay and everyone trying to get the gay jock to hang out with them. According to the creator, future episodes will deal with issues like sexting and extreme diets. I hope that the show will find a way to address each of these issues properly given their short episode length.

On McTucky Fried High’s YouTube channel, you’ll find more than just the episodes themselves. There is also a “meet the characters” short, as well as previews for upcoming episodes. If you are looking for even more content, you can check out their website, http://www.mctuckyfriedhigh.com/.