While I'm sick with allergies this week, I wanted to touch on one of the funniest, most bizarre series of all time that may have sparked a generation of memes and affected humor in a way that wouldn't be mainstream for several years. Sure, there was "numa numa guy," there was "the Hampster Dance," and "Crazy Frog," but all of these figures were considered obscure despite how popular they were getting, existing only within the confines of the internet. There was a time when being internet famous was one of the lowest forms of entertainment, and I don't think we understood how backwards that dynamic would become. Now, internet celebs are some of the most popular people in the world. If you go farther back, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim were the trailblazers. I'm not saying they're the first, but I definitely think they're the most significant.
One aspect of meme culture that gets received negatively is its tendency to be imitative. Memes have become the equivalent of telling a "knock knock" joke, or a joke that is such low-hanging fruit that it's relatable to a broad audience. In layman's terms, memes can be cheap and dumb. They're not all like that, but the bad sometimes outweighs the good, and they often age poorly. Enter Tim and Eric: Awesome Show, Great Job, which feels like a daydream invented by a weed-smoking college student, with the same level of random and obscure humor. The show has no plot, it has no solid characters. It's a series of skits that were written in what feels like 10 seconds. Nothing in it makes sense or is consistent. You are transported into a world where there are no rules and no meaning. It's two guys throwing absolutely everything at the wall to see if they can capture something funny, dressing themselves up in costumes and hiring the worst actors off of craigslist (I'll get more into that later.) The show sometimes turns into flashing colors or images that also don't make sense and can be disturbing to some viewers. It's the kind of show you'd see at a party and lose your mind over. If this sounds like something that would be airing on television now, think again because this all started in 2007 and ended in 2010.
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| Carol's boss problems |
What's most fascinating to me is how much fun these two are clearly having. Some roles are played 100% seriously despite how ridiculous the situation is written. I'm part of the older gen z, so something about this show struck something in me that I immediately recognized. It's this provocative, annoying, childish humor that is strangely brilliant. I wouldn't be surprised if some older person accidentally stumbled upon this show on Adult Swim late at night and thought, wow this generation is screwed. It's one of those things where you either get it you don't. Humor has long been designated to stand-up comics or shows akin to SNL, shows that people adore and recognize as "normal" comedy. Tim and Eric isn't ordinary at all, and actually pushes comedic boundaries beyond what we once thought capable of. I know it sounds ridiculous, but this type of humor is so mainstream now I sometimes wonder if these two were psychic in the production of this show.
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Most of the skits in this show are inspired by daytime and public-access television, advertisements, and sometimes movies. The kind of stuff you'd see on basic cable or a commercial for car dealerships. In fact, Hart and his puppets were actually discovered by Tim and Eric on public access. You can see the budget increase as the show's popularity did. The sets get bigger, the skits longer. The green screen effects are still there, but done a little less. Then, in 2012, Tim and Eric would send the series off with a bang; their own film titled Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie, which was as ridiculous and random as the series was. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't received well by critics, who maybe just didn't watch the show and weren't familiar with its off-the-wall humor. If you're not into the show, you'd probably not appreciate the movie. I don't know how I feel about it personally. I don't think we really needed a movie. Maybe if they had made something different entirely that was a little more cohesive, something that would grab an audience outside of Tim and Eric, I think it could've been stronger. I could see them making something like This is the End, which would come out only a year after and do much better, and it sort of has that same comedic tone. It could've been done right.
Since then, Tim and Eric has grown a cult following. People that I've introduced this show to always ask me, "how did you find this?" Or they would say, "oh yeah, that show that came on after Aqua Teen Hunger Force," possibly mistaking it for some high-induced fever dream. Sometimes clips of it have gone viral with no context, and people just don't bother to research where it came from. People have tried to recreate it, especially online, but it doesn't hit the same. There's also something about that mid-2000's aesthetic that I find nostalgic, sort of like when the Office premiered in 2006. Of course I'm probably reminiscing about my childhood mostly when I say that, and I'm missing times that were a lot simpler. You never know how good something is until it's gone, right? That's how I feel about Tim and Eric. Although, I think they could make this show again. Perhaps it might be a bit different. I want to see these two work on more shows together but it looks like they're pretty comfortable doing their own things, which is fine. Sometimes, ideas like that only happen because it was the right time and place, and that's okay. But I'm hoping maybe, just maybe something will inspire them again, and we'll get to see more of the show that spawned a thousand memes.
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| once upon a time, everything looked like this for some reason |
One last thing, I am told that this aesthetic is called "frutiger aero," which I might be writing about soon. We'll see!
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