Adult Swim OPO

brak?

What ya chatting about?

brak jumped the shark when the mom went all brit.

God, I don't know where to start with that. I'm usually laughing so hard at the premise alone that I miss 33.333% of the show.

(I don't think we have this is the UK, I am sad because it looks great!)

(Also, I didn't know Brak had his own show! Does Space Ghost ever cameo?)

< /papa roach>

Meatwad: "Well, if teeth make me gay, then sign me up!"

"Three hams will certainly kill him"

AND I SAY TO MYSELF
I NEED EXACT CHANGE

Sealab > ATHF > Harvey Birdman > the rest

Oh, and the best episode eva of Space Ghost is VERY EASILY the one with Bjork and Thom Yorke.

http://sealab.envy.nu/sparks.jpg

You are Jodene Sparks

You are Sealabs smart-ass communications expert. You position as radio operator is, however, advantageous. Whether in contact with your secret mountain stronghold, or selling organs on the black market, your plot for world domination is well upon its way. Perhaps the sickest mind on Sealab, there is no telling what devious plot you will be up to next.

What Sealab
2021 Character are You?

http://images.quizilla.com/M/mccrayon/1040015180_LTSFrylock.jpg
YOU ARE FRYLOCK -- A large, hovering box of french
fries, Frylock is the voice of reason for the
Aqua Teens. He is very smart, owns a computer,
and is often exasperated by his imcompetent
roomates. He does the majority of the crime-
solving for the Hunger Force, and without him,
very little would be accomplished.


What 'Aqua Teen Hunger Force' character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

i think Home Movies is still tops for me, since I love Coach McGuirk, and i generally like any cartoon where all the characters have more than their own share of self-loathing.

This is so the only thing that brings joy to my Sunday nights, for serious.

i should probably change that.

Sparks looks AND acts exactly like my Dan

So we are getting protected when he takes over the world, I trust.

http://images.quizilla.com/Y/yermo/1040101180_sl_sparks.jpg
You are Sparks. You care about Sealab only because
it's full of fools to take advantage of.


Which Sealab 2021 character are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Apparently I really AM Sparks.

"i'm helping! i'm helping! bizarro!"

Huh.

Erm.

"That ... is a light switch ... OF TOTAL DEVASTATION!!!"

The Yorke/Bjork episode of SG is pretty top-notch. I'm a big fan of "Kentucky Nightmare," though, too.

"Sharks and bears ... nature's best friends!"

My favorite Sealab is the one with the time loop. It made me cry.

"Kentucky Nightmare" is fantastic, though I've only seen it once. That film Space Ghost created is strangely compelling. Same run, the one with Busta Rhymes ("Flipmode"?) is completely insane. Especially the disco hospital near the end.

Zorak: "Hattiesburg."

My head says ATHF, but my heart says The Brak Show. The best bits of Brak are better than the best of ATHF but ATHF is more consistent. The episode of The Brak Show with the rap battle is superb, especially Thundercleese's rock-rap that references Conan The Barbarian. "Until I hear the lamentations of my enemies' women", had me in stitches.

I'm not taking the ATHF quiz because I already know I'm Frylock.

Fuck it, never mind. I'd only end up as the tall henchman.

Natural Gas--It Gives You Some Ideas!

METALOCALYPSE!

(not as great as VB, actually, but it is fresher in my mind)

The Boondocks, Cartoon Network's witty, controversial series, won't return this year as expected, says show creator Aaron McGruder.

The second season of the animated series, based on The Boondocks' comic strip, was given a late 2006/winter 2007 date to return to Cartoon Network's late-night block, Adult Swim, after its hugely successful first season (it was the highest-rated series premiere in Cartoon Network history).

Network execs, in fact, bumped the number of The Boondocks' episodes up from 15 to 20 - which seems to have contributed to the delay.

"Our production schedule is really, really long," says McGruder, who's publicizing the first-season DVD.

"We're halfway through the writing and just getting under way with the animation."

McGruder now says fans should look for the series to return in March.

[ . . . ]

"It's really hard," [McGruder] says. "We're working more and more with artists overseas. We now have a Japanese anime studio named Madhouse to help us out.

"I was happy with a lot of season one, but I thought a lot of it could look better. We're really passionate artists.

"The people working with me on the show are phenomenal, phenomenal artists and they really care about getting it right."

"That music you played was very bad! You're fired! Get me the Beatles!"

x-post

Harvey Birdman is done.

I've been watching Relocated at the website every week and it just keeps getting better.

haha I mean Delocated

RIP Frisky Dingo my favorite show ever pretty much

lol relocated. i tried the 1st one wanting to like it and didnt laff much...will give it another go. yah frisky dingo is the shit

Mighty Boosh coming soon!

Totally loving Delocated so far.

i've been spreading the frisky dingo gospel for like two years now to mostly blank stares. i think both seasons are out on DVD now, so i'm thinking of reinstating sunday night tv night and making everybody i know watch it.

need to check out delocated.

Frisky Dingo is seriously fucking dope stuff

shoulda been hueg

prob my OPO, with home movies not far behind.

It should have been enormous. Like Arrested Development, probably too intelligent and convoluted for mass-market tastes. I reckon it's one of the 5 best TV shows I've seen.

tell me more about what the normals can't handle, brainiac.

oh come on, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! kicks everything else in the ass.

I don't think Frisky Dingo was nec. too smart for TV - it's actually more accessible than a lot of Adult Swim shows. In a way I felt like it was the logical conclusion to what the adult swim people have been working at for a long time.

It did share Arrested Development's problem in another way - a linear plot and jokes that built on each other episode to episode. So if someone started watching at episode 8 or whatever, they a. won't have any idea what's going on or who the fuck that muscular monster dude is b. aren't gonna find the funniest jokes funny.

Horrible, horrible model for attracting new viewers but at the same time Frisky Dingo without those things would prolly suck.

yeah, that's probably a better way of putting it - both shows are accumulative and require dedication, which is more than quite a lot of people are willing to give. agreed it was more accessible than other Adult Swim stuff - it's basically their huge juggernaut animated sitcom spectacular, where the experimentalism and iconoclasm of their more nuggety stuff gets fleshed out into a genuine narrative

Xavier: Renegade Angel is the best shit on that shit right now. Fuckin, guy has a snake for an arm. Nothing is funnier, nothing is better.

a baby-eating snake.

Frisky Dingo was basically what the Sealab team moved onto afterwards, right? The end of Sealab really kind of petered out in quality, and I only saw one or two eps of Frisky Dingo and was pretty confused as to what was going on. Maybe I'll give it a try on DVD at some point.

