die, mr. wong, dammit

A bunch of folks have recently gotten in touch to inform me about the racist cartoon character Mr. Wong, which has recently popped back up on YouTube and spotted on the shelves at Blockbuster. Oh, I'm well aware of Mr. Wong. The damn character has been around for nearly a decade, and refuses to die.

Originally conceived as a cartoon webseries for Icebox.com back in 2000, Mr. Wong lasted 14 episodes and featured the misadventures of a stereotypical Asian butler/houseboy for a wealthy socialite named Miss Pam. Yellow-skinned, buck-toothed and heavily-accented, this shit was bad. The series drew heavy criticism from the Asian American community at the time. (I don't think anybody listened.)

I can't believe people found it funny, or that it got made in the first place, but I'm told that the cartoon developed something of a cult following during its run, but Icebox.com eventually folded, and we all hoped that was the end of Mr. Wong. It popped up on DVD a few years later. Now, I see the damn thing is back up on YouTube, courtesy of Mondo Media. Why can't they just leave this shit alone?