Salad Fingers is a Flash cartoon series created by David Firth. Salad Fingers portrays a strange and sometimes disturbing story.
Summary
In the cartoons, the eponymous Salad Fingers inhabits a sparse and desolate world where he obsesses in the "delightful" feeling of the textures of various objects on his "salad fingers", most of which are rusty articles (particularly spoons). His other joys include blood, or as he calls it, "the red water" and grubby taps. His fluctuating, gentle monologues serve to entice the viewer into a bizarre and surreal world.
The main music is performed by Boards of Canada. The deep dark bassy music in the soundtrack that appears when Salad Fingers is scared is actually David Firth playing the guitar (slowed down and reversed). Other music that plays in the background is Aphex Twin, David Firth is notoriously known for inserting subliminal Aphex Twin contexts in his flash works. David Firth's "Locust Toybox" albums have been known to have some Aphex influence. Firth also uses symbols from Aphex Twin in his cartoons. For example the Aphex Twin logo can be found on the telephone in Salad Fingers 7 and on the clock on the wall in Spoilsbury Toast Boy.
A theory website exists, offering various insights into Salad Finger's behavior. Viewers have expressed opinions on Salad Fingers[1], ranging from finding it hilariously funny (although the author maintains it is not intended to be), to finding it puerile and disgusting.
The main character; a peculiar green man with a hunch on his back. He is single, and an extremely odd person. His long, green fingers are sensitive to rough surfaces. Salad Fingers will stimulate himself by rubbing his fingers on such objects as rusty nails, rusty tea kettles, metal jail-cell bars and nettles, which he uses for self-urtication. Salad Fingers is often heedless to the mortality of creatures / things and appears unable to tell whether something is alive or not. Salad Fingers lives alone in a small house / shack with the number 22 on the door and a working oven. He also has some ability in playing the flute and speaking French.
Salad Fingers has a strange habit of providing narration for other characters rather than engaging in actual conversation, even if the characters are living beings capable of speech. The names he attributes to different "characters" often appear to be thought up on the spot or simply applied to non-existent characters. For example: Salad Fingers looks puzzled in episode five when he holds up the Hubert Cumberdalefinger-puppet and appears to think up the name Barbara Logan-Price spontaneously to call him instead.
File:Salad Fingers and Puppet Friends.pngSalad Fingers greeting his finger puppet friends. Left to right: Jeremy Fisher, Marjory Stewart-Baxter and Hubert Cumberdale (Episode 2).
Hubert Cumberdale (Barbara Logan-Price)
A finger-puppet whom Salad Fingers "invites" to dinner (ep. 2). A special interest character, appearing in a couple of Salad Fingers' fantasies as a life sized being. According to Salad Fingers he tastes of "soot and poo".
Marjory Stewart-Baxter
Finger-puppet whom Salad Fingers "invites" to dinner (ep. 2). Salad Fingers claims that she tastes like "sunshine dust." She has appeared in 3 episodes.
Jeremy Fisher
Finger puppet whom Salad Fingers "invites" to dinner (ep. 2). He is the only character whom Salad Fingers does not taste in episode 2. In episode 6, Jeremy Fisher, referred to as Mr. Fisher, gives Salad Fingers Horace Horsecollar (ep. 6). In this episode, he speaks in a low-pitched, unintelligible voice and has a tack in his mouth covering a hole that contains some type of green liquid. At the end, when Mr. Fisher appears as a life-sized human, Salad Fingers accuses him of making lewd advances on his daughter and then apparently eats him (although when the view changes we see Salad Fingers eating a creature identical to himself). He is possibly named after Beatrix Potter's character Mr. Jeremy Fisher.
Milford Cubicle (though his name-tag reads "Harry")
Appearing in episode three, Cubicle is a human-like armless being. He is presumably employed by "BBQ" (possibly meaning the DIY chain B&Q) as a three star "Happy to Help" assistant.
Bordois
Appearing in episode four, Bordois is a woodlouse which Salad Fingers kills by accident, then saying he will not play with her, seeing as how she was "gooey." (You've gone flat, little sister, and you're all gooey. I shalln't play with you again, until you've had a wash!) He calls her "little sister", and she lived in a hole below a rusty nail in Salad Fingers' house.
Mable
Appearing in episode five, Mable is a young girl who happens to be the first guest at Salad Fingers' picnic. More importantly, she is the first character other than Salad Fingers who can communicate in English. However, Salad Fingers provided narration for her until she spoke herself. Once she speaks for herself, he becomes highly disturbed,sitting in a corner in the fetal position.
