Photo courtesy of Tim Fuller Traber Burns, Angela Pierce and Marc Gray perform the most important roles in "Proof." The play opened Friday and will run until Feb. 9 at the Temple of Music and Art.

The all-new Spike & Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation arrived in Tucson this weekend to enthusiastically grossed-out crowds.

The Loft Cinema is the first stop on the third tour this year for the annual festival, which is based out of La Jolla, Calif.

"We tour 10 months a year," said Holmes Walton, the tour manager setting up at the Loft Friday night. "This crowd has been having a really good time."

Laughter, groans and all manner of "Eww!" and "Oh no!" could be heard from the downstairs theater, which seats 500.

"We used to hand out barf bags," Walton said, "and a few times (in years past) people probably used them."

The animated shorts are not all gross and no heart, though. The stories are often funny, whimsical or ironic.

"A lot of the storyboards are really clever. A lot of people submit films, and they can animate, or do computers well, but they've got to have the story," Walton said of the hundreds of hopefuls submitted to the festival's home office.

Craig Caldwell, interim head of the University of Arizona department of media arts, agrees about the importance of storyboarding.

"(Storyboards are) the foundation of animation - and even when I was at Disney (working on the film "Dinosaur"), Disney focused on the story department and storyboarding," he said.

Most shorts run less than five minutes, and the stories behind the animation keep the audience interested, even if grudgingly.

"It lives up to its name," said Robert Wessel, a UA graduate student of Near Eastern studies who saw the Sick and Twisted show Saturday at midnight. "I don't want to laugh at this. I've been taught not to laugh at this, but you end up laughing."

Even newcomers to the festival left happy.

"It was the first one I'd seen, and it was really funny," said Gwen Zon, a history senior who also attended Saturday's midnight showing.

This year's lineup featured some favorites and some celebrities.

Animator Don Hertzfeldt returned to the festival with his popular favorites "Ah L'Amour," featuring stick people in violent relationships, and "Rejected," an Academy Award-nominated short, which was a crowd favorite.

Comedian Chris Rock provides the voice and head shots for the short "Bad Phone Sex," and comedians/musicians/actors Jack Black and Kyle Gass of Tenacious D appear as little naked angels in the short F*@# Her Gently, animated by SpŸmc¿, who produced "Ren and Stimpy."

Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation plays at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd., through March 2.