(S01E01) I have no plans to review this new series from Eric Wareheim and Tim Heidecker every week as I did their last series for Adult Swim, Tom Goes to the Mayor, mostly because this new series is so random and eclectic it'd be almost impossible to write a coherent review every week.
I became a fan of Tim and Eric a couple years before Tom Goes to the Mayor was developed for Adult Swim, having stumbled upon the various shorts on their Web site. What immediately struck me was not just that these men were funny, but that their humor was constructed within an entirely different paradigm. I imagine it's somewhat how American audiences first responded to Monty Python, which at the time must have been so different from what people were used to that many were simply turned off by it. I'm not making a direct comparison between Monty Python and Awesome Show, but I am saying there's a difference between comedy that works because it's been done before countless times, and comedy that really dares to be different.
It's that drive to be unique that makes Awesome Show pull my brain in about three hundred different directions. It's easy to think of the show as just being weird for weirdness' sake, but that's selling it short. Tom Goes to the Mayor focused inept civic planning and small town pride through a surrealistic lens, whereas Awesome Show focuses the very concept of comedy through that same lens. Watching this new series is like being a fish pulled from water: it's not just about adjusting to Tim and Eric's oddball humor, it's about adjusting to an entirely new reality.
Subjectively, that can be either good or bad. Some may choose to stay where things make sense while others will gleefully follow Tim and Eric down the rabbit hole. My first inclination is that I'm not going to enjoy this new series as much as I enjoyed Tom Goes to the Mayor -- while most of the sequences were very funny, some were just too abstract to wrap my brain around. I spent more time trying to figure out why a sketch was funny instead of just enjoying the sketch. Then, there are other moments when I actually do understand the deeper meaning behind what is ostensibly a meaningless gag.
Tom Goes to the Mayor was strange, but it stayed within a certain framework and could be appreciated if you understood it wasn't the kind of passive comedic experience so many are conditioned to through laugh tracks and jokes you can see coming from light years away. Awesome Show has no such framework, which results in sequences that don't quite hit the target, or sequences that don't make sense until 3 a.m. the next morning. Regardless, I'd rather watch a show that's willing to take risks than any number of forgettable shows that always choose the comedic path of least resistance.
Update: For an example of one critic who really doesn't get the show, check out this Reuters article, especially the reference to "a local newscast from gay co-anchors." They're not gay, they're a married man and woman. Aesthetically androgynous, yes. Gay, no.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2-12-2007 @ 12:00AM
InnerLogic said...
I watched the show last Friday on the Adult Swim Fix, and I loved it. I am a big fan of Tim and Eric, and it was worth the wait.
Last week I was showing some of my friends some Tim and Eric clips and promos, and a few of them got what they were going for, the rest thought it was "just plain retarded" (Their words, not mine). It's the kind of humor that you just get, or you don't.
Well, I get it (somewhat I guess ;-)) and I love it.
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2-12-2007 @ 2:21PM
James said...
Come on, I laud original and innovative conceptual work, but these guys are just trying way too hard and they come across looking like most of the crap that is going around you tube.
TGTTM was pretty stale and boring, this is hypomanic and isn't running on any cylinders.
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2-12-2007 @ 2:27AM
Kurifurisan said...
I too couldn't wait until tonight to see the show so when it hit the Friday Night Fix on adultswim.com I watched it and Saul's pilot episode. I loved it and I can't wait to see Tim and Eric live at the Portland, OR date for the Awesome Tour!!!!
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2-12-2007 @ 5:26AM
Gavin said...
No sirree bob, I didn't like it. I didn't much care for TGTTM at first but it grew on me because of the style of the show. It was unique and I can appreciate that. Half the stuff on tonight's show just came across as lazy production and self-indulgent junk. It was half baked.
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2-12-2007 @ 9:26AM
shannon said...
and John C. Reilly was on the show last night. hehe
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2-12-2007 @ 10:41AM
dvddesign said...
I liked it for the most part. It had it's moments, and if you've ever seen T&M's live action stuff before or their podcasts, you knew what to expect. I think this is really just an extension of their podcast and website more than anything, and my only fear is that they'll run out of stuff to do.
I think the show would benefit with more Jan and Wayne Skyler. I think monogamistic news reporting is what the world needs today.
BTW, did anyone see the 1987 Calendar they released this year? Very weird.
OTOH, Saul of the Molemen, there's some underwhelming stuff. I'll watch it, but that better actually do something in future episodes. The only thing it had going for it was the goofy theme song Trey Parker did at the end.
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2-12-2007 @ 11:35AM
Kurifurisan said...
I too thought Saul was a bit disappointing. btw, dvddesign are you the same that posts over a destructoid?
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2-12-2007 @ 12:06PM
Dino Stamatopoulos said...
Tim and Eric were raised by wolves. Hysterical wolves.
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2-26-2007 @ 4:08AM
Elliey said...
The only one that makes true sense around this place is James pointing out the true how much Tim and Eric's comical work SUCKS ass!
I mean the kind of humor they try to show is not even armature is pathetic even worst than what i see on youtube, its a type of BAD humor that can get someone annoyed like when your little sister goes around bothering you, annoying you by her constant perky squatting high pitch voice, thats the kind of annoyance i feel from this show, at least in youtube people dont make complete asses of themselves.
I never liked their work before their crappy TGTTM show even worst now that they had the gonads to go this far with a new reality show in which they proove to be more idiots than others on youtube thanx to the retarded encouragements you screwed fans gave them, and im guessing it must of been alot but heh i always knew this world or (America) is full of idiots everytime i see something on youtube.
I guess im just a person that doesnt have good taste in humor or just one type of undefined humor and that is Tim and Erics, im sure most on youtube that try to be good comedians are pissed the fact those two squatting fags got their own show with nothing but crap while they with something way better than a stupid TEEN drama shit MTV has gone parading with them are denied >>.
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3-05-2007 @ 11:46AM
whatchamacarcass said...
Salame!
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3-05-2007 @ 6:10PM
Scott said...
I love Tim and Eric, I think their humor is very unique and not just a lack of effort as some people think. The skits are definitely more than complete randomness. Although I often don't understand the skits, I find myself knowing when to laugh and knowing what part of the skit is the "punch line".
I also agree with the comparison to Monty Python. Monty Python is a widely respected show in England and the US, and their movies have become cult classics. However, I've watched the movies with older people who don't find it humorous at all. I think that Tim and Eric's humor will have a similar journey.
I just hope that people who aren't open enough to appreciate this inventive and unique humor don't get it taken off of the air.
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3-13-2007 @ 12:21AM
Po Lee said...
I'm sorry, but this show is terrible. I cannot watch more then like five seconds of it. To even THINK of compairing it to something like Monty Python is ludicrist. How these self indulgent, lazy, ignorant people keep getting payed to put their unfunny tripe on the air is BEYOND me.
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