Halfway through season 1, Tim and Eric introduce three of their most memorable characters, challenge us with the idea of an unknowable reality, and teach us all to love New Wave again. It’s not gonna get any easier from here, so you may as well just pay attention and we’ll get this episode over with fast.
Themes:
This episode is monomaniacally concerned with the instability of reality. Nearly every sketch of any length in “Chunky” deals with what constitutes reality. The ontological obsession is seen more profoundly in the episodes two “saga” (multi-part sketches that comprise a more or less complete story). In our introduction to the iconic characters “Carol and Mr. Henderson,” the audience is faked out by Carol’s dream about her sadistic boss before later seeing an almost identical scene play out in the waking world. Then this segues into a musical number complete with phantasmagoric photoshop that leaves the watcher wondering about if we are watching Carol’s fantasy resulting in the brain trauma she sustained from that coffee pot to the head or if this weird proclamation of love is supposed to constitute a “real” moment for the couple.
In “Channel 5 Looking at Film: Crystal Shyps,” we are introduced to Glen Tennis, a hack director with a mean streak. The laconic, visibly confused host of the show (played to perfection by Bob Odenkirk) shows an outtake from Tenis’s disastrous film and maintains that this scene of the director verbally abusing his actors is part of the movie. Tennis and the host bicker about what constitutes the “real “ version of the film, with the host seemingly unable to grasp the symbolic world of the film.
Even, to a lesser, but funnier extent, the overblown prank in “Spider Web Attack” represents a classic problem in modern thought. Just as philosopher Alfred Korbybski maintained that “the map is not the territory,” so too Eric’s Halloween spider webs are only a representation of the thing Tim fears most. But like the maps in Korbyski’s exploration of objective vs. subjective reality, the mere representation of spider webs, and not their actuality, are enough to traumatize Tim.
Hi-Lights:
Cinco T’ird
Cinco’s products will continue to get more outlandish as the series continues, but it’s pretty hard to top the whimsical strangeness of the T’ird. Part turtle, part bird, this toy flying wheel is supposed to help people who waste too much of their lives playing frisbee. When you throw T’ird, it flies away and uses its turtle legs to slowly crawl back to you. The joy of the commercial lies in the seemingly endless list of things you can do while you’re waiting for T’ird to return, such as “sort coins, stare, stare, moisten you fence wood, dig a hole to bury a box.”
Channel 5 Looks at Film: Crystal Shyps (Parts 1 and 2)
See Themes. This two-part skit is strongest when it is allowing series newcomer Glen Tennis to slowly lose his composure, a bit that will be put to brilliant use when Glen is awarded his own spot on a home shopping network.
Spider Web Attack
See Theme. This segment works so well because it takes the worn-out idea of filming a prank and takes it to aberrant extremes. The strangeness starts with Eric surprising Tim while he’s having an intimate moment with his favorite porno magazine, Mouth. The prank, which seems like the very definition of harmlessness, provokes weeping and puking from Tim, ending with a lonesome shot of him walking away, his pants still around his ankles.
Anatomy of an Episode:
Sports
New Wave Tim and Eric style. Featuring such all-American sports as “yellow ball” and “ice cane.” The segment ends explosively with Tim and Eric colliding and vomiting uproariously. Never has nausea been so fun.
Carol and Mr. Henderson (Part 1)
Carol, an overweight woman played by Eric, awakens from a lustful dream with a new goal: lose weight so she can attract her evil boss, Mr. Henderson.
Cinco: T’ird
See Hi-Lights. T’ird is a product for the modern world--easy to use, elegant, absurd.
Channel 5 Looking at Film: Crystal Shyps (Part 1)
See Hi-Lights. Bob Odenkirk’s mystified host shows us scenes from junior schlockmeister Glen Tennis’s newest film.
Sports Reprise
More “Sports,” ladies and gentlemen.
Ventriloquist
Tim is a ventriloquist with a particularly vulgar dummy (Eric--sporting a version of limp lip make-up from episode 2). Richard Dunn provides emotional support via snare-drum.
Spider Web Attack
See Hi-Lights. Delightful and demented, the boys take on the time-honored gener of internet pranks gone too far.
Channel 5 Looking at Film: Crystal Shyps (Part 2)
See Hi-Lights. Glen Tennis starts to lose it as the show’s host reveals his hair-trigger temper and unprofessional behavior.
Carol and Mr. Henderson (Part 2)
Larry, a supporting player in this saga, reveals his true villainy when he smashes Carol in the head with a coffeepot. This prompts Mr. Henderson to sing a lusty duet with a transfigured Carol.
Winner:
We’re here at half-time, folks, and things are looking rough. While I’m tempted to give it to Eric for his searing portrayal of a woman in love in the “Carol and Mr. Henderson” saga, I’m going off book and giving it to Bob Odenkirk--here’s to you, Bob, for tirelessly voicing the best Cinco ads and playing the host of “Channel 5 Looking at Film.” Go out and treat yourself--you deserve it. But don’t go too crazy. The competition is still on.
Pennie Sublime