TVSquad

UPDATE: The new season begins November 18. Also, the first season will be released on DVD this spring.

Back in April, I told you thirty new episodes of Adult Swim's Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! had been ordered, and fans rejoiced. Now comes news from the boys themselves that the new season will kick off this November. They don't mention a specific date, but who cares, at least it's coming back.

I was a fan of Tim and Eric's work pre-Adult Swim, and loved Tom Goes to the Mayor, their first series for the network. Awesome Show, like Tom, samples from the same font of weirdness, but is also, like Tom, often much smarter than it seems. It is comedy dissected, turned inside out and gussied up in an oddball manner that makes some people fall in love with it and others hate it with a dark, unholy passion.

First of all, enjoy this nice little Christmas video from comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. It's from their upcoming sketch show, and it's kind of confusing. Not to worry, I'm sure when seen in context it's even more perplexing.

Oh yeah, and the complete series of Tom Goes to the Mayor will be out on DVD in April 0f 2007. Since they're calling it the "Complete Series" I'm going to put two and two together and assume the show is over for good. I am equal parts bummed and thrilled by these two bits of news, though I think two seasons is a pretty good run for a show like TGTTM. Rather than follow the trajectory of so many others before it and use pop culture as a springboard, Tim and Eric satirized small town life and overzealous civic pride in an absurdist style that crawled right into my brain, laid out a sleeping bag and whispered softly to me: "Adam, I'm forever stuck in your head now. Get used to me."

All sadness aside, we still have Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! to look forward to, so no reason to commit suicide yet, Tim and Eric fans.

(S02E12) This is an early review.

Bob Balaban plays Tom's father in this episode, and I must say he was the perfect choice. He and Tim Heidecker, who plays Tom, have the same kind of soft-spoken, halted delivery, and it seems perfectly natural they would be father and son, even if Walt doesn't seem to care much for Tom.

The episode opens at the airport with Tom waiting for his father's flight to arrive. We assume he's visiting his son, but actually it's just an eleven minute layover (which is, funny enough, also the length of the episode). Tom doesn't let his father's lack of time keep him from making a minute by minute itinerary, which includes a father/son embrace (tentative). Tom's father sells fish coolers called "Coldinizers" and he doesn't want to miss his flight, else he lose all his sales on the Eastern seaboard. Tom insists they have time to do everything on the list, however.

(S02E11) When I watch shows in order to review them for TV Squad, I try to simply sit back and enjoy them as if I were any other fella sitting down to enjoy a TV show. In other words, I try not to get hung up on every little nuance and line of dialogue because I want to appreciate the show as it's meant to be, not turn it into some kind of archaeological dig where I over-examine every detail and completely suck the enjoyment out of the experience. I like to look for little details, of course, but I don't want to lose the whole package. This is my way. Yes, it is.

However, I can't completely neglect the blogger/writer part of me that knows he's going to be typing out something about the show once it's over, and some things I would normally ignore get stuck in my craw because of it. For instance, I thought this recent episode of Tom Goes to the Mayor was very funny, but there were two moments I felt were somewhat beneath the usual bizarre humor I expect from Tim and Eric. The first was a "Benny Hill" chase sequence, which has already been spoofed a million times, and a Scooby-Doo style "unmasking" at the end, which, to be fair, was pretty damn surreal, but I still felt it was a little too easy. These are minor complaints though, and the rest of the episode was pretty funny, I thought.

(S02E08) Not everybody likes the same things, and you don't have to spend a lot of time on this blog to know that a lot of people have different opinions about what constitutes a good television program. Tom Goes to the Mayor is so unique in its look and sense of humor that it's perfectly reasonable some would be turned off by it. If you've been reading my recaps/reviews, you know I'm a big fan of the show, but I wanted to try and find a reasonable argument against it. However, perusing the messageboards on the Adult Swim site doesn't offer much in the way of "reasonable arguments," other than "this show sucks" and "this show is totally gay."

I was listening to the archives of Paul Goebel's podcast the other day, and I think he offered an apt critique of the show. Goebel likes Tom Goes to the Mayor, but he does feel it's too "post-modern." In other words, it's sometimes so weird to the point where a person can totally lose interest, and you end up not really caring about the characters or what happens to them. I'm of a different mind, and actually revel in that post-modern weirdness. I splash around in it. I drink deeply of its essence, I do. Goebel references another great Adult Swim show, Venture Bros., which manages to be unique and still have characters you really care about. As a fan of both shows, I think that's a fair assessment of them. Nevertheless, I've always had a very dark and odd sense of humor, and TGTTM taps right into it. I can't help it, it's just how I'm wired.

(S02E05)

I Wrestle My Sons HARD --bumper sticker on Tom's car

Gary Busey guest stars in this episode, as, oddly enough, a man who is completely and utterly insane. More exactly, he plays Coach Harris, a man trying to lead the Jefferton Pinners wrestling team to victory using such esteem-building techniques as telling all of his students they're nothing more than little girls trapped in little fat boys' bodies. Meanwhile, Tom, who is the team's "equipment boy" and dresses as if he's an extra in Flashdance, discovers that the kids have been using an illegal supplement called "Flaxamax." Tom discovers this while hanging the boy's jock straps in the locker room and spraying them down with a garden hose.

(S02E04) Tom Peters may be a man who's "full of ideas" but he hasn't held down many jobs. This becomes a problem when he finds out one of his stepsons is having a career day at his school where parents come in to talk about their occupations. Tom decides to pay the Mayor a visit with a fruit basket consisting entirely of bananas, and he slips his resume in for good measure. Tom's resume flashes on the screen for only a few seconds, but his list of "jobs" includes such things as being a spokesmodel for chronic nocturnal emissions ("An illness I know all too well"), his ill-fated job as vice mayor of Hoboton, and his stint as a voluntary zoo guide (it felt like real work).

Adult Swim has announced some new shows that will be coming down the pike later this year, as well as some of the old standbys that'll be returning. Here's the rundown:

First off, we have Brendon Small's (Home Movies) new series about a heavy metal band, whose official name is now apparently Death Clock Metalocalypse.

The team who created Sealab 2021 is also returning with a new show called Frisky Dingo, about a super hero and a super criminal who aren't always that intrested in fighting one another.

Tom Goes to the Mayor is one of the most polarizing shows in the Adult Swim block (or is that 12 Oz. Mouse)? Some people love it, and others absolutely loathe it with a dark, unholy passion. I was a huge fan of creatorsTim and Eric long before Tom Goes to the Mayor was even on, so I'm one of those who instantly fell in love with the show. The mix of live action and semi-static animation makes this show really unlike anything else on television, and the dadaistic approach to humor is exactly the kind of smack upside the head comedy has been needing. If it's not your cup of tea, that's cool, but Tim and Eric have created something on their own terms, and I find it brilliant.