Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

Tim and Eric's Awesome show

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_and_Eric_Awesome_Show,_Great_Job! 

This show is to TV, what white snake or Marilyn Manson are to music. If you don't get it, that's OK.  You're not supposed to. Even those that do get it, don't get it.  There is seldom something to get, other than the fact you won't get it.

Bad, for bad's sake.

Fictional parodies of the kind of bad that sadly exists, and worse.

But in parody, somehow watchable.

or not.

And that's OK.

I am watching this show for the first time tonight.  Although it isn't new by any means, it is new to me tonight, and I think quite new to legitimate TV watchers in Canada.  Those who don't download TV shows yet.

I think there may be are seven of us left.

I got my first hint that this show is odd from it's name.  Odd in a vein similar to Fernwood Tonight, except making fun of sketch comedy in a sketch comedy show.  Fernwood made fun of talk shows in a talk show format.

Sketch comedy is bigger than it's ever been these days, with YouTube making stars of kids and adults who match creativity with the "get it done" attitude needed to be a success.  Sketches are everywhere.

Video is big, and making videos is now free.  When I was young, I had to mail in 7 minutes of silent 8mm film and wait two weeks to see how bad it was.  Today, video is free and video cameras come on your cell phone.

I made a few movies in my school days... videos as you'd call them today.  I made scripts, and sketch comedy, and animation.  I believe to this day, 5 people have seen them.  Projectors and screens and 8mm film was a hassle.

Who knows what life would have been like for me, if my creativity was easier.  With the joys of cheap quality "talkies" and the awesome power of non-linear editing, combined with the resources of today's most basic computers.  In my wildest dreams, I would not have seen YouTube coming.  I'm still not sure I understand it.

One of the biggest problems with YouTube and similar "idiot video archives" is that people with cameras are seldom the same people with good ideas, and YouTube does nothing to team them together.  In the end, we see less quality humour, and more shots of hitting Billy in the nuts with a Nerf canon.

Yesterday, by coincidence I happened to be playing with a friend's new tiny hand-held HD video camera, shooting hi-res HD quality.  A memory card held over 4 hours.  Scenes were stores with thumbnails and could be reviewed right in the camera in non-linear style without fast forwarding a video tape back and forth.  I could edit with the free software that comes with every Windows computer.

I had, in my hand the capability to make movies of higher quality, than almost anything in the 70's.  No film, no projectors, no cost at all past the initial purchase.

It almost seems Tim and Eric did something like this.  Although the show probably has a budget, and crew, it seems designed to appear more like the got together a bunch of friends and created a show.  They shot for something that wasn’t your normal sketch comedy show, but wouldn't be compared to Monty Python - which used to be the go-to comparison for any comedy show that didn't follow normal formula.  It is designed to be appealing to a new audience that probably didn't watch Python or Saturday Night Live, but may know South Park, Family Guy and Robot Chicken.  TV designed to be odd and memorable.

Actually, as I watch the first few minutes of the show, I believe they take that oddity one step farther. They may be trying to appeal directly to an audience who may be high while watching.

The show is funny high.  You don't have to get the jokes, if there are any.  You just stare at the oddity and difference from what you normally watch, and giggle... or laugh out loud.

You may not know why.

If you don't think it's funny, and still watch, you laugh because of how it isn't funny - or even good, but somehow just watchable... and then you laugh anyway.

Bad is funny.

I’ve written everything up to this after watching only the first two sketches.  The show opened with a man in the forest, who has been mauled by some odd looking foreigner dwarf monster, followed by a clip of a TV show game reviewer that can't remember the game he's been playing, but it has swords and knights in it.  By no means are these examples of quality writing and production values.  Whether they’re funny is even questionable, but they are watchable.  If these had been created by real people, they might have been totaly bad and not watchable.  Tim and Eric have just the right balance. 

The acting is parody of bad.  A celebrity, being a total dumbass doofis, way over the top.  The actor portraying the idiot game reviewer who obviously knows little of the computer game market or the D&D world is laughable.  While you laugh, you’re actually laughing at a parody of every dumbass doofis who doesn't understand D&D or LARP or WoW these days.  The bad quality home-movie aspect is just what makes it acceptable.  Not a sketch comedy show.  Something different. You laugh at that too.

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Unpause

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As I watch a few more scenes it becomes more obvious that the market is stoners.  Visual and digital distortions amuse me without context, script or acting.  Site gags try to max out single joke premises to multi minute sketches.  Rather than clever writing, they opt for the quick cheap laugh - which is exactly what you want in a show you're not really going to be able to pay attention to.

Much like the design of a music video, porn, or an episode of "House", you don't actually have to watch the show to get what's going on.  You can go about other business and check in at certain times to catch up everything you need to know.  Some scenes are short, but even the long ones don’t need your full attention.

They use a lot of recap callbacks;  jokes that are not so funny by themselves, but when replayed or repeated, the laughs come from the familiarity rather then the punchline.  Things you may have watched and thought odd, becomes hilarious when re-used over and over… at least hilarious when you’re stoned.  Inside jokes with the audience.  A nod to a previous concept or funny scene.

I watch Tim and Eric and it appears like a bunch of slightly old teenagers figured out a way to get their show on the air without writing anything.  Just a bunch of pitched concepts and then doing the worst job possible.  Nothing is off limits in the level of failure allowed.  It may be a whole new level of freedom.

I imagine the truth is somewhere between that, and a real calculated genius.  A work of art so perfectly giving us laughs in much the same way a clown with a pie in the face might.  A new kind of slapstick gag show with elements of everything and nothing. 

While Tim & Eric may not have pioneered the concept of this kind of humour, they are a major show on a major network and getting TV size audiences while others struggle with YouTube or Internet fame.  One thing that I can say about Tim and Eric's show, is that it may spawn an entire generation and industry of kids who say; "I can do that" or perhaps even a generation of smarter kids who are proud enough to exclaim; "I can do better than that!".   Quite possibly, this is a lie, and doing better than a show designed to look bad is harder than you might think, but technology has finally reached the point where we actually CAN do better at home than some TV shows.

You’ve most likely heard the term; “My ticket out of here”.  Society desperately needs projects and concepts that provide hope to each generation.  Some kids will have talent in sports, or voice, or good looks and may achieve success from traditional avenues.  A way OUT or UP.  A way to be a success.  There are many channels.... Sports, Music, Stage, Acting, Lotteries, inheritance and now, home video success via the Internet.  We’ve seen how fast Internet fame can come down on you like a chocolate rain.

As we evolve as humans, whether for the better or worse, we learn we're not adult enough to be supposed to think a pie in the face is funny.  We are taught to feel concern for the guy who got hit.  The guy we’re laughing at – not with.  However, in the new world of humour online, without rules, a cult following allows for anything.  Video is so cheap to make, and a show like Tim and Eric is allowed to be bad and still have enough fans to pay the bills.  Anything is allowed, and there is an audience for all form of racist, sexist, laughs.  We not only push a pie in a guys face, but we can throw acid pies and puppies with cancer, and somebody will laugh.

The truth is, in the 15 minute time slot taken up by each Tim and Eric episode it is hard to deny we could, without any effort at all, find something of better quality to watch.  However, in the end, the show did deliver laughs, and deliver a new style of comedy almost personally created for the stoner crowd.  That’s saying something.  Many have tried and failed.

The perception that it was crap is the illusion.  I watched it, and enjoyed the creative juice it inspired within me.  This entire post was created during the viewing of one single episode.  I was inspired to get up, press pause and start blogging.  Few shows inspire that in me.  That's quite a reaction.

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Update.  I watched episode 2 while sober, and it was too bizarre to get through.