Right, it was the Sealab people and the shows were on the same wavelength. And honestly, I like Sealab...but in retrospect it's like early demo tapes vs. the awesome fleshed out band.

also: scion tc episode is like my favorite moment in human history

Haven't seen that much AS stuff, but Venture Bros is seriously hard to beat.

oh man, I loved Sealab, but I don't think I've even seen an episode Frisky Dingo. might have to check that out.

also: kind of hit-or-miss, but when it's firing on all cylinders, Superjail is one of my favorite things in the world.

i thoroughly enjoyed sealab, but frisky dingo is some next level shit. i definitely recommend watching it in order from start to finish. i probably only got into it because the whole first season (or like more than half of it) was up on youtube for a while. also, killer mike!!

Does anyone like Look Around You?
That's when my tv goes off.

Right now the best is Tim and Eric Awesome Show
but the opo all time is Home Movies, duh
(ok I've only seen one episode of Frisky Dingo so I guess I'll have to seek out some more)

We can't ever go back to Arizona!

"Home Movies" - the idea of an 8-year old Ed Wood is irresistable, and H. Jon Benjamin is some kinda god. (Too bad he's wasted on the occasional "Family Guy" ep.)

Frustraing: Teletoon eliminating Brak and Space Ghost and Harvey Birdman just when I got into 'em, grrr.

Jon Benjamin is also fantastic in Lucy, Daughter of the Devil

...dunno what that is :(

http://www.adultswim.com/shows/lucydaughterofthedevil/indexpage.html#video

it's by one of the creators of Home Movies

First two seasons of Sealab are my OPO.

"Save if for Queen Doppelpopolous."

can I only pick none?

c'mon there's a lotta bullshit on Adult Swim but you're saying you dislike every single show?

I can honestly say I actively dislike every single show except maybe Home Movies.

Uncle Gabby and I weep for you.

then one you would pick is Home Movies, fuckin' duh.

Venture Brothers is pure genius. i think all the newer spazzmo stoney cheap shit is godawful, tho, so i never watch adult swim anymore.

I still watch Family Guy and have started rewatching King of the Hill, plus Venture Brothers and Metalocalypse are both great.

My OPO is Bleach, though.

Snake 'n' Bacon (based on Michael Kupperman's Tales Designed to Thrizzle) is the best thing on Adult Swim in ages.

Not as good as Freedom 'n' Ethan.

Finally got around to watching the first season of Frisky Dingo on DVD. A lot of pretty funny stuff, and way more ambitious than Sealab - I tried watching when it was on the air, but caught random eps and the show's plot/characterizations are already kinda confusing without watching them out or order.

I have to wonder though - between all the obnoxious Chinese stereotypes in this and the godawful Dickesode and "Shake turns black" episodes of ATHF when did adult swim go from hilarious surreal comedy to crutching on sub-Mencia-level racist "humor"? Really kept taking me out of it. Even the third episode of Archer that just aired was one of those bog-standard, obviously-written-by-lame-white-dudes "diversity in the workplace" plots. It's enough for me to not bother going to the second season of FD.

I dunno, I never took frisky dingo's humor to be racist - self-aware references to racial stereotypes isn't off-limits imo

regardless, I can't think of any of that stuff in the 2nd season and highly recommend it

and there is a difference between this and 'ironic racism' (one's still a joke about race vs. and one's a joke about racism)

minus one 'and'

It sometimes felt like they wanted to have their cake and eat it too (like the ugh dry cleaner - turning out to be a white guy after all - but then he's not! lulz.) but by the time they got to the rabbit fighting shit in Chinatown and the goddamn sweatshops it was really ruining it for me.

yeah but the jokes don't come from laughing AT sweatshop/chinatown/whatever, just using them for the absurdist situation?

the little dingo i've seen has this family guy element (the Walt Disney JEEEEEWWWWWW!!! sequence in particular) where it stops being "jokes that comment on racism" and starts being "jokes that draw attention to racism." A lot of it seems like wanting to tell a racist joke, but putting a vague veil of "cultural commentary" on it to get away with it

0_0 at Cheyenne Cinnamon. Had to watch for Neko Case, though mc chris, Doom and T-Pain having roles didn't hurt. Still... wtf.

http://www.adultswim.com/promos/bkbuns2010/index.html

Too lazy to watch the other pilots to vote...

fucked up!!!!!

I'm sorry, but I must inform you that if you don't vote for Snake & Bacon you are in fact Hitler. I'm not sure I want to live in a world where a Tales Designed to Thrizzle TV show gets shot down.

Also, I just learned that Pete from 30 Rock was the voice of the father on Moral Orel. Another reason to love that show.

Pete from 30 Rock was one of the creative drivers behind Moral Orel!

Anybody out there have the Saul Of The Molemen episode featuring Thomas Jefferson? I need to see that again.

it's all about Furikuri

Whoa, so FLCL is broadcasting in HD right now! Is this a new remaster/transfer or something?

If Mighty Boosh counts, it's my favorite at the moment since I just found out about this show a few weeks ago and they now only play it on Fridays. However, I'm pretty sure Delocated will own this as soon as Season 2 takes over.

hi-def FLCL must be INSANE

So is anybody watching Mary Shelley's Frankenhole, the new thing from Moral Orel's Dino Stamatopolous? It trades in the Art Clokey claymation style for an amazing Rankin-Bass Mad Monster Party look, but more importantly it's just really fucking funny.

i have all of them saved on my dvr so im happy 2 hear that

i got big into morel orel a few months ago

I never knew what was missing from my life until today, when I found out it was Scott Adsit as a dick-obsessed Thomas Jefferson with the voice of Daffy Duck. It was a very specific niche but it has been filled and I can die happy.

I'll never understand why Adult Swim never finished releasing Moral Orel on DVD- sometimes I think it's the best thing they've ever done, even more so than Venture Bros.

I thought Adult Swim had some kind of conflict with Starburnstopolous and that was the reason there was no Morel Orel dvd, but apparently not if they're airing his new show.

easiest assumption is that the Vol 1 DVD set sold so badly even AS couldn't justify putting out the other two

well there was that comicon (?) press conf as an xtra on vol. 1 where dino is a total drunken ass the entire time..

which i tbrr found funny

1st time seeing any of season 2 of orel -- mt goats!!!

metalocalypse is excellent this season imo

it's basically been non-stop good since about halfway through season 1

I've finally gotten over my kneejerk hatred of seeing non-animated stuff on Cartoon Network to enjoy Children's Hospital, but Delocated is fucking garbage.

The only thing I ever found funny on Delocated was the pissy girlfriend and her tortilla hat business.

