Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

"Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!" picks up the torch that Bob Odenkirk and David Cross dropped when their cutting edge sketch comedy show "Mr. Show" was cancelled after four whirlwind seasons on HBO. Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, previously the inventive minds behind "Tom Goes to the Mayor", took that torch and set the concept of sketch comedy ablaze.

As a genre, sketch comedy has been stagnant for a number of years. MAD TV is horribly unfunny and garish. Saturday Night Live, once brilliant, is now all but completely unwatchable. Several easily forgotten sketch shows have come and gone in the meantime. Gone is the biting social satire of Monty Python and the Dave Chapelle Show.

"Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!" attempts to shock life back into the comatose art of sketch comedy with rapid-fire edits, grotesquely memorable characters and crude animation bits all wrapped up neatly in about 11 minutes. It is as if the show's creators have taken every bad public access television cliché of the past 20 years and tossed them mumblety-peg into the editing room. The sketches seem ill-conceived and hastily thrown together, as if the show is literally produced just minutes before it airs. Many of the skits lack a clear punchline or point, which is perhaps Tim and Eric's greatest feat of all.

The show is actually well scripted and rehearsed. Characters are conceived then fleshed out. The comic timing, in most cases, is painstakingly perfected. By the time the credits roll, one might be unsure of what they've seen or if it was even funny and that seems to be Tim and Eric's point: The joke is on you, audience! Andy Kaufman pulled similar pranks in his stand-up shows. It was nearly two decades before the majority of comedy fans came to realize how brilliant a comedian Andy Kaufman was.

As taught by Mr. Kaufman, the only dangerous aspect of comedy like this is that it tends to disorient, confuse, and annoy. It is not immediately apparent that the slipshod manner of each episode's assembly is all part of the gag. "Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!" has broken the monotony of formulaic sketch shows by using herky-jerky editing to great comedic effect. In that, Tim and Eric, like Mr. Kaufman, may be way ahead of their time. No doubt, advertisers are already taking note and will begin showing commercials in a very similar style within the next few months.

"Tom Goes To The Mayor" had the most evenly divided audience of any show in the Adult Swim line-up. "Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job" seems to be quickly following suit in avoiding viewer apathy which means Tim and Eric (and co-writer/editor DJ Dougg Pound) must be doing something right.

This show is completely hilarious. A totally absurd, insane, bizarre style of humor that is sadly missing from most of TV. There hasn't been anything as gleefully wacked out as this since "Stella", which, in my opinion was the funniest thing on TV when it was on. Luckily, this show is garnering a huge cult following and not tanking in the ratings department. This show is alternately disorienting, disturbing, brilliant, hilarious to the point of near pants peeing and sometimes its all these things at once. There humor is polarizing, but I'd say most of the people I've introduced it to love it, with a small minority being not into it. I can't praise it enough. In this age of lame, extremely predictable comedy, Tim And Eric are twin harbingers of fresh air. Am I at 10 lines yet? Yep. Anyway, best comedy on TV and please keep it up!

There's no accounting for taste, and this show you'll either love to bits, or be stuck forever in "WTF" mode. I do sympathize with the WTF crowd, truly, but honestly I don't understand the level of vitriol. Let's all just admit to differences in taste, eh? The fact is, this show is exactly the way the creators want it. I don't in general like to condescend to non-fans by saying "you just don't get it". But truly, this is the one thing you should "get" before you criticize the show: It is what it is, and it's not too complicated. It's all right there in front of you.

Beyond that, it's all up to personal aesthetics. You don't like it? Fine! Me? I love it! I can't get enough of it! It makes me laugh my ass off every single time. I don't always know how to articulate what it is about it, but it just dovetails perfectly with my (and my friends') sense of humor. There's a through-line of sarcasm from beginning to end. Sarcasm not just with individual comments or ideas, but with the structure of "sketch" comedy shows in general, and a vast array of kitschy cultural threads.

Shoot, I crack up just seeing the faces Tim and Eric pull when they're grinning idiotically into the camera for long awkward stretches. That's another good word: awkward. There's a lot of awkward stuff in this show, and that's part of its bread and butter! For that reason, it rings more truthful than most shows on TV, despite its flagrant surreality.

