The advent of videotape, then laserdisc and DVD, has given fans of pop culture an unprecedented access to films and television shows that they love. You can buy a DVD of your favorite film--or tape your favorite TV show every week--and store these gems in your archives for all eternity.

Home video has also led to plenty of weird crap making its way to the public, and that's what the Mondo Video series is all about. When the mood strikes us, we'll take a moment to stumble off the beaten path of pop culture and explore a video oddity--something that perhaps has crossed our desk thanks to some misguided PR firm, or that we stumbled upon in the clearance rack at Best Buy. It's our chance to sample the truly bizzare in the comfort of our living room and pass the wildness on to you.

So without further adieu, let's get a little weird...

Mama Mia!

It's a question that's been nagging at us all for far too long: is animation sexy?

I've often wondered that very thing, especially when the occasional random doctored photo of a topless Ariel from The Little Mermaid crosses through my inbox. It's clear there's a subculture out there in Psycholand who gets off on watching animated ladies screw animated men. Or, I suppose, animated mermaids screw animated crabs. Whatever.

The real question is, can animated sex get one off just as much as a well-crafted scene featuring two real-live people going at it? I was after answers to that question when I popped Mama Mia! into my VCR. Distributed by Central Park Media under their Anime 18 imprint, the tape contains two "episodes" of what appears to be an ongoing series about a boy named Yuichi, who continually finds himself in situations where he's able to have sex with women who are either his mother, or occupy a role of parental supervision over him.

No joke. This kid nails his mom. Hence the title, I suppose.

The listing for this tape on Central Park's website says that viewers can expect "lots" of both nudity and sex, and man oh man, are they ever right. I wasn't quite prepared for the level of explicitness that the animators strive for in their sex scenes--you see EVERYTHING. All the parts and all the parts inside the parts. Plus, after a short and informative tutorial segment on the common conventions of anime, during which I learned that most women are depicted without pubic hair as a general convention of the art form, the tape gets right into the sex, which is nice.

First off, the most important question, the answer of which maybe I'm the only one interested in figuring out, but which I'm happy to share with all our loyal readers, as both a public service and an exploration of my rapidly decaying mind. Is it a turn-on to watch animated sex?

In all honesty, the sex in Mama Mia! got me going a bit. Not because I found the images to be titilating, but rather because the soundtrack is first-rate. Simply put, it's hard to hear the moanin' and groanin' associated with sex and not get a little charged up. At least, it's hard for me. Pun intended.

Okay! That was weird! Enough about what turns me on! Let's talk about how wildly ludicrous Mama Mia! is, in terms of both plot and characterization. While it's true that pornography rarely takes such petty filmmaking concerns into consideration, the audacity of Mama Mia! shatters even the loose conventions typically established by most porn. First off, the tape opens with this guy Yuichi masturbating to a videotape of his father having sex with some woman. Now I don't know about you, but for me, the thought of my dad having sex does the job of about forty thousand cold showers. You couldn't turn me on by sticking my finger in an open socket. No way, no how.

It doesn't seem to bother Yuichi, however, and we're treated to the site of his animated semen coating a TV screen before the movers arrive to transport his stuff to his new home. (We'll see more masturbation than we can stand over the course of the next thirty minutes or so, but we aren't desensitized to it yet, so it's a bit shocking to view this initial outburst. Pun once again intended.)

Y'see, Yuichi's dad is dead, and his dying wish was that Yuichi would live with his stepmother and her nubile young daughter Miko. So Yuichi is going to live with the two women, and oh brother, does he have some exciting times in store for him in this household! No sooner is the guy in the door of the house than his new Mom exclaims, "Yuichi has grown up very big," leaving Yuichi to ponder to himself, "I wonder what she meant by that???"

He won't have to wonder very long. Miko's mom lays all the cards on the table pretty quickly: "Miko is very popular with men. She also gets lots of love letters."

"It's not just the love letters," Miko adds. "They've stolen my panties!"

"What?! Panties?!" exclaims Yuichi.

"Mom's, too!" replies Miko.

And so it goes. Yuichi keeps on spankin' it every chance he gets, stealing glances at his new stepsister's undies every other chance he gets, and you can see where all of this is headed.

Or maybe you can't, because really, you may think this is gonna get really messed-up and WEIRD, but it's gonna get more messed-up and weird than even you can imagine, you dirty little mynxes, you. First off, Miko comes into Yuichi's room while he's watching the video of her mom and his dad having sex, and she gets really turned on, exclaiming, "Mom looks so beautiful when she's having sex, doesn't she?"

Next thing you know, Miko is forcing Yuichi's hand into her crotch and moanin' up a storm her own bad self. Only Yuichi won't have any of it, and Miko assumes that this is because he'd rather have sex with her mother than with Miko! Remember, Miko is about seventeen and as hot as an animated girl can get, while Mom is at least thirty-five, although not too bad herself. So we've already got a veritable minefield of Oedipal issues ready to explode in our laps. Pun yet again intended.

In disgust, Miko brings Yuichi a whole pile of tapes featuring her mother having sex. These feature, in no particular order, Mom strapped down to a wall with a ball in her mouth, Mom sexualizing with other women, and Mom seductively urinating into a grate. Not surprisingly, all this weirdness only gets Yuichi going even more, and he's plenty hot and bothered when Mom walks in and begins to administer oral sex, which inspires Yuichi to respond with what might be the biggest gut-buster line in the whole show (and trust me, that's really saying something):

"Oh yes! It really feels good, Momma!"

I'll bet it does, Yuichi. But not as good as it's gonna feel when Miko, your stepsister, strides in wearing a strap-on dildo, which she proceeds to use in screwing Mom while Mom is schooling your penis in the ways of fine blowjobbery! A surprising plot twist? Let Miko explain: "I've been making love with mom to ease her loneliness and calm her sexual perversions!"

What a great daughter.

It doesn't help matters much that Mama Mia! utilizes some of the most wretched voice actors on the planet to dub over the dialogue. Strike that--it does help matters much, because it makes this tape right damn funny to watch. The guy who voices Yuichi is especially awful; when Miko seductively asks, "Can you fuck me like that next, brother?" and he replies "Of course," it sounds more like he's agreed to pick up a pizza on the way home than to bonk her brains out.

Plus, it's impossible not to get wrapped up in the insanity of the plot and just let the whole wacky shebang carry your mind into unexplored realms of hilarity--which ultimately means there's nothing titilating about Mama Mia! or animated porn at all, because it's so damn silly at its core that you cannot possibly take it seriously. Then again, considering all the airbrushing that's usually involved in prettifying your average Playboy centerfold, maybe animated porn isn't any more ludicrous than the real-life variety.