Childrens Hospital is amazing tho

anyone who isn't watching Delocated is missing out

Eh not really

It's not as bad as several other AS shows but it isn't essential viewing.

the original one-off pilot turned me off years ago, was shocked to realize later it had been going on for several seasons

can't believe they went ahead with that and not Korgoth of Barbaria

I don't watch any other AS shows but i think Delocated is genuinely one of the most imaginative and daring comedies out there at the moment. The Face/Off episode from last season was just insane. Can't think of any thing else on the air right now that would even attempt that

just watched the face/off episode, cuz i've only seen the show a couple time and why not. dgi.

think my favorite thing that's ever been on AS still = the first 2 or 3 seasons of ATHF. then venture bros and metalocalypse. that's about it.

some of this stuff looks promising:

http://www.avclub.com/articles/adult-swim-picks-up-dan-harmon-show-animated-harol,75186/

also i second praising delocated which is sometimes genius and reminds me a lot of jon benjamin show

Coffin Dodgers, a half-hour animated series from the creators of Drawn Together about a rowdy bunch of retirement home residents

we may have to do over the 'worst adult swim show' poll for this

yeah, that one does not look good.

xxpost

Not surprising, as Glaser and Benjamin have done a lot of stuff together.

Why would they let the creators of Drawn Together do anything that wasn't a profuse apology for the existence of Drawn Together?

i just learned from the av club comments section and wiki that apparently there's a fourth season of boondocks in the works. had no idea!

wait what?

they dropped the ball on the voices on the boondocks cartoon so hard i couldn't even watch more than one episode of it, regina king wtf

i was pretty annoyed at her voice at first, too, but i eventually got used to it

also the use of samuel l. jackson kinda makes up for everything

running above the influence commercials on adult swim: good targeting, or closing the stable door after the pothead has blown?

sad this bump wasnt about the eric andre show

is loiter squad funny?

Rarely?

Eric Andre show on the other hand is awesome.

Eric Andre show is next level. His character on Apt 23 is amusing but inconsequential enough that I was not prepared for how all-out his show is.

saw 2 eps on demand. it's funny. very similar to comedy bang bang, i thought, and then googled both and found that the nyt agrees:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/08/arts/television/the-rise-of-the-anti-talk-show.html

I like Eric Andre except for the Punk'd-es

Punk'd-esque bits, which are thankfully very brief.

agreed, although I liked the Tea Party one

can't help but feel like upcoming rock'a'roni metal camp ep of metalacolypse might have a rockso appearance

re: the Punk'd bits, I liked "Touch a Stranger's Hand Day"

I thought that was the creepiest one! He's, like, seriously violating these people's personal space! I liked the trashcan "congratulations" one, where the guy gets in his face and is totally adrenaline-rushing, going "are you trying to give my girl a heart attack?!?"

My favorite use of that type of bit, though, is probably the "Cash Stall" bit in "Jon Benjamin Has a Van." Still cracks me up.

The reason I liked it was because it was the creepiest one!

Hannibal's reactions during the goofy headlines were also amazing

eagleheart this week weirdly an elaborate parody of the ET ride in Universal Studios???

RIP Delocated. Last episode airs March 7.

bummer

It's realy sad, it was a show

Pretty dark last episode

missed it, what happened?

Well David got murdered (and TB, but who cares)

new eagleheart on now

great china, il ep tnite

http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2013/11/27/rick_and_morty_pilot_watch_the_first_episode_of_dan_harmon_s_new_animated.html

i feel like adult swim is really branded specifically for me + my generational cohort

I haven't been following it but I caught the Eagleheart episode about the blues. It was so OTM! Loved it.

xp i felt that way in the early years, but towards the end of the decade they just started going too far for me

Too far in what direction exactly?

i'm a big fan of that early ATHF/Sealab/Brak Show/VB era. but the humor started getting even more "out there" / weird for weirdness sake (later Aqua Teen, Squidbillies, Tim and Eric) and when they started doing live-action stuff that was kind of the beginning of the end. i remember sitting down and trying to watch some puppet show about Dracula or something and thinking what the hell happened to this block

obviously a large part of this is my lifelong fondness for cartoons and being less appreciative of the Land of the Lost/low budget 80s video/public access style they started going with with all their stuff. i guess i couldn't handle the new empires of irony

So is anybody watching Rick & Morty? The ending of that last episode, Jesus

bonus points for using "Cronenberg" as a noun, verb and adjective, too.

otm such a good show, some talk over here: i'm mr meeseeks look at me rick and morty thread

if I'm basically in the 'PFFR are gods' enlightenment phase of my televisual life, will I like this

also, The Heart, She Holler was GREAT and I don't care if I'm the only person on ILX who thinks that

You're not

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/04/business/media/adult-swim-no-1-with-younger-adults-is-expanding.html

that is gonna interfere with my catching up with Steven Universe reruns

their on Vine now guys!!

it's cool that adult swim is getting more and more successful, but honestly i do find it a little sad how Cartoon Network's actual cartoon programming is getting chipped away with every passing year

I am sad taht cartoons in gerenal are more half assed CGI bullshit with canned music and plots and characters

BTW I used Their instead of they're because I meant they have an "on vine"

Cartoon Network is just as guilty as most of producing a bunch of crap (see: Annoying Orange, any of their live action shows), but they're at least redeemed by "traditional" stuff like Regular Show, Adventure Time, Steven Universe. even Gumball is a decent cartoon

I do like old crap like Justice League

re: the Punk'd bits, I liked "Touch a Stranger's Hand Day"

― Victory Chainsaw! (DJP), Monday, June 11, 2012 6:18 AM (1 year ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol but the best one is have you seen my dog? DESCRIBE HIM TO ME

Eagleheart and Eric Andre are pretty much amongst the best shows on television

King of the Hill and Sealab 2021 and Children's Hospital and Space Ghost are always great

Delocated and Children's Hospital and Your Pretty Face is Going To Hell are generally worth the time

Family Guy and American Dad and Robot Chicken and Squidbillies and Cleveland Show and Boondocks and The Heart She Holler and China Il are all utterly unwatchable for me

i kinda got into sword art online; the rest of the current toonami lineup does nothing for me

the recent season of Eagleheart was insanely good

Family Guy and American Dad and Robot Chicken and Squidbillies and Cleveland Show and Boondocks and The Heart She Holler and China Il are all utterly unwatchable for me

kinda breaks my heart to see The Heart, She Holler lumped in with the rest of these

otm. the death zone ep was best. xp

Boondocks fantastic too

i tried heart she holler, could not get past two episodes
i maintain great dislike for boondocks

it's like, i don't even know you, man

hating Boondocks is just flat-out insane to me

don't know what to tell you. i've never liked the strip, i've never liked the cartoon and i've never liked mcgruder.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5D02fI7NDw

I mean

could not make it through

yeah, ditto.
always seems very trenchant manga social commentary and deeply unfunny/without insight

Anyway the worst thing they air is Loiter Squad.

hating Boondocks is just flat-out insane to me

― Fight the Powers that Be with this Powerful Les Paul! (DJP), Tuesday, February 4, 2014 5:49 PM (30 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ya wtf

omg Off The Air is amazing, like a sort of televisual Oneohtrix Point Never

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzdRQCnDBlw

i think the idea of a whole show encompassed in the theme music came up in "your terrible ideas"
that went to some dark places.

ahahaha awesome

I read they stashed it at 4am in the middle of their nightly infomercial block which makes me wonder who was even around to watch it. And also, if you WERE up watching it, your mind must have been completely vaporized.

