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.

Here's some cool animation news from the past week or so:

First, if you dig the heavy metal sounds of Dethklok, the brutal (but rather stupid) band from the Adult Swim series Metalocalypse, you'll be happy to know the band is doing a tour of some college campuses, according to Toon Zone and Adult Swim HQ. I'll keep you posted as more information becomes available. Other yet-to-be-announced bands will also be touring to promote Adult Swim.

New TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

• The Brady Bunch - Complete Series
• Entourage - Season 3, Vol. 1
• Law and Order - Season 5
• The Lost Room - Complete Mini-Series
• Mind of Mencia - Season 2 (Uncensored)
• The Pink Panther Show - Vol. 5: The Ant & The Aardvark
• Roseanne - Season 7
• She-Ra - Season 1, Vol. 2
• Tom Goes To The Mayor - Complete Series
• Twin Peaks - Season 2

Tom Goes to the Mayor began as a couple short short films on creators Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim's Web site, and even then it was obvious that not everyone was going to be into it. If anything, the fact that so many people either absolutely loved the series or just found it confusing and unfunny is a testament to its success: one doesn't make a show like Tom Goes to the Mayor with the intention of pleasing everyone. You either grok it, or you don't.

(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.

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.

Well, I mentioned earlier that Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, the twisted minds behind one of my favorite shows, Tom Goes to the Mayor, were developing a sketch show for Adult Swim. We now know that the name of the new show is Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!. According to the duo, the humor will be not unlike the short films the two made before bringing Tom Goes to the Mayor to Adult Swim. Also, Tom Goes to the Mayor will take a break while the two focus on their new show. Hopefully it won't be gone forever, for sad I would be.

If you just can't wait until February 11th for the premiere of their new show, you can always head to Pasadena, California tomorrow for the Doo Dah Parade, a crazy spoof of the New Year's Day Rose Parade. Tim and Eric will be there, will you?

(Left to right: Scott Adsit, Jay Johnston and Dino Stamatopoulos)

Dino Stamatopoulos has written for some of the funniest cult comedy series in the last ten years, including Mr. Show, TV Funhouse, Tom Goes to the Mayor, and most recently Moral Orel, an oft-misunderstood stop-animated cartoon created by Stamatopoulos himself. He's also written for other series, including Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and Mad TV.

With the new second season of Moral Orel starting November 12, Stamatopoulos and I spoke on the phone about what fans could expect in the new season, and about TV comedy in general.

(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.

I've been a fan of Tim and Eric for a long time, even before Tom Goes to the Mayor was picked up by Adult Swim. However, I hadn't checked out their personal Web site in some time, so I was pleased to find they actually have a podcast now. They've made six episodes since May, and when I say "six" I mean "five" because the fifth one doesn't appear to be on iTunes. Oh wait, they do have it here. Okay, well that problem is solved. I was seriously worried there for a moment. I'm just glad you and I were able to get through it together. I think those last four sentences were a tumultuous time for all of us, full of doubt and uncertainty. The podcasts themselves include a lot of older videos the duo made before moving out to LA to do Tom Goes to the Mayor, mixed in with some newer stuff. If you're a fan, check it out. If you're not a fan, don't check it out, because that really wouldn't make any sense.

(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.

(S02E06) This is an early review, courtesy of Adult Swim Fix. The actually episode will air Sunday evening, as usual.

I never would have thought Robert Loggia and Tom Goes to the Mayor would be a good match, but his role in this episode as the owner of a waterbed store was just one of the things that made this episode probably the best one of the season so far. Loggia plays Lew, the owner of Lew's Waterbed Galleria, a store that's actually on the lake, so people don't pay local taxes. While Tom is hanging out on the boardwalk where the store is located, he runs into a street musician he calls "Saxman" (Tom Kenny). Saxman not only plays soprano saxophone, but he also plays a "digital chime box" with his feet. Tom loves the Saxman's music, and when he finds out the Saxman is going to be kicked off the boardwalk by Lew the waterbed man, Tom decides to let him stay in his front yard in a pup tent, even though his wife is out of town visiting her ex-husband and doesn't like Tom to have men over when she's away.

(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.