Also, in my opinion, its vibe is a perfect complement to a lot of existing Adult Swim shows: Sealab 2021, Space Ghost, Venture Brothers, Morel Orel, Futurama, Family Guy, Frisky Dingo, Squidbillies, 12 oz mouse, etc etc etc. It more than fits the bill in that great pantheon, no matter how "animated" it is in the conventional sense. Another way I like to look at this particular show is: internet photo-shopped / you-tubed / flash-animated humor brought to your living room! In summary: Pure heroine! I'll be first in line when the inevitable (I hope) DVD box set comes out!

being a huge tom goes to the mayor fan, i had extremely high hopes for this show since it was coming from the dudes who were responsible for putting out in my opinion the best show on adult swim. like tom goes to the mayor, this show will probably be extremely polarizing. that's just how tim and eric's humor goes. OK, on to the awesome show (which is appropriately titled) the premiere episode did not fail to make me almost die of laughter. its a 15 minute sketch comedy show. thats really the only way i can describe the show. it definitely has a mr.show feel to it, obviously with the odenkirk connection. one of the good things about a 15 minute sketch comedy show, is the sketches have to be fairly short (so if there's one you don't like, that's OK.) that said, i pretty much liked every sketch the show had to offer. no pop culture referrenced humor, which is very refreshing for a sketch comedy show. (see mad TV, robot chicken, snl) so yeah, very very impressed and i will continue to watch it

Look, I completely sympathize with people who don't understand why this show is getting a 10/10 rating. I, along with most people, had to be ushered into this form of art. It is a form of art that most people aren't accustomed to. I want to try and make sure you, the reader, see that it is actually a very sophisticated form of art. I want others to like it because I feel understanding all forms of comedy are important and crucial to understanding what makes comedy what it is.

One thing I always tell someone who is unresponsive to T&E is to look at other forms of art that reflect similar goals. To look at Picasso and say it is not a good form of art, or look at the classical pianist Boulez and say he isn't making music is the same as saying T&E is not good comedy. There are many sophisticated, higher forms of art that have a point, but to the untrained eye, look completely bogus and not properly managed.

T&E tends to go one of two ways. One way is to make the watcher feel extremely uncomfortable. This is similar to approaches that amazing shows such as The Office, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and Louie take. These shows tend to create awkwardness by using society and it's lack of clarity in order to create a situation we cringe at the thought of being in. T&E do this, but achieve it in a very unique way. They can create awkwardness through disturbing contradictions. This can be seen in sketches such as the obviously-on-steroids bodybuilder talking about becoming a mother, or a very pregnant woman singing an attitude driven song (bub-bubs bounce if anyone is familiar). There are more, but these two skits show what awkward humor T&E are getting at. I cringe at socially awkward situations performed well in other shows, but I actually had to try a few times before making it through some of T&E's awkwardness. They do it best... in the most disturbing way possible.

The other part of their humor (and the two directions they go in are always overlapped), is based off of low budget absurdity that can be found on any small town public access shows. Public access is legally established by the government to give more expressive rights to people. T&E point out that not all the time is this as great of an idea as it sounds. Most of the time it is taken up by weird people such as Casey and his brother or Richard Dunn with any of the talk shows they have given him. Some of them are showing how absurd similar real life experiences are (see the Paynus Brothers sketch and then watch Entertainment Tonight talking with someone like the Jonas Brothers... They are saying something, not just saying "PENIS" and hoping someone laughs). The absurdities are definitely unique, and if they weren't, Nick Swardson's pretend time or all the dozens of other shows that try to approach absurd humor, would be loved by everyone. Those shows lack what T&E established: creativity. Whether you enjoy it or not, most people would agree it is something that they didn't see coming. That, to me, is the definition of creativity. A Absurd humor is difficult to become accustomed to, and much harder to create. Criticizing T&E is just like looking at a piece of artwork by many great artists and saying "It looks like they just threw paint on a canvas and called it art. I can do that!". That's fine, I did that too. It's somewhat of an acquired taste and the rest is just understanding what is good and what is not good on an almost instinctual basis. The only way to specifically demonstrate that is by analyzing it on a frame by frame basis. If any show makes me think something new, does something I don't think I could have done without a lot of hard work, and there is the ability to analyze on a frame by frame basis, I consider it a well made piece of art. T&E does just that. Like I said, I sympathize completely, but I really need to assure you that it does hold value and only on a subjective viewpoint can you learn to love it. No one I know that likes T&E "got it" from the start. If you don't get it, you can with some patience and hard thinking.