One of the more amazing things I've seen in a while. I was in tears.

i think the idea of a whole show encompassed in the theme music came up in "your terrible ideas"
that went to some dark places.

― Steve 'n' Seagulls and Flock of Van Dammes (forksclovetofu), Thursday, November 6, 2014 5:14 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Yeah, that was Hurting 2.

your terrible ideas

haha that is literally exactly what this is

can't fault the execution tho

This has led me to discover their whole 4am "lineup" which is awesome

holy shit that was incredible. though there were so many twists to it I thought the last 15 seconds were brilliant

I wonder if the Fatal Farm guys were behind this. They had to be. So much of it reminds me of their TV theme remakes

Casper Kelly made it

"Too Many Cooks" is a humorous parody of US sitcoms of the 70s and 80s.

Your generation needs to shut up.

i liked this but it felt a little too ready-made internet "weird" in spots. i mean obv i guess the serial killer stuff is as much pastiche as anything else in it but still.

i liked this but it felt a little too ready-made internet "weird" in spots.

hi have you ever seen Adult Swim before

haha yes but not in about 10 years

This thing, holy shit

please someone get this song out of my head

help

here let me help

♪♫ too many cooks ♪♫

k... k-kill me.

good god, that was amazing.

has gone fair viral. lol when mordy first posted it it had maybe 10,000 views. who knew eh

I was not predicting it to turn super gory :/

lol crabbits you know adult swim by now :D

really was just expecting something like this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-fIl-wBE-E

hamburger penis >>> beheadings

my adult swim watching days just involved brak and space ghost interrupting each other, alternated with awkward pauses

haha don't front i know yer an X:RA gal tooooo

a show television is yet to top obv (shh jjj/djp)

it was a gross surprise after all that fake tgif sitcommery
not even the new flying lotus video grossed me out that much

:(

dunno why but it flowed naturally for me

cannibal murderer reminds me of zizek

haha

lol truth

whole thing quite reminiscent of Forklift Driver Klaus

here he's literally deconstructing television tropes!

clink!

ya the whole thing did have forklift video vibes, but obv much more expensive/professionally-done/meta

hah yeah, the floppy rubber limbs were simlar to the Klaus

I was kind of startled by how thoroughly they committed to Machete Man and that he didn't actually murder anyone in the Battlestar Galactica/Star Trek section

well, he's killed by the laser eyebeam cat which triggers the universe move into BSG/Space:2099 territory... though i guess that transmorphs him into the evil alien race...
i love that there's so many ideas in this, damned if i know if they actually amount to anything

the sci fi bit really is the standout

The space army of machete guys was the scariest part.

Now I see pix like this and go oh shit! look out anchorman!

http://i.imgur.com/MXk4s7k.jpg

Enjoyed the Dynasty open, ty crabs.

This was sort of Tim and Eric, right?

My wife thought the falcon and topless lady were funniest.

I was not predicting it to turn super gory :/

― Walter MIDI (Crabbits), Sunday, November 9, 2014 4:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I really hated that turn as well. Really glad I didn't fall asleep watching King of the Hill or whatever and then wake up to take a pee at 3 in the morning with this stuff on. Reminded me of an episode of Squidbillies from back in 05 or 06 where everybody caught on fire and the whole show just came to a grinding halt focusing on their burnt bodies. I mean, for all I know, that describes every episode of Squidbillies, but it was a big factor in deciding not to renew my cable subscription that fall.

the songs was written by the squidbillies guy

the machete guy standing right there in front of the camera at 20 secs in was def the most jarring thing to me

Personally I loved the descent into late '70s sleaze horror
Knowing that this was played for half-awake adult swim fans at 4am is fantastic

xp Loved that bit, where he's taken over the sitcom land Ringu style, messing with the title effects

btw this is a lot better than the other fake infomercial they did with the "salad shakers" which was truly awful

Knowing that this was played for half-awake adult swim fans at 4am is fantastic

Yeah, I could totally imagine it stirring people awake via repetition, dvd menu style.

Showed to Carl and Je55e. Not sure it was successful.

The topless lady was great, but then after Machete Man killed everyone and took their places and popped up as the topless lady I fell out

Get this song outta my head

cannibal murderer reminds me of zizek

― tribe? de la? no "humpty dance?" (clouds), Sunday, November 9, 2014 1:30 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ty 4 this

it takes a lot to make a stew

Josh in Chicago
Posted: November 9, 2014 at 5:22:14 PM
This was sort of Tim and Eric, right?

Well except for the part where it wasn't unwatchable fucking garbage

otm

lol *nods*

whew thought that was just me

I caught a similar vibe to the "Horse Apples" episode of Wonder Showzen, and so I assumed it was put together by the same guys who did WS, Delocated, Xaviar and The Heart She Holler. WRONG.

Nope, Squidbillies and Your Pretty Face Is Going To Hell, though.

It doesn't remind me of Tim & Eric at all.

WS, Delocated, Xaviar and The Heart She Holler.

I've seen every episode of WS, Xavier, and Heartshe Holler, but I only ever watched the pilot of Delocated and it didn't grab me. I didn't actually realize it was also a PFFR thing until now. Does it get super weird? Do you guys love it?

(Oh - if it's relevant - I love the Tim & Eric stuff, unlike I guess you guys)

the best part is when the credits become the people and the people become the credits

and i love how instead of being primarily funny that part is legit terrifying

yeah some videodrome shit there

c'mon that part is hilarious

Space part is really the only misstep imo.

Showed to Carl and Je55e. Not sure it was successful.

― Jeff, Monday, November 10, 2014 1:14 AM (12 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

It mostly made me wish I caught it accidentally at 4 am while on whatever drugs had me still up at 4 am because that would have been pretty amazing.

Here, if you can't get the song out of your head, watch this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87p53rAD7Sk

punchline is a+

I didn't actually realize it was also a PFFR thing until now.

It's a Williams Street thing. I incorrectly assumed it was PFFR.

If it were Tim & Eric or Abso-lutely related, there would have been more AV Club-jokes and degraded-VHS looking stuff.

yeah the actual end to this thing was hilarious, what a great payoff

This reminded me more of Sex House than anything else.

