| Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Sketch comedy Surreal humor Cringe comedy Anti-humor Comedy horror Satire |
| Created by | Tim & Eric |
| Starring | Tim Heidecker Eric Wareheim |
| Opening theme | "Awesome Show Theme" by Davin Wood andDJ Douggpound |
| Composer | Davin Wood |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 50(list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | Tim Heidecker Eric Wareheim |
| Producers | Jon Mugar Dave Kneebone |
| Running time | 11-22 minutes |
| Production companies | Abso Lutely Productions Naked Faces Williams Street |
| Original release | |
| Network | Adult Swim |
| Release | February 11, 2007 (2007-02-11) – May 2, 2010 (2010-05-02) |
| Related | |
| Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule Tom Goes to the Mayor Tim and Eric Nite Live! | |
Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! is an Americansketch comedy television series created byTim Heidecker andEric Wareheim forCartoon Network's nighttime programming blockAdult Swim.[1] It premiered on February 11, 2007 and originally ran until May 2, 2010. The show featuressurreal,dark and oftensatirical humor (at pointsanti-humor andcringe comedy),public-access television-style musical acts, bizarre faux-commercials with a unique editing and special effects style byDoug Lussenhop to make the show appear off-kilter.[2]
The program features a wide range of performers, including regular guestsZach Galifianakis,John C. Reilly,Ray Wise,Bob Odenkirk,Will Forte,Maria Bamford,Jeff Goldblum, and"Weird Al" Yankovic, as well as an ensemble ofalternative performers likeNeil Hamburger,Tommy Wiseau, andDavid Liebe Hart, once popular stars likeKaren Black,Frank Stallone, andAlan Thicke, porn stars, celebrity look-alikes,impressionists, and amateur actors found throughCraigslist. The show also attracted a wide range of popular Hollywood talent for brief appearances, includingWill Ferrell,Elisha Cuthbert,Andy Samberg,Jonah Hill,Ben Stiller,Paul Rudd,Ted Danson,Peter Cetera, andJosh Groban, among others. The creators of the show have described it as "the nightmare version of television".
The show, which expands the genre of the live-action material featured in Heidecker and Wareheim's previous show,Tom Goes to the Mayor, consists ofsketches, songs, and commercials. It features several characters and segments seen inTom Goes to the Mayor, such as Gibbons, the "Channel 5 Married News Team," and the Cinco Corporation with its variety of inefficient and tasteless products. New recurring characters and sketches include "Uncle Muscles Hour," apublic-access televisionvariety program hosted by a gravelly-voiced"Weird Al" Yankovic and Channel 5 News CorrespondentDr. Steve Brule, played byJohn C. Reilly. The show featured a variety of celebrity cameos from actors, comedians, and musicians. The editing style takes its influence from such elements as infomercials, corporate training videos, and TV shopping channels, which are all satirized. The show gets darker in season 5, or "Season Cinco", which has aTV MA rating.
| Season | Episodes | Originally released | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | |||
| 1 | 10 | February 11, 2007 (2007-02-11) | April 15, 2007 (2007-04-15) | |
| 2 | 10 | November 18, 2007 (2007-11-18) | January 27, 2008 (2008-01-27) | |
| 3 | 10 | July 27, 2008 (2008-07-27) | September 28, 2008 (2008-09-28) | |
| 4 | 10 | February 9, 2009 (2009-02-09) | April 12, 2009 (2009-04-12) | |
| 5 | 10 | February 28, 2010 (2010-02-28) | May 2, 2010 (2010-05-02) | |
| Specials | 2 | December 5, 2010 (2010-12-05) | August 27, 2017 (2017-08-27) | |
InCanada,Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! previously aired onCTV Comedy Channel (formerly The Comedy Network) and laterG4'sAdult Digital Distraction block.[3] The series currently airs on theCanadian version of Adult Swim.[4]
Halfway through the broadcasting of the first season,Adult Swim picked upTim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! for another season ordering as many as 30 new episodes.[5] The second season began airing on November 18, 2007. Season one was released on DVD in April, 2008. The third season began on July 27, 2008, and ended on September 28, 2008. Eric posted aMySpace bulletin Oct 1, 2008, announcing that as a "holiday surprise" season four would be airing in January 2009. The show was later renewed for a fifth season.[6]
Speaking withVanity Fair in July 2009, Wareheim said that season five (or "Season Cinco") would represent "a very dark side of theAwesome Show series. I think people are going to be very scared and very disturbed by it."[7] He also noted that the pair draw equal humor from the awkwardness ofThe Office as they do from the awkwardness ofDavid Lynch's films.[7] The duo went on to state that they had begun an unconscious tradition by starting the first episode of seasons two, three, and four each withfecal-related fake commercials; they planned to "outdo" themselves on season five with a "diarrhea disease"-based commercial.[7] The fifth season premiered on February 28, 2010. The series finale aired on May 2, 2010. On May 16, 2010, the spin-offCheck it Out! premiered.[8]
Tim and Eric acquired funding to shoot and air a one-hour special that aired on December 5, 2010, calledThe Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job Chrimbus Special. Simultaneous to this announcement, the duo also released a list of dates and cities for their upcoming 2010 tour. Tim and Eric also announced plans for a movie, entitledTim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie; in the film, released online and on pay-per-view on January 27, 2012, the pair try to revitalize a run-down mall in order to pay a billion-dollar debt.[9]
