Everyone Likes Lollipops (Patreon)

I mentioned in the Charlie Blu-ray promo today that the Millipede song from Charlie the Unicorn 4 was "originally about the Iraq war." Here is an explanation of that statement!

Back in 2006 I wrote a feature-length script based on my "Spatula Madness" series. The plot centered around an extremely unsubtle critique of the Iraq War—the spatulas were attacked by wooden spoons, and then responded to that attack by creating fake evidence to justify an invasion of France.

As the invasion begins, Edward the spatula questions why they're attacking France, at which point the group's leader, Tom, begins singing an anti-France propaganda song called "Everyone Likes Lollipops." The reason I picked France as the story's Iraq was twofold: One, I felt much more comfortable having characters spout anti-France propaganda than I would have felt simply repeating the Islamaphobic nonsense that had been used to justify the real-life invasion of Iraq. And two, anti-France propaganda was itself ubiquitous at the time in the U.S. due to France's (justified) refusal to join the Iraq invasion (there was even a campaign to rename "French Fries" to "Freedom Fries.")

I abandoned the Spatula Madness movie in 2009, but a number of songs and assets I created for it ended up getting repurposed into other projects. After being unsatisfied with how the millipede song I was writing for Charlie 4 was turning out, I decided to abandon that song and instead wrote new millipede-based lyrics to the melody from "Everyone Likes Lollipops."

I've attached the audio from the scene here for you to listen to.