The vibe if not necessarily the aesthetic.

Didn't this have degraded VHS stuff? Anyway, I don't like Tim & Eric, either, but the general gist - ironic appropriation of VHS-era or otherwise late-night TV, low-budget detritus kitsch, plus grossness and rule of infinity awkwardness - is def in its DNA.

If it were Tim & Eric or Abso-lutely related, there would have been more AV Club-jokes and degraded-VHS looking stuff

So you thought this was better than the Eric Andre Show, wanna make sure we got that on the record.

The oft-overlooked thing that makes Adult Swim great is that their stuff is pretty pointedly not for everyone, and even people who generally dig what they do aren't going to necessarily dig everything they do. A lot of AS stuff leaves me kinda cold, TBH, but Tim & Eric and most of the AS/Comedy Central shows handled by their production company (e.g. Eric Andre, Nathan For You, Review) often hits just the right note in my personal brain. I felt like Too Many Cooks! definitely had some similarity to that stuff, less because of the VHS aesthetic than because of its willingness to follow the premise down a dark and very weird road (sorta like the currently-airing Tim & Eric's Bedtime Stories, a show which would likely appeal to people who disliked their earlier stuff but which those people are probably hugely disinclined to check out).

But: http://www.adultswim.com/videos/tim-erics-bedtime-stories/toes/

Very little is better than The Eric Andre Show, on or off AS.

For everything that's great about TMC, nothing beats the note-perfect Jesse Frederick parody.

But: http://www.adultswim.com/videos/tim-erics-bedtime-stories/toes/

― I'm In The Mood To Munch! (Old Lunch), Monday, November 10, 2014 2:43 PM (17 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

lol ok the punchline to this

http://www.vulture.com/2014/11/too-many-cooks-behind-the-scenes.html

I imagine you shot more than you could use. What didn’t make it in?

We used most of it because we shot this in pretty much two days. I’m going to give you little aside: We shot in two days and we used extras because we didn’t have a lot of money. They were very excited they were going to get a screen credit. But, yeah, there were two things I’ll tell you. At the very end, when they’re all on the couch we had a flaming juggler, but we decided that was too wacky — although obviously the whole thing is wacky. And, during the ending credits, I had a stay tuned for “Two in the Bush” and I had a little soundbite of a different type of show, but we decided it was funnier just to get out very quickly.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/which-too-many-cooks-cast-member-are-you

Basically, fuck quizzes, but I got Smarf so I win.

I got The Killer. Sweet.

https://38.media.tumblr.com/1e46138905c23543d3aded721560c84e/tumblr_neoomtEVOP1rkg2f4o1_500.gif

this is the world's easiest quiz to game

PS: I tried for and got The Killer aka Machete Man

Oh yeah, this also reminded me of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9C_HReR_McQ

Liked the Toes episode. I've never seen Tim & Eric.

Most of this Too Many Cooks thing didn't really do it for me but I liked the Lars Von Trier bit best.

I feel a bit lukewarm about all the Adult Swim stuff but these are the first things I've seen in years from them.

Knowing that the names are all really their names added a whole other layer to this. The imdb credit listing is almost as clever as the video.

Watching this blow up is pretty interesting. This thing is like, almost a decade after Wonder Showzen, Xavier: Renegade Angel, and Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, all which tread pretty similar ground, but were way more inventive and wild imo. Too Many Cooks is like a watered down, dumbed down version of those shows ... it's like watching a bell curve in action--shift the creative, intelligent "out there" shit closer to the middle of the curve, and you start to hit a sweet spot with the masses.

^^ this guy

As great as it is, I don't understand why, of all the similar material floating around out there, this particular video has blown up. Particularly since the majority of the comments I've seen/heard have been basically "That's weird...is it supposed to be funny?".

Old Lunch otm

While this isn't in quite the same bracket as peak PFFR, it doesn't need to be and succeeds imo on its own terms. Is the world ready for another Xavier? :P

anti-hype feels like a powerful tool; this had no promo, no advertising and no early press so when you find 2manycooks, you feel like it's a personal secret that you want to share with other people
a season of this would not be as well discussed or beloved

Maybe it's the extreme violence? Is any other Adult Swim stuff this gory?

Tons.

Yeah, this is pretty mild in comparison to some stuff I've seen on AS.

Too Many Cooks is maybe the best thing I've seen on the internet all year

Did you not watch that Toes video, RAG?

I mean, the main joke is "this aired on television at 4 a.m." and "it basically hammers away at one punchline for 11 minutes"

Like I guess the Wonder Shozen "Patience" episode is the only thing close, but it's not a joke that makes it to TV all that often

reading too much more into it is a fool's errand

the last episode of eric andre's second season did the opening for more or less the whole show and eventually ran the entire season superimposed over itself at high speed as a shuddering kaleidoscope of violence and disjointed images
that struck me as fairly revolutionary

That Patience episode did a lot more tbf, ditto Cooperation. By comparison this is much cuddlier (but still good)

lol that EA thing is a str8 WS ripoff

Twitter user and contributing ILXor max almost ruined it for me by posting this:

http://i.imgur.com/KuFF4oM.png

http://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/which-too-many-cooks-cast-member-are-you

Basically, fuck quizzes, but I got Smarf so I win.

― Johnny Fever, Monday, November 10, 2014 10:39 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Somehow I got the killer too. What is it about liking chicken noodle soup, "Don't You Want Me" and wanting to be played by Justine Bateman?

Too Many Cooks is maybe the best thing I've seen on the internet all year

― Karl Malone, Monday, November 10, 2014 5:58 PM (31 minutes ago)

what this guy said...

Copy/pasting what I wrote about this on Letterboxd: "Delightfully perverse, and, for once, a worthy viral sensation, but the turn towards all-out horror in the final minutes might put too fine a point on the whole thing. Aren't the patronizing racial politics, family-friendly smut and the overall tone of squeaky-cleanliness all sinister enough without letting a slasher on the loose?"

I dunno, but for the first time in a long time, I got sort of spooked out walking down dark halls of my own residence.

It kinda reminds of that legitimately hilarious fan video going point-by-point over why Star Wars Episodes I-III were so horrible, especially compared to the original trilogy.

Its only stumbling point was this reoccurring "gag" of the narrator having a kidnapped female hostage tied up in his basement.

it's everything i ever liked about mr. show and wonder showzen and all that stuff compressed into 11 minutes. a tour de force!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8u4CEBVq7s

I'm working from home and the theme song keeps running through my head and every now and then I turn around and look nervously at the closet behind me

Worried she might get out?

I've only watched it twice and the theme song seems to be on permanent autorepeat in my brain.

"It's Not Jackie Chan" is, with "Here She Comes," probably my favorite T&E bit.

