Author: Aaron Weber

TV Criticism: Tim Heidecker And Eric Wareheim Interview

Originally published at TV With MeeVee as “Tim & Eric Awesome Show Great Job Season 2”

If the long self-parodic name doesn’t tip you off, "Tim And Eric’s Awesome Show Great Job" is the sort of weird comedy that the Cartoon Network’s late night Adult Swim block is known for. Like fellow Adult Swim productions "Aqua Teen Hunger Force," "Venture Brothers," and "Lucy, Daughter Of The Devil," it’s a 15-minute production packed with offbeat humor, pop-culture references, and ADHD pacing. Unlike its stablemates, it’s a live-action sketch comedy with production values reminiscent of cable access TV from the 1980s. Yes, live-action on the Cartoon Network. Bear with me.

The Tim and Eric of the "Awesome Show" are Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, and the pair have collaborated for years. They got their start doing sketch comedy they filmed and posted at timanderic.com before they were tapped by Cartoon Network for "Tom Goes To The Mayor."

I recently spoke by phone with Tim and Eric about their show, which kicks off a second season just after midnight on November 19th. I am impressed with the risks that shows in the Adult Swim programming block are able to take, so I asked whether they had any creative constraints imposed by the network at all. They said that aside from avoiding libel and obscenity laws, they tried to include at least one Christian message per episode. "Something Jesus would teach. It doesn’t have overtly out there, just a nice thought, like ‘do unto others.’"  As an example, Tim suggests the song ‘I smell my dad’s dirty socks,’ which is about the dangers of adultery.

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Tim and Eric claim that they included the Christian themes partly to appease Standards and Practices, who "look for four frown moments" in which a sin is frowned-upon in each episode, but mostly because they want their youthful audience to learn about righteous behavior. "I don’t know if you know any teenagers," Eric says, "but these kids are growing up to be whores, and we’re out there saying alright, let’s try and change that a little bit."

It was at that early point that I realized that the interview had gone entirely off the rails.

It turns out that talking to Tim and Eric is a lot like watching their show: A combination of confusion and laughter. I can’t tell if they’re being serious, or how serious they’re being. Am I going to laugh at their statements about helping children learn to respect marriage by having a married news team as recurring characters? Not without putting the phone on mute first.

Ten minutes later I’m on IM, asking my friends to look at the music video about sitting down to pee and tell me what kind of golden rule they’re talking about. They’re as baffled as I am, but can’t seem to stop watching. One favorite is the news team’s PSA about fruits and vegetables:

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For the rest of the interview, I tried to ask Tim and Eric questions with a straight face, and they revealed no strain at all in responding with totally deadpan, increasingly absurd answers. I did manage to get them to tell me that they are not WGA members and therefore not affected by the strike, and that they enjoy the 15-minute format partly because it gives the show a condensed feeling, but mostly because it’s way easier to produce a shorter show. That was about it for believable answers.

Towards the end of our conversation, Tim and Eric suggested I take a look at the book of John, Chapter 16, and after the interview, I did. It begins "These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended." I think that’s supposed to mean I got punked, but I shouldn’t take it personally.

The new season of "Tim And Eric’s Awesome Show Great Job" starts in the wee hours of Monday, November 19th on Cartoon Network. If you can’t stay up that late, you there are plenty of clips over at AdultSwim.com.

TV Criticism: Robots In “Terminator,” “Battlestar” And “Wall-E”

Originally posted at TV With MeeVee as ““Terminator” Brings The Hot Robot Love (And Doom)”

I mentioned yesterday that I really hope that "Terminator" gets a second season because I want to see Cameron (Summer Glau) go to the prom, but io9 is even more into the whole robosexual thing than I am. To be honest, I’m beginning to think that robot love is the sci-fi theme of the moment. Maybe it reveals a widespread cultural anxiety about technology, and maybe it’s just that robots are kind of sexy, I’m not sure. But bear with me here.

First we had the "Battlestar Galactica" Cylons and their spines glowing during hot Cylon sex. It’s inspired a lot of jokes, but they’re still drawing attention to the question of where to draw the line between where’s the line between humans and technology.

And now there’s John Connor developing an unwholesome attachment to Cameron. Is a tame Terminator more trustworthy than a wild human? Will his distrust of humans and his trust in robots eventually kill him? Plus, of course, his teenage lust and Cameron’s careful notes on seduction. As io9 says "The moment where John Connor cuts Summer Glau’s head open and lovingly rips out her cyber-brain was actually weirdly tender and sweet, and yet ridiculously sexual. (And then when Summer reboots, she catches John giving her the post-coital moon-eyes.)"

We’ve had this sort of pop-cultural moment before, of course, but it seems more and more possible than it did back in the 1980s, when the rapidly increasing power of computers helped to inspire Short Circuit and Electric Dreams. In this decade, we’ve seen plenty of trend pieces in which people worry about the opinions their technology has formed – the "my TiVo thinks I’m gay" moment. And don’t get me started about the way people tend to treat Roombas like pets instead of vacuum cleaners.

This summer, we’ll get family-friendly treatment of the same theme, with WALL-E, a movie about a robot who falls in love. No glowing spines or reproductive organs, sure, but look under the hood. It’s got the same basic circuitry as "Terminator:" Humans cause some kind of apocalypse through arrogance and stupidity, while robots become human and replace us.

Honesty Is For Jerks

NY Mag: “Encouraged to tell so many white lies and hearing so many others, children gradually get comfortable with being disingenuous. Insincerity becomes, literally, a daily occurrence. They learn that honesty only creates conflict, and dishonesty is an easy way to avoid conflict. And while they don’t confuse white-lie situations with lying to cover their misdeeds, they bring this emotional groundwork from one circumstance to the other.”

Important lessons: Honesty is for jerks.

Hand In Unlovable Hand

A few days ago, Flynn showed me all these ultra-emo illustrations of drowning wolves that populate DeviantArt, and they seem to go so well with the Mountain Goats song “No Children,” but not perfectly. I mean, the lines “I am drowning, there is no sign of land, you are coming down with me, hand in unlovable hand” would make a great painting. Way better than just a lonely drowning wolf. A drowning wolf just says “everything sucks.” On the other hand, a drowning person pulling the rescuers down with him — that adds action and irony.

If you wanted to be particularly clever you could start with a reference to a certain other hand-in-unlovable-hand moment.

Misogyny From My Heroes

Tim Gunn insulted Hillary Clinton’s fashion choices on “Conan” the other night, and as frivolous as that is – a catty comment from a fashion expert on a late-night comedy show is not much of a sting for a grownup – I’m increasingly irritated with it. Yes, I expect Tim Gunn to talk about fashion, and everybody talks about what Clinton wears – even she does, and quite critically at times. She’s not a clotheshorse. She dresses appropriately for her job. Whatever. Can we get on with it?

I’m increasingly irritated by a misogyny that I’ve never really seen before. People can’t or wont take women seriously at the top level of politics, but I see it in tech, and virulently in film and media. Wolcott is on the case, of course, but that’s not exactly going to help much. Oh no, some guy from Vanity Fair is calling out the prejudices of our time.

And this Rocketboom video of general ignorance isn’t exactly encouraging. I can only hope it’s some kind of hoax.

Here’s the Tim Gunn clip, in which he smears Clinton as “mannish,” which he surely knows is about as classy as just out-and-out calling her a man-hating dyke: