Jump to content

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by 206.225.103.117 (talk) at 03:20, 20 April 2010 (→Overview). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!
Title screen for Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!
Created byTim Heidecker
Eric Wareheim
StarringTim Heidecker
Eric Wareheim
Country of origin United States
No. of seasons5
No. of episodes46 (list of episodes)
Production
Running time11 minutes
Original release
NetworkAdult Swim
ReleaseFebruary 11, 2007 –
present

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! is an American television series, created by and starring Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, which premiered February 11, 2007 on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim comedy block.[1] The program features surrealistic and often satirical humor, public access-style musical acts, bizarre faux-commercials, as well as fast paced, highly computerized graphical editing effects.

The program has featured a wide range of actors, spanning from the Academy Award-nominated John C. Reilly, to alternative comedians like Neil Hamburger, to television actors like Alan Thicke, celebrity look-alikes and impressionists.

The creators of the show have described Awesome Show as "the nightmare version of television."[2]

Overview

The show, which expands the genre of the live-action material featured in Heidecker and Wareheim's previous show, Tom Goes to the Mayor, consists of sketches, songs, and commercials. It features several characters and segments seen in Tom Goes to the Mayor, such as Gibbons, the "Channel 5 Married News Team", and the Cinco Corporation with its variety of tasteless products. New recurring characters and sketches include "Uncle Muscles Hour," a cable access variety program hosted by a gravelly-voiced "Weird Al" Yankovic and Channel 5 News Correspondent Dr. Steve Brule, played by John C. Reilly.

The show features a variety of naked men and celebrity cameos from actors and comedians including Jeff Goldblum, Michael Ian Black, Will Ferrell, Maria Bamford, Michael Cera, Abbey Brooks, David Cross, Will Forte, Zach Galifianakis, Fred Willard, Neil Hamburger, John Mayer, David Liebe Hart, Palmer Scott, Michael Q. Schmidt, Tom Kenny, Peter Stormare, Bill Hader, The Lonely Island, Flight of the Conchords, A.D. Miles, Patton Oswalt, Josh Groban, Dave Navarro, Elisha Cuthbert, Rainn Wilson, Bob Odenkirk, Brian Posehn, Jack McBrayer, Danny Trejo, Amy Sedaris and "Weird Al" Yankovic.

The duo's Absolutely Productions signoff bumper features a video clip of Heidecker's father during a family vacation in 1991; when asked to sum the trip up in two words, he responded "Abso-lutely." The full clip can be found on their timanderic.com DVD and also on YouTube.[3]

Halfway through the broadcasting of the first season, Cartoon Network picked up Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! for another season ordering as many as 30 new episodes.[4] The second season began airing on November 18, 2007. Season one was released on DVD in April, 2008. The third season began on July 27, 2008 and ended on September 28, 2008. Eric posted a MySpace bulletin Oct 1, 2008, announcing that as a "holiday surprise" season four would be airing in January 2009. The show has been renewed for a fifth season.[5]

One of Tim and Eric's first live performances incorporating characters from Awesome Show was Muscles for Bones, a spoof telethon seeking bones for Richard Dunn.[6] This was performed at Troubadour nightclub in West Hollywood, California.[7] Major portions of this live performance were incorporated into season three, episode 8 "Muscles for Bones".[8] An extended version of this show can be found as an extra on the Season 3 DVD. The extended version features performances not seen on the original TV episode, from performers such as Pierre and Michael Q. Schmidt. Prior to the beginning of seasons two and three, Tim and Eric combined "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" Live in Vegas (2007). The second of these, listed as season 3 episode 0, shared their 2008 cross-country tour[9][10][11][12] and was titled Awesome Tour Live 2008.[13]

Speaking with Vanity Fair in July 2009, Wareheim said that season five (or "Season Cinco") will represent "a very dark side of the Awesome Show series. I think people are going to be very scared and very disturbed by it."[14] He also noted that the pair draw equal humor from the awkwardness of The Office as they do from the awkwardness of David Lynch's films.[14] The duo went on to state that they had begun an unconscious tradition by starting the first episode of seasons two, three, and four each with fecal-related fake commercials; they plan to "outdo" themselves on season five with a "diarrhea disease"-based commercial.[14] The fifth season premiered on February 28th, 2010. The series finale is schedule to air on May 2, 2010. At some point later in May, the spin-off Check it Out! will premiere.[15]

Main article: List of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! sketches and characters

Episode list

Main article: List of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! episodes

Awesome Record, Great Songs!

