Adult Swim OPO

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).