The Idiot Box
The opening credits ofThe Idiot Box
Created by	Alex Winter Tom Stern Tim Burns
Starring	Alex Winter Tom Stern
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	1
No. of episodes	6
Production
Running time	30 minutes
Original release
Network	MTV
Release	1991 (1991)

The Idiot Box is an Americansketch comedy television series created byAlex Winter,Tom Stern andTim Burns that ran onMTV in 1991.^[1]

After the success ofBill & Ted, MTV hired Winter, Stern, and Burns to develop a half-hour sketch comedy show for the network.^[2] As the channel was still strictly music-oriented at the time,The Idiot Box was mainly a showcase for popularmusic videos, but with a series of sketches, fake commercials, and parodies shown in between. Therefore, although an episode ran 30 minutes, there were only 7 to 11 minutes' worth of sketches.

Inspired heavily by the likes ofMad magazine andMonty Python's Flying Circus, the humor inThe Idiot Box was rooted in absurdity and violentslapstick, often in the form of television and movie parodies and commercials for fake television shows (such as"Mumford the Yodeling Mutt" and"Who's A Total Idiot? withTony Danza"). Each episode would end with a recap by theMax Headroom-esque VOTAR, "the future of television announcing", as he would criticize each of the sketches in the episode and occasionally quote lines fromnew wave songs.

Winter, Stern, and Burns chose to cease production after six episodes and instead accepted a high-paying deal with20th Century Fox to write and direct their own feature film.^[3] The result was 1993'sFreaked, which featured the same brand of humor asThe Idiot Box.

Eddie the Flying Gimp from Outer Space

A parody of 1950s sitcoms, Eddie the Flying Gimp (Winter) is, as the name would imply, a flying gimp who came down from outer space to live with the relatively normal Knudsen family (whose patriarch was played byJohn Hawkes) and help solve their everyday problems, including murdering the school bully and unsuccessfully teaching the Knudsen boy to fly. Eddie is referenced in the opening line ofFreaked, where a newscaster announces "the flying gimp has been destroyed" and that people can safely return to their homes.

Lockjaw

A parody of 1970s cop shows, Lockjaw (Stern) is a tough street cop who one day steps on a rusty nail. Failing to get atetanus shot, he becomes stuck in a permanent state oflock jaw. Each episode deals with his increasing frustration over not being able to speak intelligibly. The "opening credits" for each sketch features musicianFlea playing a criminal.

Willard Schreck's "If I Had My Way"

Willard Schreck (Winter) is acaffeine-addicted convenience store clerk who uses his store's security camera to broadcast his usually demented opinions, including making beef sticks out ofk.d. lang and putting hippies to work in salt mines. Occasionally Willard is visited by a celebrity (impersonator), such asCarol Channing andSinéad O'Connor, the latter of whom Willard catches trying to steal beef jerky. His sign-off catchphrase is "don't make a jerk out of yourself!"

The Burrowing Bishop

"Sir" Albert Woodneck (Winter) stars as the title character, a mumblingbishop who, along with his sidekick Falco the Sarcastic Clown (Lee Arenberg), uses his conical hat to burrow underground to perform good deeds, such as saving children trapped in wells and capturing escaped prisoners.

The Huggins Family

A parody of cheesy 1980s family sitcoms, The Huggins are a family who always use love, understanding, and hugs to work out their many problems, ranging from Dad's alcoholism to son Jared's affinity for siphoning the blood out of small animals. The Huggins children were played byRicki Lake andDanny Cooksey.

Battle of the bands

A parody of which famous rock bands would face off in a football field, mostly the boo ya tribe would face off against famous musicians and bands likeWilson Phillips andJerry Garcia and would be victorious with Alex serving as referee.

The very finest of tonight's idiot box

Voltar, acomputer generated figure, who claimed to be the future of television, would do a recap of whole episode before it ended

Winter and Stern both expressed a desire to releaseThe Idiot Box onDVD, but reportedly ran into troubles withMTV. According to an interview with Winter:

"I'm petitioning for it right now. I've been trying to get MTV to do it for years and it's just impossible. It's such a bureaucracy over there. I don't think there's anyone opposed to it but I just can't get anyone off their ass and actually deal with it. But I'm hoping sometime soon. There was a moment where Anchor Bay was actually going to get all of it on theFreaked DVD and then at the last minute MTV changed their mind."^[4]

At a 2009 Los Angeles screening ofFreaked, Winter elaborated that a big part of MTV's hesitancy to release the show is the short length of the episodes, which, when combined, clock in at just under 60 minutes' worth of material.

An internet petition was created to getThe Idiot Box on DVD and has since accumulated over 1,000 signatures. All six episodes are currently available for viewing onYouTube, along with a rare commercial and 'Best of' video, uploaded by Winter and Stern's official website. In the 20th-anniversary interview for their albumNevermind on Sirius XM, remainingNirvana band members recalled thatKurt Cobain was a fan of the show.

In August of 2025,Severin Films announced that they would be releasing a BluRay box set ofThe Idiot Box The box set will be released on 28 November 2025.^[5]

• Freaked

• The Idiot Box atIMDb

• MTV original programming
• 1990s American musical comedy television series
• 1990s American parody television series
• 1990s American sketch comedy television series
• 1991 American television series debuts
• 1991 American television series endings
• American English-language television shows
• Television series by Universal Television

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from March 2025
• Pages using infobox television with missing dates