I looped the falcon loop and CAN'T GET IT OUT OF MY HEAD.

there are no good tim and eric bits

i beg to differ.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Re6pZri8Gw

"haha black people"

you gonna post i'm shithead and i can do a blackflip next?

Uh...what?

Tom Goes To The Mayor was pretty funny but the joke got old super fast once T&EASGJ started

Did you not watch that Toes video, RAG?

― imago, Monday, 10 November 2014 17:58

Actually that was some of the most excruciating violence I've seen since Inside. But I didn't think Adult Swim would regularly have the sort of gory rampage of Too Many Cooks.

Isn't Adult Swim mostly aimed at teens?

I know the 80s was quite a long while ago but it's kind of amazing to me how this sort of content could land people in jail back then and in that Video Nasties documentary you see this old politician who still believes today these cheesy films were actual snuff films, and Walking Dead, Game Of Thrones and Adult Swim shows violence more extreme (than most of those films) to a much wider audience.

Also surprised this forum has taken so kindly to Too Many Cooks. I was expecting "I'm sick of this lol random shit".

did I tune out during the really violent part or something, because all I saw was ridiculous fake blood spurting and really fake looking dismembered appendages/heads

adult swim has always been a later night broadcast, probably more so back at the beginning when it didn't come on until 11pm. more of a college-aged audience.

Yeah, thought the gore in this was fake looking/hokey enough to not really be bothersome.

Caught some eps of Superjail on AS once and was kind of blown away by how hellishly gruesome that was.

I would think the programming name "Adult Swim" would provide some clue as to the demographic they're courting

Shoot, I wouldn't even let my kids watch "Small Wonder" if it was still on.

Superjail is so great :D

One of the most disgusting things I've seen on Adult Swim is the China, IL episode with the giant bedbug

The serial killer part is probably my biggest problem with Too Many Cooks, and the fact that everyone is all "I love it!" made me think I inhabit some other divide re: taste. I mean, it's just pure, gory sadism and torture of people, like a snuff film or something. T&E can be pretty sadistic, but it's a sadism directed at the audience, ideas, and institutions generally, same with Wonder Showzen, etc. At its worst those shows exhibited shithead hipster attitudes, which at least had the benefit of making you examine your own prejudices and shithead attitudes (which would be cool if that was intentional). TMC was just a guy hacking people up with a machete with way too much detail for me to stomach and not much point to it, either. It was extreme violence for pleasure, which makes me a little uneasy.

The guy who made this also made Squidbillies which also revels in the same sort-of sadism and violence (see how's life's comment above), so maybe it's just not my thing. Same goes with stuff like Superjail. I like some pretty bizarre shit, and I think violence can be used intelligently in a work, but not so much watching people get their heads sliced off for laffs. Faces of Death: The Comedy Edition! Laugh yourself to death at someone else's death. I guess I just don't get it.

the first year or two of adult swim was pretty random. the commercials were a mixture of kid-oriented toy ads mixed in with infomercial-style crap as the time crept past midnight. I remember one of the first ads they'd obviously booked for the AS demographic was for Target and featured Michelle Branch promoting her album

however, they still had their commercials underbooked so you heard fifteen seconds of the same song, followed by "buy her new album, today at Target" two or three times per commercial break

idk, the serial killer guy seems more like a send-up of cheap 80s horror movie trash than anything. some creepy-looking guy chasing people around with a machete is kind of the epitome of cheap

I could way too easily go off on some Odenkirk-esque tangent about how and why all of the elements are amazing but it's really just down to what you dig and find funny at the end of the day. I thought Machete Man was one of the most amazing parts of this, FWIW, but not because of anything salacious or sadistic (an interpretation that feels like it's missing the point a bit but whatevs).

I did think it was kind of crazy that they just wholesale put in a scene from a slasher flick into the middle of this

man if you think this is pure, gory sadism you def don't want to stop over at my house for movie night any time soon xposts

The slasher bit was worth it for the bit with the chyron shining through the closet door imo

like, the cannibal feasts etc set to the jaunty theme music and Machete Man acting out the parts of everyone he'd killed seemed to fit into the overall aesthetic but the bit where he chases homegirl into the closet was legit terrifying to me

I feel like a lot of the adult swim creators are people who have crazy collections of tons of 80s slasher flicks on VHS, or occasional hang out with that dude

that scene is a straight up homage/ripoff to a famous scene from Halloween... I was half expecting the girl to take the chyron and shove it through the shutters

the whole thing is just really well-made. i love anything that gets that LSD feeling right. that creepycrawly thing that happens when you actually watch television on acid.

quite like the latest Don't Hug Me I'm Scared, which came out the other week

it's like a laconic British take on Wonder Showzen - somewhere between that and Salad Fingers - works quite well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXOdn6vLCuU

"haha black people"
― look what you did, you lil durk (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, November 10, 2014

did I tune out during the really violent part or something, because all I saw was ridiculous fake blood spurting and really fake looking dismembered appendages/heads

― jenny holzer, ilxor (mh), Monday, November 10, 2014 8:59 PM (Yesterday)

Also

man if you think this is pure, gory sadism you def don't want to stop over at my house for movie night any time soon xposts

― Ass Tchotchke! (jjjusten), Monday, November 10, 2014 9:21 PM (Yesterday)

yep

this is a really uncharitable reading not only of that video but of my own tastes, c'mon man

I think this is a very charitable reading of enough of Tim and Eric material that I bailed on their show after two episodes and never looked back

that doesn't mean that gore is universally acceptable, only that it's seemingly inconsequential in the face of realistic violence or modern cinema. it's still potentially traumatizing but idk, staple of the genres

I'm surprised that Too Many Cooks did it for me too, when I normally despise Tim and Eric. It's hard to put my finger on exactly why; maybe Tim and Eric feels to me like the condescension and cynicism IS the joke, rather than just the form.
Like that "Toes" short was decently directed for T&E but still didn't really amount to anything besides a few shots of gore humor. And it didn't piss me off the way their normal terribad VHS stuff does.
I legitimately appreciate the effort and passion that went into making Too Many Cooks!

"haha black people"

― look what you did, you lil durk (Whiney G. Weingarten), Monday, November 10, 2014 1:30 PM (7 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

did you ready this post as soon as a black person entered the frame or what

I thought "toes" was much funnier. But the other Tim & Eric clips looked nothing like it.

As great as it is, I don't understand why, of all the similar material floating around out there, this particular video has blown up. Particularly since the majority of the comments I've seen/heard have been basically "That's weird...is it supposed to be funny?".

