March 28th is a blessed day for all fans of Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! The deranged duo’s newest perversion, The Beefhouse Boys, premiered on Adult Swim, and, it should be noted, this glorious gift could have been ours much sooner if Eric Wareheim had his way.
During the early days of Coronavirus Panic, he called on Adult Swim to “release the Beef” and let the show drop earlier. Alas, his plea went unanswered, but his request made me think about all the boundless, crazed joy Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! has brought me and my family (my 85-year-old grandmother is a particular fan of all things Richard Dunn related).
So, in the spirit of anarchic abandon that led Eric Wareheim to beg for a respite for the Covid-beleaguered masses, I’ve decided to embark on a labor of stupid love: I will meticulously review every Awesome Show episode.
You don’t need me to tell you that these are dark times, and we can give in or take a cue from everyone’s favorite avuncular alcoholic, Winston Churchill. “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” Right on, Winston--and what better marching music is there than Casey spastically gasping his way through another sublimely surreal song? So, strap on your Cinco branded D-pants, make a last goodbye call to reality on our Cinco-Fones and settle in for some collective, cultic madness.
Let’s begin where it all began.
Season 1, Episode 1: Dads.
“How to Make Love Without Touching”
Things get off to an appropriately strange start. A couple in Ren Fair costumes awkwardly poses against a smudgy sunset. Eric’s voice intones Germanic sounding nonsense words, apparently with the goal of teaching us (this won’t be the first time that Awesome Show dips into the boundless strangeness of educational material).
There is no perfect way to start the nearly perfect journey that is Awesome Show, but this little sketch sets the tone for much of the insanity we will endure later: cheesy effects, recontextualized images, and of course, the incursion of Chippy.
This deformed man baby, complete with an always-stylish unibrow, will become the demented mascot of Awesome Show, so his sudden, shrieking appearance here primes the viewer for all the sweet, succulent weirdness ahead.
“Host Segment”
Most people know Tim and Eric from the shared clips on the internet, but one of the joys of this project is seeing the rhythm behind each show’s structure. After the aggressively nonsensical “How to Make Love Without Touching,” we’re given a host segment that features Tim and Eric awkwardly experimenting with green screen.
This segment works so well because it, like the first invasion of Chippy, establishes themes that will run throughout Awesome Show. One of the endless sources of narrative tension on the show is the all-out war for dominance Tim and Eric wage against each other.
Here, Tim receives a gift basket from his father, but as he reads the message attached, he realizes that the gift isn’t meant for him, but for Eric, whom Tim’s father obviously prefers to his own son.
Let the war begin. Who will be the best boy? The manliest man?
This segment also introduces another font of comedy the boys will return to again and again: dads. As the exemplars of Pure Masculinity, Tim and Eric constantly elevate, deflate, mock, skewer and parody the institution of fatherhood, often with bizarre consequences. This competition over the gift basket is but the opening notes in a soaring aria of strangeness.
“Hacky Sack Extreme Part 1”
The theme of the competition is continued in this segment which finds Tim as “C-boy” (which the narrator helpfully tells us is short for cowboy) and Eric as “Leaf” as they battle for Hacky Sack supremacy on a beach.
Goofy graphics, absurd hacky sack moves (grungy saddle, crotch rocket, and belly boy--just to name a few), and a heavy dose of 90’s all-caps EXTREME-ism elevates this sketch above the low-hanging fruit of simply mocking something as often mocked as hacky sack.
For the purpose of this very scholarly endeavor, “Hacky Sack Extreme Part 1” is significant in the stylistic qualities it presents--the assertively “homemade” aesthetic that so joyously, inelegantly defines the early seasons and the duo’s fixation on the tackiest trappings of pop culture.
Chippy Interlude
Another Chippy sighting! Chippy appears in Eric’s mouth after he takes a celebratory toke in the last segment, segueing us to--
“The Only Married News Team”
Fans of “Tom Goes to the Mayor” would already know Jan and Wayne Skylar, Channel Five’s Only Married News Team. The sketch ratchets up the sense of rapid deterioration and barely controlled chaos that makes Awesome Show propulsive.
Quick cuts between Jan and Wayne, who appear to be serenading each other, and Dr. Steven Brule (played with Andy Kaufman-like intensity by John C. Reily) reveal the ever-unfurling madness at Channel 5. Dr. Brule, who will go on to become a fan favorite, desperately tells the married anchors that he can’t educate the viewers about healthy eating because he doesn’t have any fruit. When the fruit is finally delivered, he goes on to be completely puzzled by bananas.
Brule’s confusion and ineptitude are always a source of delight, but the true Dada-Esque strangeness of this sketch ends with Tim as Jan, bragging about the prowess of her husband Wayne (played by Eric) while Wayne huffs and shudders rhythmically. The effect is one of protracted, disconcerting strangeness.
“Uncle Muscles’ Hour: If I Could Travel in Time”
Ahhh...the Uncle Muscles hour. Styled as a karaoke performance from hell, the Uncle Muscles Hour always invariably features Casey (Tim) and his brother (Eric). Casey, a red-faced, bowl-cut sporting man-child, appears constantly distressed and terrified as he grunts, groans, and squeaks his way through original songs.
In this inaugural segment, we are treated to Casey fighting back Sartre levels of nausea as he sings “If I Could Travel in Time,” a bizarre ode to the unending love he feels for his brother, who supports Casey’s singing with psychotically committed dancing.
Like the other sketches in this episode, this one sets the tone of discomfort and aberrant weirdness that Awesome Show will constantly try to top.
“Hacky Sack Extreme (cont.)”
The conclusion of “Hacky Sack Extreme Part 1.” Leaf ultimately triumphs as he employs food-themed hacky sack tricks--specifically “the meatball and pasta party,” establishing a long-standing Awesome Show obsession with all things meatball related.
The real clincher in this sketch is the time it devotes to C-boy’s anguish. Tim, as C-boy, walks in his Cowboy get-up on the beach, meditating sadly on his defeat. As with all things Awesome Show, it goes on about ten seconds longer than it needs to, inviting the viewer to revel in the schmaltzy music and tragi-comic despair.
Camera Malfunction
A quick interlude features the camera falling over as Eric rushes to catch it. Chaotic interjections like this will pop up throughout the first seasons of Awesome Show, calling attention to the intentionally amateur quality of the production.
“Brule’s Rules”
We get a double serving of Dr. Brule here with “Brule’s Rules.” This one is relatively simple with Brule telling us we should always practice “stop, drop, and roll” if we ever find ourselves engulfed in flames.
Good tip, Dr. Brule. We’ll all try to remember it.
3:34 a.m.
This sketch is rare in that it seems to depict a “real” moment. In later episodes, Tim and Eric will show themselves around their offices, generally making asses of themselves, but this sketch shows Tim and Eric at 3 in the morning, feverishly trying to brainstorm funny ideas.
Eric’s frustration is apparent as he groans, “I just wish we could think of something funny.” This gives way to a hypnotically strange scene of Eric rehearsing “the old waiting room sketch” where he portrays a woman with abdominal pains. As he begins to writhe and rub his stomach, the video loops and we are treated to endless iterations of Eric’s torment.
Here, we get our first “Good Job!” of the series. The “good job” is always a moment of peak irony, the Mt. Everest of ironies in a show laden so many times over with irony that it almost becomes sincere. It’s a moment of quietly beautiful grotesquerie, Croenburgian in its ambitions, Lynchian in execution.
B’Owl (The first Cinco product)
Ahh yes...The first Cinco product. I love the Cinco company and all of its demented products and B’Owl is no exception. Everything about this faux commercial hits the right notes: people with a nonsensical problem, an overly enthusiastic narrator (voiced by Bob Odenkirk), an attempt to awkwardly market to boys, and an undeniably undesirable product. Behold, the fusion of a bat and an owl, B’Owl:
This sketch makes use of two of Awesome Show’s venerable standbys: endurance test lists and creepy closeups. The narrator, working himself into a frenzy of persuasion starts listing all the people that would enjoy B’Owl before finally just conceding that it might be best to build a room just for B’Owl so no one will ever have to look at him again, and finally, suggesting B’Owl can be acquired just for the exquisite joy of throwing it in the trash. This leads to the entire episode’s most inspired moment: a slow-crawling, squirm-inducing close up on B’Owl’s eye as it lays abandoned in the trash. Tim and Eric will go on to use unsettling effects like this to create a rarefied balance of the bracingly low-brow and high concept, anti-comedy weirdness. It’s a great moment and made possible by the benevolence of the Cinco Company. Thanks, Cinco!
Pest Control
Using the style of animation the duo utilized in “Tom Goes to the Mayor,” Tim here portrays a father who wants to use thousands of bees to tell his son, Spraynard Krueger, how deeply disappointed he is.
Aside from the sheer, joyous absurdity, this segment serves to continue the theme of the episode (and a theme that will recur throughout the series)--fathers behaving badly. This trope is sometimes played for the surreal, as it is here, though they often delve into darker territory (any segment with Will Forte will serve up some traumatizing moments).
B’Owl for Boys Interlude
I love this interlude:
It’s reused from the earlier Cinco commercial and it is just gold. Everything about it screams desperate 90’s ad campaign--the brick wall, the “tough kid” with carefully feathered hair and a sleeveless shirt, the toy butched up with a denim vest and sunglasses. Yes, B’Owl for boys takes the absurdity of B’Owl and heightens it to giddy levels. Bravo, Cinco. Bravo.
“Awesome show, Tim” with the first appearance of Richard Dunn!
And thus we come to an end, but not before we get one more wonderful moment. Tim, in an effort to show Eric that his father really does love him, presents to us the glory that is Richard Dunn. Richard Dunn’s adorably stilted delivery, his lack of self-consciousness, and his utter devotion to any and all sketches make him a stand-out among Awesome Show’s cast, and here he’s at his best.
In a mesmerizing monologue, he lauds Tim for his accomplishments as a comedian and a son and finishes with my favorite bon mot, “You are my shining boy.”
All this already unbearable awkwardness is further heightened by Eric revealing that Richard Dunn is not Tim’s father. This leads Tim to admit, in a line that will find resonance throughout Awesome Show, “I’m sorry. I messed up.”
There you have it, in all its strange radiance. The entire first episode of Awesome Show, lovingly described in hand-embroidered detail. My other reviews won’t be as intensely detailed as this one, but I felt it was necessary for the kick-off article to establish some of the tropes, themes, and images that will repeat throughout Awesome Show’s run.
Oh, and one final note: I almost forgot to declare a winner! In the spirit of endless brutal competition that drives so much of Awesome Show, each review will end with a winner being declared with the ultimate revelation of who is indeed Awesome Show’s Ultimate Shining Boy--Tim or Eric?
For episode one, the winner is Tim. While Eric bested him in both getting fatherly approval and in hacky sack (the manliest of all sports), Tim gets to deliver the final cringe-worthy line and shines as Casey in his haunting performance of “If I Could Travel to the End of Time.” Good job, Tim, at least here at CineDump, you are our Shining Boy.
Pennie Sublime