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 hilarious. Sure there are a couple misses, but you'll get that with this humor. To the person who called this pathetic and poo poo jokes, and the compared it to Family Guy... maybe if you didn't jump on the Family Guy bandwagon when it was re-aired on Cartoon Network, you would realize how far Family Guy has fallen. That show used to be smart, use clever jokes... now it's like they don't even try, "just like that time..." THEY USE THAT WAY TOO MUCH AND IT'S JUST A WAY TO THROW JOKES INTO THE STORY THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH THE EPISODE. CHEAP LAUGHS. Anyway, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! is a gem. It is probably an acquired taste, you have to like this humor. It's comedy, it's funny. That's all it's supposed to be. 'Nuff said.

By the way, Family Guy doesn't stray too far from poo poo jokes. Thanks a lot for sullying this shows good name by being the one comment displayed.

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!

Don't stare too close at your TV while watching the Tim & Eric Awesome Show... You might see a part of TV you try to avoid. Worse yet, you might laugh at it, and not understand why...

This show is the first highly specific 10-minute jab at the cable/public access TV parody & relies on heavily subversive & confrontational humor. Tim & Eric's breed of improv is more thematically constructed than average, which lends it to break out & resemble sketch more often than not.

But the genius is that the show's structure is just a playhouse for the obscene dramedy that inadvertently gets put on broadcast, much like an out-of-control public access TV channel. Inspired hilarity, featuring some of today's best sub level comedians working in a very large creative space.

The natural progression of Tom Goes to the Mayor, and something very new & differently funny.