― Dr. Wretched's Rich N' Runny Beef Balogna Whip (Old Lunch), Monday, November 10, 2014 11:52 AM (10 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

one of the best things about Too Many Cooks is it makes no demand of me to watch a minor variation on the same joke again a week later, which is what keeps me from bothering with most Adult Swim shows after watching an episode or two

Tim and Eric remind me 100% of the sorts of dudes that would show up at Wesley Willis shows to snidely laugh behind their hands at him and then harangue him into head butting them after the show.

Oh man, I used to love Wesley Willis when I was in high school. Looking back on it now that I'm older I feel pretty bad about it. That makes me think maybe Tim and Eric might be way nastier than this serial killer dude. Nathan For You and Eric Andre are built on abusing people, yet I chuckle it up then raise shit because of gore. I think I'm going to hang out on a cliff overlooking a vista during sunset and reflect on this a little.

my takeaway from "all the food is poison" is not "look at the black guy" any more than the takeaway of eric andre's fake hulk sketch is "look at the asian guy"

Yeah wtf? Am I supposed to not find this guy funny when he's singing "who's yer dad/wanna meet that dad" cos sorry, I really do? But my SOH is immature so *shrug*

some amazing narcissism of small difference on display itt

I think it was elsewhere on ilx that convinced me that half the T&E-style sketches are incredibly accurate recreations of the sort of stuff that'd appear on local access talent shows, or other weird local stuff that doesn't really exist in that form anymore. So the feeling of wondering whether I'm supposed to laugh, or just think it's really weird or uncomfortable is really what they're going for.

they definitely have a vision. and it's a weird vision. i give them credit for that. that mall movie they made is truly strange.

some amazing narcissism of small difference on display itt

― tribe? de la? no "humpty dance?" (clouds), Tuesday, November 11, 2014 1:02 AM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

u don't get it. there's this one weird stupid thing i liked eight years ago and now there's another weird stupid thing and everyone is talking about that one but not this other one i like, its like not everybody knows about the first one even though i like it where is the justice i ask you

so many of these weird humor things just depend on my mood that day
there can be something I love one day and watch it the next week again and I want to punch the tv right it its flat hd face

last time I tried to watch wonder showzen I had to take a walk to calm down afterwards

There are so many things I hate about T&E, but boy, there are so many things I love.

never given any time to T&E, don't f with adult swim much at all, which probably helped in this case! i thought this was really clever and funny. mimicking the roseanne dinner table camera shot was a nice tough.

i mean, what i've seen of squidbillies (like 10 years ago no joke) i thought was just painfully not funny and needlessly disgusting. shrug. sometimes things work, idk, what do you want from me, god

the only character on Squidbillies that I think is actually funny is Granny but the degree to which I find her funny carries me through the rest of the show

I think it was elsewhere on ilx that convinced me that half the T&E-style sketches are incredibly accurate recreations of the sort of stuff that'd appear on local access talent shows, or other weird local stuff that doesn't really exist in that form anymore

That said T&E does, once in a blue moon, make something I find funny, but most of the time it's a dud for me
I hate Squidbillies too for what it's worth (nothin')

Tim & Eric's prevailing interest seems to be in examining how weird human behavior is (like, just run of the mill stuff we all unthinkingly do on a daily basis), and more specifically how we express that weirdness via entertainment. There's absolutely a prevailing point of view that lifts their stuff above crap like Family Guy. That viewpoint and the nightmarish, Lynchian stuff (which has always been present in their work but seems to be becoming more prevalent) are why I love them.

i felt like this was perfectly in line with lots of other adult swim stuff in tone and content, it's notable because it blew up, & not the other way around

imo tim&eric awesome show had a pretty long run of mediocrity after the first season that wasn't redeemed until the paul rudd sketch in the final episode

why don't you stand like a regular man
Then you can pee in the urinal can

Tim & Eric seems much better suited for Youtube. They're incredibly hit and miss and many of their sketches just make me uncomfortable. But man, the best stuff is just incredible.

Check it Out! is pretty good, though tbh I don't really know what Steve Brule is supposed to be anymore. He's kinda had the Homer Simpson character arc where he's went from dimwitted and charming to being literally too dumb to do anything

If you haven't seen it yet, the Totino's Pizza Roll commercial they did was actually really funny. Its the whole T&E essence boiled down to three minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80yjtJFf-v0

that actor is the best part of the current season of newsreaders

the comedy was really great, dunno if it's still on netflix, probably is

The one full episode of Awesome Show I would recommend without reservation is Jim & Derrick. Probably followed by the Tairy Greene Machine episode (feat. Zach Galifianakis, David Cross, Ted Danson, Richard Marx, and Peter Cetera).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hB7mwekcDWc

I hated 'the comedy' so much
iirc Eric at one point was like 'I would be an awesome slave owner'
the film kindled all my 'the rich must be destroyed' feelings
I did not laugh once

or tim
it was tim

http://cdn.buzznet.com/assets/users16/pattygopez/default/tim-enchanter-monty-python-holy--large-msg-130998059361.jpg

agreed, except i turned it off after the first scene.

I still haven't seen The Comedy, but wasn't the point that they were supposed to be terrible people? Also, FWIW, they only acted in that one (their Baseketball, if you will).

yeah if you want to see a bunch of privileged shitheads really being the world's most committed privileged shitheads, it's worth a view

Tim and Eric had a lot of good bits but they have tested my faith over the last few years. I still love Check It Out! though.

I turned off The Comedy and the T&E movie pretty quickly.

The Comedy's pretty pointedly not a comedy, more of a critique of irony drenched, hyper cynical, privileged hipster shithead attitudes. Unpleasant viewing but kinda interesting, for a while at least. Not sure it really went anywhere or added up to much.

Frankly, that's what I figured Tim and Eric actually already were.... so another good opportunity for them to "perform" awfully?

why would ilx prefer to talk about tim and eric than pffr, is what i wonder

Maybe I'm just way the hell out of touch with what codes as 'privileged hipster shithead' these days (entirely possible) but I've never gotten the impression that their stuff was informed by those attitudes. The fact that they've done next-to-no straight press probably hasn't done them many favors with people who aren't inclined to meet them halfway, but what biographical info I do know about them suggests that they're pretty decent and normal dudes who people really enjoy working with.

In other Adult Swim news... lol

NICKI MINAJ ✔ @NICKIMINAJ
The artist who made the lyric video for “Only” was influenced by a cartoon on Cartoon Network called "Metalocalypse" & Sin City.

