By Andrew Pelechaty
Approaching its 20th anniversary, Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! is still one of the most surreal, disturbing, and inventive comedies on Adult Swim.
If you turned it on randomly (and had never heard of it before), you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a zero-budget public access show.
Embracing the cringe comedy of Alan Partridge and Ricky Gervais, Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim dare the audience to keep watching: each episode is packed with bizarre sketches, early 2000s gross-out humour, amateur actors, unsettling characters, deliberately bad graphic design, and strange little songs. Alternative comedians David Liebe Hart and James Quall appear regularly in recurring musical-comedy sketches, while Bob Odenkirk and Zach Galifianakis play a variety of one-off characters.
Heidecker and Wareheim’s hosting style is deliberately off-putting and amateur. They look like they’ve rolled in off the street and been asked to host a show at the last minute.
There are some attempts to tie the 11-minute episodes up with basic themes and recurring characters. The Cinco ads are a wonderful running gag, tie into the main sketches, and parody the public access TV ads for horrible ‘impulse buy’ produces that nobody wants or needs. The famous ‘mind blown’ meme also came from this show, from a sketch about space that takes a dark turn.
While some shows lose momentum the longer they go on, Tim and Eric double down on the graphic violence, dark themes, gross-out humour, and the obnoxiousness in the last season. The final episode sees Tim and Eric make their own milk (you’ll need to watch it to find out how) to give to their friends for Christmas.
Arguably the most popular characters are Casey Tatum and Dr Steve Brule.
Tatum (Heidecker) is the frontman for ‘Casey and his Brother’ on the ‘Uncle Muscles Hour’ (hosted by Weird Al Yankovic): Casey has horrible eczema, all sorts of mess on his red and shiny face and can barely perform due to his incredible stage fright and various phobias. Casey is killed in a van explosion and is resurrected Frankenstein-style by his brother in a later season. Josh Groban (who has proven many times that he’s happy to make fun of himself) recorded a tribute sketch to Casey’s music (‘Groban Sings Casey’). Groban is one of many celebrities and actors who make one-off appearances, proving that – for all its proud anti-comedy traits – Tim and Eric was noticed by their colleagues.
John C. Reilly’s Dr Brule transcended the show’s original run and became a meme on his own. Reilly is outstanding as the awkward Brule, giving out random, non-sequitur advice with his “For your health!” catchphrase. It’s a credit to Reilly that he’s completely believable as Brule and turns him into the breakout star of Tim and Eric. It’s no surprise that he got his own spin-off show (Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule).
All five seasons of Tim and Eric are on Amazon Prime. For your health!
