Episode four is simply required viewing. From introducing David Liebe Hart to giving us the first appearance of the nefarious Mahanahan brothers, “Salame” is a disturbingly elegant entry in the Awesome Show canon.
Themes:
Repetition is a mainstay of Awesome Show’s humor. By browbeating the audience with endless iterations, nonstop listing, or unsettling segments that last just about ten seconds longer than they should, the use of repetition in Awesome Show is as much as Kirstevan tool of the abject as it is an endurance test.
In Episode Four, repetition is often used to grotesque effect as in the Manhanahan saga--Steve and his brother Mike use the same phrases, intonations, and images, really leaning into the commercial’s ancient format of repeating the name of a product or service as nauseum. “Salame,” David Liebe Hart’s first song on Awesome Show, becomes a marathon repetition of the word before returning as part of an interlude at the end of “Tim and Eric’s Center for Entertainment Presents ‘Making It’ in Hollywood” when the host’s unending is superimposed by Hart and his puppet bowing which is then super-superimposed by an image of the puppet, “Jason,” bowing alone. This masterclass in repetition is outdone only by the two-part “Here She Comes,” a deranged beauty pageant for ghoulishly made-up older women. The phrase “here she comes” repeats with deadening frequency, making all the overblown pomp of the “winner’s” coronation all the more strange for the buildup it received.
Tim and Eric will return to the idea of repetition, again and again, using it to extend already uncomfortable moments or simply to overemphasize a joke until they have intentionally drained all the humor from it. This obsession with the repeated will be seen again and again throughout Awesome Show, and this episode is an exemplar of this fascination with reiteration.
Hi-Lights:
Steve Mahanahan’s Child Clown Outlet (Parts 1 and 2)
The Manahans are a pair of floundering, perverted impresarios who want nothing more than to express their love for each other and sell you child clowns (in that order). Steve (Eric) offers an array of supposedly convenient perks of renting child clown: they’re washed and diapered daily, you can drop them in an overnight return dumpster, and they work at “discreet adult parties.” Steve is only matched in his grotesquerie by his brother Mike, who runs a cottage industry providing shoes to the “disgusting” clowns his brother rents out. The Mahanahans will go on to be a big part of Tim and Eric’s repertoire, with Will Ferrell joining the cast as the patriarch of the cracked Manhanahan dynasty.
Salame
The first appearance of David Liebe Hart! Performing with a sleepy-eyed puppet that could be either a fox or a tiger, Hart performs a song about a race of aliens called the Corinians. According to Hart, these magical beings greet each other with the word “Salame,” which in human, roughly translates to “go into the light until we meet again.” From Hart’s child-show-from-another-galaxy level of sincerity, to the just weird enough look of “Jason” the puppet Hart commands, to the insistence on the existence of aliens, Salame is a classic of Awesome Show season 1.
Bowing Interlude
Discussed above in Theme, this interlude comes at the end of “Tim and Eric’s Center for Entertainment Presents ‘Making It’ in Hollywood.” A masterclass in pointless repetition, the image of Tim and Eric bowing endlessly is compounded and then doubled by David Liebe Hart bowing with the Jason puppet, and then the puppet bowing alone. Like Douglas Gordon’s “24 Hour Psycho,” this melange of images breaks cause and effect, creating a seemingly meaningless void of actions performed without meaning. Great job!
Anatomy of an Episode:
Steve Mahanahan’s Child Clown Outlet
See Hi-Lights. Steve Mahanahan wants to buy his clowns. Desperately.
Host Segment: Eric Made the Show
Tim missed a whole week of work, but no fear--Eric made the show for the duo.
Salame
See Hi-Lights. David Liebe Hart makes his first appearance as he educates us about the greetings of the Corinian people.
Mike Mahanahan’s Child Clown Shoes Outlet
The companion piece to Steve Mahanahan’s Child Clown Outlet. Mike tries to sell the audience on the necessity of renting shoes for his brother’s child clowns.
Here She Comes (Part 1)
See Themes. Weird Al makes a cameo as the attendant at an old lady beauty pageant straight from the mind of David Lynch. This scene is really punched up by the contrast of Tim and Eric’s soothing voices and Al’s manic expressions.
Tim and Eric’s Center for Entertainment Presents ‘Making It’ in Hollywood
Here, we’re given our first appearance of Billy Crystals who introduces us to Tim and Eric’s proven system of gaining success in Hollywood. What starts out as condescension and time-wasting quickly devolves in a transparent attempt to lure female participants away for a weekend with Eric.
Bowing Interlude
See Themes and Hi-Lights. Tim and Eric indulge in a bow after their presentation.
Haircut
A behind the scenes segment of Tim having his hair cut while Eric looks on. Here, we get a freeze-frame and a hearty “Salame!” instead of “Good Job!”
Flagsmanship
A surreal clip art show, all depicting bizarre ways to represent the Canadian flag.
Host Segment
Tim and Eric struggle to get their mics to work.
Uncles Muscle’s Hour “Cops and Robbers”
Another celebration of repetition, this time through the vocal stylings of Casey Tatum. With his brother accompanying him by dancing both the parts of the cop and the robber, this is is one of Casey’s greatest moments as a performer and his generalized distress seems at a lower level than usual. At least he doesn’t vomit, right?
Host Segment
Tim and Eric still can’t get those microphones going.
Here She Comes (Part 2)
The conclusion of “Here She Comes.” Spoiler alert: #218 wins...whatever that means. And while TIm and Eric fawn over the winner, Bob Odenkirk serenades her, and Weird Al dances with unrestrained jubilation. The scene is heightened by the unnerved expression on the winning woman’s face. A fabulous exercise in the surreal.
Host Segment/Coda
Eric returns the oversized VHS that represents his attempt to “make” the Awesome Show to David Liebe Hart. Tim awkwardly stops him and announces, in classic 90’s sitcom happy-ending fashion, that he loves the show. Then, he, Tim and David Liebe Hart all start to bow, again and again and again...
Winner:
Eric Wareheim takes this one, guys. From the double duty he pulls as both a cop and a robber in the “Uncle Muscles Hour,” to the straight-faced podium humping in “Tim and Eric’s Center for Entertainment Presents ‘Making It’ in Hollywood,” to his star-making turn as Steve Manhanahan, to the very fact that within the context of the story, Eric “made” this episode--rats off to you, Eric, for tying things up. Keep up the good work. Salame.
Pennie Sublime