I think the episode of WTF with both of them was the closest I've heard them come to "straight" press, though even then it was couched in a Maron's stand-offish attitude and a few "standard" T&E detours into absurdity. I think your last line though nails what I kinda took away from the interview.

xpost

I still stand by my Adult Swim picks way upthread

I feel like I only catch the actual AS cartoons occasionally now and just end up bitching about how it used to be better. To me, it's going to be really hard to beat the first few seasons with Aqua Teen / Sealab / Home Movies / Brak Show / Space Ghost.
― mh. (mike h.), Sunday, January 14, 2007 10:57 PM (7 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Home Movies is all-time. Still prefer Cartoon Planet to any of the other Space Ghost enterprises.

adult swim right now is all about eric andre and mike tyson mysteries... newsreaders not so good with new cast/writers and i'm burned on attack on titan
about half of the T&E Bedtime Stories are pretty good and the other half are terrible. basically, t&e

i'd rather not watch the cartoon about the famous rapist boxer

i wouldn't fault you for not being into it but it's pretty good. It's in the Brak Show / Space Ghost lane.

or harvey birdman. and tbf, MTMysteries is about ten to twenty steps behind eric andre but most everything is.

if there's no actual joke/scenario/plot/story (take your pick), it's just a bunch of smug idiots pointing their fingers and haw-hawing it up

Ive never once gotten this vibe from T&E. Certainly not that the aim is smugness "look at this idiot lol retards". That seems a sad take, to me.

(I'm not saying its all good, that said. Endless vomit/shit scenes do nothing whatsoever for me, bleugh)

we are obviously watching different tim and eric shows

i def. feel that the grislier stuff in "too many cooks," while producing some funny and inventive gags, feels like the creators didn't trust their basic concept enough. it feels like easy audience gratification in a "skit" (or whatever it is) that is exciting mostly for suspending normal forms of gratification to absurd lengths.

but i'm not going to front, this thing was great. people who say it's been done before are right in a sense, but as with most things, the devil is in the details, and the details are very, very clever.

The Eric Andre Show is produced by Abso Lutely so maybe one thing to like about Tim & Eric is that they produce the Eric Andre Show? And are responsible for a lot of the casting? (Including the entire band)

The one full episode of Awesome Show I would recommend without reservation is Jim & Derrick. Probably followed by the Tairy Greene Machine episode (feat. Zach Galifianakis, David Cross, Ted Danson, Richard Marx, and Peter Cetera).

Would be my recommendations as well.

i def. feel that the grislier stuff in "too many cooks," while producing some funny and inventive gags, feels like the creators didn't trust their basic concept enough. it feels like easy audience gratification in a "skit" (or whatever it is) that is exciting mostly for suspending normal forms of gratification to absurd lengths.

― I dunno. (amateurist), Tuesday, November 11, 2014 6:34 PM (25 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dunno man. if it'd been just the first 4 minutes, or if it carried on the basic premise with no twist for 11 minutes, it'd be a lot less interesting/noteworthy/funny, and probably wouldn't have been deemed worth doing. at least not as a standalone program, maybe it would've been done as part of an episode of a series and nobody would've cared.

lol i responded to 'i dunno' by saying 'i dunno,' totally wasn't on purpose

Q: Sending up TV credits is one thing; where did the idea of throwing a Jason-like killer with a machete into the mix come from?

A: Well, you have to remember: These things are 11 minutes long. It sounds short, but when you have to fill that time slot and keep the attention of people who are usually watching TV at four in the morning...it's long. So I thought, I need to throw every notion I've got into this. Even when you start switching genres, and it turns into, say, a cop show — that joke may be funny for a few extra minutes and then that's going to wear off. And as soon as people get tired of that, I have to hit them with something else. That's where the idea of the killer came from.

ha! so i was right. maybe i'm just being an internet hardman, but i would have liked to see the whole thing develop over 10 minutes without giving so much time over to the serial killer antics.

or maybe they could have just developed the videodrome-like medium-specific elements even more...

ha.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBoFPoGWatE

I had an idea a while back for a sitcom that was just 30 minutes of opening credits, with like 500 different characters.

― i wish i had a skateboard i could skate away on (Hurting 2), Thursday, November 21, 2013 6:47 AM (11 months ago) Bookmark

so i guess adult swim just did this? when i first heard about it i was like "i swear to god someone on ilx proposed this very thing."

― you little affront to god (reddening), Saturday, 8 November 2014 04:06 (4 days ago) Permalink

agree about the serial killer stuff, wasn't really funny, never part of my original vision

Tim and Eric's sense of humor is more complex and multi-layered than it might seem at first glance ... it's great if you like jokes that have multiple levels to them, and like really stupid stuff, too. It's like the Simpsons, some of their best jokes have at least three different levels to them, and T&E's best stuff plays with that like an art. Not to mention their great absurd and surreal material, satire of things not commonly satirized, etc.

The serial killer thing in TMC did feel a little like a crutch plus a play at the lowest common denominator, which I guess hit my snob reflex. Also, the premise was already done by MadTV over a decade ago, which took away that novelty for me, too. Basically I couldn't find anything catching to it b/t the now-ancient T&E and PFFR aesthetic, cheap and gory serial killer thing, and the premise already having been done even longer ago. I guess I just demand novelty out of my stupid pastimes, and there's still so much ground to cover.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYWEm3gahfo

oh wow

Well. That was a fun few days.

https://us-east.manta.joyent.com/condenast/public/vf/production/2014/11/11/54626fc21225a2f9404eadc9_CooksMindMap1.jpg

that MadTV shares some aspects of the premise, but it's waaaaaaay less dense with ideas and nowhere near as inventive with reflexive gags

xpost

wow

the problem is this stuff isn't about concept, its about execution, and the aesthetic is about certain sorts of characteristic period details, which is where this stuff shines.

also 2 minutes isn't long enough for the gag to work.

That Mad TV sketch does way more with its 2 minutes than the entire 11 minutes of TMC. It captures the characteristic period details, plays around with sitcom archetypes, takes them in funny new directions, and turns it into a total laugh package with a nice absurd ending. You don't need a jammed-in serial killer/sci-fi sub plot to make that joke. Plus it has the benefit of not plagiarizing its source material. I also think the actors and characters they created for that sketch were funnier ... the funniest in TMC being the nerd and the topless girl. Doesn't touch the black-clad manhunter, incestuous? twins eating a foot long hotdog, grumpy kingpin popping the kid's balloon, insane mercenary, etc.

If you want to see period aesthetic done right, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace is good, it captures that syndicated 80s sci-fi/horror serial look and does some really funny stuff with it. And that's a decade old, too. Thumbs down. I should probably get back to work.

The Comedy is one of my favorite American movies of the last few years, but it has v little in common with T&E

hmmm not sure I would call that thing a total laugh package with a nice absurd ending

Plus it has the benefit of not plagiarizing its source material.

Whatever, that theme song was Vanilla-Ice-one-note-off-is-totally-different from 227's.

welp, i was looking for a new display name

"Too Many Cooks" is about 1000x times more intricate than the MadTV sketch.