Main article: Awesome Record, Great Songs!

On May 6, 2008, William Street Records released Awesome Record, Great Songs!, a compilation of songs from the first and second seasons of the show.

Spinoffs

While doing press for the first season of the program, Heidecker and Wareheim told an interviewer that they had aspirations to create a spinoff featuring Awesome Show regular Richard Dunn: "It's just him interviewing people like The Charlie Rose Show. We would love to produce that. No one would ever watch it."[16]

Using characters and skits from Awesome Show, Heidecker and Wareheim (via their Absolutely production company) created a online-only show called Tim and Eric Nite Live!, originally broadcast on the website SuperDeluxe.

File:Thenewbigball.jpg
Advertisement for the scrapped spin-off series The New Big Ball with Neil Hamburger

In July 2008, the New York Times reported that an Awesome Show spin-off, Check It Out!, with Steve Brule, would air on Cartoon Network beginning some time in 2009.[2] The show parodies local newscasts, and as Heidecker briefly described it: "It's like his half-hour to go around town and interview the local beer-maker or whatever."[17] The show will have an episode run time of approximately 11 minutes, and it will feature John C. Reilly reprising his role as Dr. Steve Brule. According to Heidecker, Reilly had the original idea of giving the Dr. Steve character an entire show.[14] Vanity Fair reported that the program would begin airing on August 23, 2009;[14] however, the program did not air on that date, and LA Weekly reported in September 2009 that Check It Out! is currently "forthcoming."[18] It is currently scheduled for May 16th, 2010. [19]

In the same July 2008 New York Times article, it was reported that the duo was in the process of developing a surreal game show series starring Neil Hamburger, titled The New Big Ball with Neil Hamburger.[2][20] Wareheim described it as a mix between "Japanese bizarre game show and The Price Is Right."[2] In late July 2009, Neil Hamburger posted a blog on MySpace stating that a pilot had been filmed, but that Adult Swim was not satisfied and had "pulled the plug on the project."[21]

References

  1. ^ Turner Newsroom Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Fact Sheet
  2. ^ a b c d New York Times article: "The Bizarre Brains of Nightmare TV".
  3. ^ "On Youtube: The inspiration for the name 0f Absolutely productions". YouTube. 2006-07-08. Retrieved 2009-02-23.
  4. ^ "SuicideGirls Interview with Tim and Eric". Retrieved 2007-04-09.
  5. ^ "Adult Swim Schedule". Retrieved 2008-05-22.
  6. ^ "Tim and Eric". Tim and Eric. Retrieved 2009-02-23.
  7. ^ http://www.timanderic.com/images/mfb_flyer.jpg
  8. ^ ""Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" Muscles for Bones (2008)". Imdb.com. 2008-09-14. Retrieved 2009-02-23.
  9. ^ Thompson, Jason (2008-04-23). "A Chat with Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, interview, "Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job!"". Bullz-eye.com. Retrieved 2009-02-23.
  10. ^ Willamette Week (2007-03-07). "WWire | Tim & Eric Awesome Tour @ Someday Lounge, 3/4". Wweek.com. Retrieved 2009-02-23.
  11. ^ "Adult Swim's Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Hits the Road: Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Tour 2008 Kicks Off in Boston on April 21". Billboardpublicitywire.com. Retrieved 2009-02-23.
  12. ^ http://www.timanderic.com/images/awsometourflyer08.jpg
  13. ^ ""Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" Awesome Tour Live 2008 (2008)". Imdb.com. 2008-05-06. Retrieved 2009-02-23.
  14. ^ a b c d e Vanity Fair article: "Q&A: Tim and Eric on Child Abuse, Diarrhea, and Yerba-Mate Tea".
  15. ^ http://www.adultswim.com/schedule/onair.html
  16. ^ http://www.cracked.com/article_15327_adult-swims-tim-eric.html
  17. ^ Philip Brown (August 30, 2008). "Twisted minds spawn an Awesome Show". Retrieved October 26, 2008.
  18. ^ LA Weekly article: Are Tim and Eric Getting Political?".
  19. ^ Teaser posted by Eric Wareheim. video:[1]".
  20. ^ Hardford Advocate article: "Hamburger Helper: America's 'worst' comedian performs in New Haven and then in Northampton".
  21. ^ MySpace blog post by Neil Hamburger: "The New Big Ball".


Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Tim_and_Eric_Awesome_Show,_Great_Job!&oldid=357134309"