Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

Although this comic gem may just seem like random trash to some people, others, like me, find all sorts of pleasure and entertainment out of this show's absurd style of comedy. It manages to make some nearly die laughing, and others just question the appeal of it all, and I cannot blame people who simply do not get it. Tim and Eric's style isn't for everybody, but I'm glad to see that there's plenty of people who are really into this surrealistic and hilarious show!

While every episode has a basic theme throughout, and a lot of the time even some sort of basic plot structure, it's normally all over the place. It'll mix celebrity cameos with fake commercials with some skits that come across as just plain uncomfortable and unsettling. If you're a newcomer to the show, you must be warned that at times there will be a sketch that will make you CRINGE, whether it's the over exaggerated gross out sound effects or bizarre dialogue, there's definitely plenty here to make anybody feel just plain odd. But it's all just simply part of the journey that is "Tim and Eric, Awesome Show, Great Job!"

The show also has a really satirical edge to it. There's plenty of sketches that are clearly mocking something, whether it be 90's television or even nature shows, they are absolute satirical masters! With all it's intentionally bad green screens, sharp satire, and just flat out uncomfortable scenes, "Tim and Eric, Awesome Show, Great Job" is truly something to behold!

"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.

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!

This show gets so much undeserved criticism, mostly from your average viewer who is used to being spoon-fed the setup, the joke, and punchline all in one. These people will be left slack-jawed and drooling as they try to figure out what they just witnessed. It's funny to read these reviews that insult the intelligence of the writing or the maturity of the comedy, when half the people leaving these reviews simply did not (perhaps cannot?) attempt to fathom the nature of the comedic style beyond its surface level.

I'm not trying to say that only smart people can appreciate Tim & Eric-- it certainly isn't a show for everyone. A lot of Awesome Show is directly parodying crappy late-night 90s TV shows & infomercials. And while not everyone may understand that, there are so many 1 star reviews here whose writers clearly didn't have the basic intelligence to realise that there can be things that they don't "get"... and that doesn't make them bad.

If you recognise that nearly all of the show's content is heavily layered in irony and mockery, and that the main intention of Mr Heidecker and Mr Wareheim was just to have a lot of fun while making the show, you might find yourself enjoying it a lot more.

The actual quality of this show's humour is outrageously high. Every second of screentime is packed with jokes upon jokes. From the way the scene glitches into being shown, to the absurd or deadpan way the dialogue is communicated, the recurring themes like dads, eric's unchanging voice (even as a woman) and completely unnecessary and useless products.

There are actors who seem like they were brought off the street (and sometimes literally are), editing effects you'd expect from windows movie maker... The whole show is like one big late-night broadcasting acid trip. And I have never seen anything funnier, aside from maybe other T&E works.

The only issue I have with it is its duration. 10 minute episodes, 10 episodes per season, 5 seasons... the whole show clocks in at around 9 hours total, which is honestly pretty depressing. Thankfully Tim and Eric have worked on several other projects of a similar nature, some of which help fill the void.

Awesome Show remains my favourite show of all time, and my go-to show for a good laugh, for both sobriety and being stoned. Give it a go, keep an open mind. Have a few laughs and enjoy the ride.