The duo's Abso Lutely Productionssignoff bumper features a video clip of Heidecker's father during a family vacation in 1991; when asked to sum the trip up in two words, he responded "Abso-lutely". The full clip can be found on their website, DVD, and also onYouTube.[10]
The series' theme music was composed byDavin Wood, who had also composed the theme music for the earlierTom Goes to the Mayor, and for related seriesDerek & Simon,American Misfits,Stupidface, andCheck It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule.[11]
On May 6, 2008,Williams Street Records releasedAwesome Record, Great Songs! Volume One, a compilation of songs from the first two seasons, and some covers and remixes by other artists. Williams Street also releasedUncle Muscles Presents Casey and His Brother in July of that year, an EP featuring 11 songs sung by Heidecker in character as Casey Tatum.[12]
One of Tim and Eric's first live performances incorporating characters fromAwesome Show wasMuscles for Bones, a spooftelethon seeking bones forRichard Dunn.[13] This was performed atTroubadour nightclub inWest Hollywood, California.[14] Major portions of this live performance were incorporated into season 3, episode 8 "Muscles for Bones".[15] An extended version of this show can be found as an extra on the Season 3 DVD. The extended version features performances not seen on the original TV episode, from performers such as Pierre and Michael Q. Schmidt. Prior to the beginning of seasons two and three, Tim and Eric combined "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" Live in Vegas (2007). The second of these, listed as season 3 episode 0, shared their 2008 cross-country tour[16][17][18][19] and was titledAwesome Tour Live 2008.[20]
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! has had a wide range of reviews with many differing in opinion. Columnist forThe New York Times Dave Itzkoff writes,"'Awesome Show' revels in an aesthetic of awkwardness." And also adds, "To populate their twisted universe they frequently cast average-looking actors (and nonactors) recruited from Web sites likeCraigslist, who bring an additional layer of deliberate amateurishness to their skits."[21]
James Norton fromFlak Magazine says, "If Adult Swim is the bleeding edge of TV comedy,Tim and Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job! [sic] is the bleeding edge of the bleeding edge."
He adds, "The program has been much hated-upon by the Adult Swim fan base ... But the program also represents a foray into one of the most dangerous and exciting realms of the comedy world: sheer individualistic creativity."[22]
A reappraisal of the show in a 2020New York Times column dubbed the show "sketch comedy at its most abrasive, bizarre and, for some reason, endearing."[23]
While doing press for the first season of the program, Heidecker and Wareheim told an interviewer that they had aspirations to create aspinoff featuringAwesome Show regularRichard Dunn: "It's just him interviewing people likeThe Charlie Rose Show. We would love to produce that. No one would ever watch it."[24]
Using characters and skits fromAwesome Show, Heidecker and Wareheim (via their Abso Lutely production company) created an online-only show calledTim and Eric Nite Live!, originally broadcast in aired on November 18, 2007 on theAdult Swim.[25]
In July 2008, theNew York Times reported that anAwesome Show spin-off,Check It Out!, with Steve Brule, would air on Adult Swim beginning sometime in 2009.[26] The show parodieslocal newscasts, and as Heidecker briefly described it: "It's like his half-hour to go around town and interview the localbeer-maker or whatever."[27] The show will have an episode run time of approximately 11 minutes, and it will feature John C. Reilly reprising his role as Dr. Steve Brule. According to Heidecker, Reilly had the original idea of giving the Dr. Steve character an entire show.[7]Vanity Fair reported that the program would begin airing on August 23, 2009;[7] however, the program did not air on that date, andLA Weekly reported in September 2009 thatCheck It Out! was "forthcoming."[28] The first episode aired May 16, 2010,[29] and the last on June 20, 2010, with a total of six episodes. The show returned with six more episodes, the first airing March 18, 2012, and the last on April 12, 2012. The show has managed two more seasons also consisting of six episodes, which aired in 2014 and 2016.
In the same July 2008New York Times article, it was reported that the duo was in the process of developing a surrealgame show series starringNeil Hamburger, titledThe New Big Ball with Neil Hamburger.[26][30] Wareheim described it as a mix between "bizarre Japanese game shows andThe Price Is Right."[26] In late July 2009, Neil Hamburger posted a blog onMyspace stating that apilot had been filmed, but that Adult Swim was not satisfied and had "pulled the plug on the project."[31] As of November 8, 2013, the pilot has been uploaded to the official Adult Swim website.[32]
All five seasons and the Chrimbus Special have been released on DVD inRegion 1 and 4 with distribution for the latter being handled byMadman Entertainment. The Chrimbus Special was released as a standalone DVD, and like seasons four and five, have become a rarity due to them no longer being in print.Only the first and second seasons have been released on DVD in Region 2.
| DVD | Original year of broadcast | Region 1 release date | Region 2 release date | Region 4 release date |
| Season 1 | 2007 | April 22, 2008 | April 27, 2009 | June 11, 2008 |
| Season 2 | 2007–08 | February 10, 2009 | August 2, 2010 | June 24, 2009 |
| Season 3 | 2008 | August 4, 2009 | — | December 2, 2009 |
| Season 4 | 2009 | September 14, 2010 | — | December 1, 2010 |
| Season 5 | 2010 | May 17, 2011 | — | November 28, 2012 |
| Chrimbus Special | 2010 | December 15, 2010 (Out of Print) | — | — |
The series is also available onHBO Max since September 1, 2020.[33]
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