Horace Horse Collar
A toy horse with larger-than-usual round eyes of whom Jeremy Fisher gives to Salad Fingers in Episode 6. It is named after the Disney character. File:Salad Fingers.jpgSalad Fingers uses the phone in Episode 5
Kenneth
A torso and head of a corpse found in a hole, strangley dug outside of Salad Fingers' house, supposedly by Hubert Cumberdale, the hand puppet, in episode 7. Salad Fingers claims that it is his brother, home from the "great war" on shore leave.
Mr. Branches
A dead tree outside of Salad Fingers' house in episode 7. Salad Fingers is seen measuring the distance that the tree has travelled from his house.
Salad Fingers also mentions having an "old pal Charlie" and his daughter. As of episode 7, they have never been seen, or at least have never been identified as such. Given his past history of being slightly out of touch with reality, they may not even exist, merely making his comments more odd ramblings.
Un-named characters include:
A big-eyed child who has somewhat of a screech rather than talking. Salad Fingers visits the boy to "enquire about his spooons [sic]". (ep. 1)
A young child wearing a jacket with the letter "M" on it, one of the few normal people seen in this series. Salad Fingers accidentally cooks him by forgeting him, and the fish, in the oven once he sees a rusty nail in the wall. (ep. 2)
A creature who falls in love with Salad Fingers. This "little boy" is possibly called Tony, judging by the name of a Macromedia Flash file. It has been confirmed that he remains anonymously named. (ep. 4)
A crow that steals a spoon from Salad Fingers, speaking in what seems to be the Devil's tongue, or talking backwards. (ep. 5)
A toilet some distance from Salad Fingers' house which contains some sort of yellow-green liquid. Much like Mr. Branches, the toilet is an inanimate object which Salad Fingers personifies, speaking to it as though it were alive, although he could be talking to himself, in the reflection he sees. It should be noted that, later in that same episode, the conversation he has with "himself" lines up with the answers he gives to his reflection.(ep. 6)
File:Salad Fingers Teeth 2.pngSalad Fingers' teeth often have alphabetical characters drawn on them. In some frames there are other characters (eg. "j") or even smilies.
At first glance, Salad Fingers may appear to be a bald, green man wearing a dark green sweater and black trousers. However, he has many attributes which separate him from any normal human, assuming that Salad Fingers is human.
His obviously large fingers, with only 3 at the end of each arm. The fingers vaguely resemble gherkins, perhaps because of him being named Salad Fingers. He can form a fist with each hand.
Salad Fingers speaks English with a Northern English accent. He also speaks some words in French in one of the episodes. Speaking in a fairly accurate West African French Accent he says: "Alors: habille-la. Comment t'appelles-tu? Qu'est-ce qu'il y a?" in. This translates more or less as: "So: dress her. What's your name? What's going on?"
He has rotten, yellow teeth with green food gunk adorning them, as well as bloody gums. The teeth have different alphabetical characters written on them in different frames of the animation, but David Firth states that these are of no great significance.
He appears to lack earlobes and a nose.
He has blood-red irises, which, along with the pupil, shrink when frightened and enlarge when happy.
He lacks facial hair, but he has hair on his chest, stomach and at the start of his fingers.
He can lactate (shown in ep. 3), which is uncharacteristic of males.
Speech appears to terrify him. In Episode 5, Mable becomes the first character other than Salad Fingers to speak intelligibly, and this disorients him.
He seems to be masochistic, as he practices self-urtication with nettles and even says, "I like it when the red water comes out," referring to his blood after he impales his finger on a rusty nail.
Whenever Salad Fingers is physically hurt (like when he plunges his finger into a nail or is eaten by an apparation of himself) he turns a palish-white color and dozes off into a bizarre dream.
The Burnt Face Man "trailer" features an "file photo" of Hubert Cumberdale on a computer screen at Burnt Face Man's workplace, The Daily Global head office. The Burnt Face Man Flash cartoon series is also produced by David Firth.
In the flash movie Final Fantasy Day Care (Episode 2), Fighter and Black Mage go to a weapons shop. Fighter buys a legendary sword for $3.50, then Black Mage is charged 2000 gil (Final Fantasy currency) for a staff. He complains about how cheap Fighter's weapon was. Fighter is then shown rubbing his new sword against his fingers, chopping off one of them. Fighter then steals Salad Finger's line "I like it when the red water comes out" in a quiet, whispery voice, similar to his.
Firth keeps a track of magazines that have mentioned his work [2]. Salad Fingers has appeared in a Japanese magazine and was named the #12 of "Top 50 Internet Heroes" in FHMEstonia to name a few.
At the end of the Burnt Face Man Episode 6, a small "Points of View" spoof link is visible. When clicked, a letter from a person voicing their dislike against that episode is seen and a small PS. at the end says they would like to see a Salad Fingers Movie.
