Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! was an American
sketch comedy television series, created by and starring
Tim Heidecker and
Eric Wareheim, which premiered February 11, 2007 on
Cartoon Network's
Adult Swim comedy block
[Turner Newsroom Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Fact Sheet] and ran until May 2010. The program features
surrealistic and often satirical humor (at points
anti-humor),
public-access television-style musical acts, bizarre faux-commercials, and editing and special effects chosen to make the show appear
camp.
The program has featured a wide range of actors, spanning from big name stars such as
Will Ferrell,
John C. Reilly and
Zach Galifianakis, to
alternative comedians like
Neil Hamburger, to
television actors like
Alan Thicke,
celebrity look-alikes and
impressionists.
The creators of the show have described
Awesome Show as "the nightmare version of television."
Overview
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 of
sketches, songs, and commercials. It features several characters and segments seen in
Tom 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," a
public-access television variety program hosted by a gravelly-voiced
"Weird Al" Yankovic and Channel 5 News Correspondent Dr. Steve Brule, played by
John C. Reilly
The show features a variety of celebrity cameos from actors, comedians, and musicians including
Fred Armisen,
Maria Bamford,
Karen Black,
Michael Ian Black,
Abbey Brooks,
LeVar Burton,
Michael Cera,
Peter Cetera,
David Cross,
Elisha Cuthbert,
Ted Danson,
Patrick Duffy,
Tami Erin,
Will Ferrell,
Flight of the Conchords,
Will Forte,
Zach Galifianakis,
Jeff Goldblum,
Josh Groban,
Michael Gross,
Bill Hader,
Neil Hamburger,
David Liebe Hart,
Jonah Hill,
Tom Kenny,
The Lonely Island,
Marilyn Manson,
Richard Marx,
John Mayer,
Jack McBrayer,
A.D. Miles,
Dave Navarro,
Bob Odenkirk,
Patton Oswalt,
Brian Posehn,
John C. Reilly,
Paul Reubens,
Daphne Rosen,
Paul Rudd,
Steve R. Schirripa,
Michael Q. Schmidt,
Palmer Scott,
The Shins,
Tom Skerritt,
Ben Stiller,
Peter Stormare,
Scott Thompson,
Danny Trejo,
Fred Willard,
Rainn Wilson,
Tommy Wiseau, and
"Weird Al" Yankovic.
The series' theme music was composed by
Davin Wood, who had also composed the theme music for the earlier
Tom Goes to the Mayor, and for related series
Derek & Simon,
American Misfits,
Stupidface, and
Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule.
Halfway through the broadcasting of the first season,
Cartoon Network picked up
Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! for another season ordering as many as 30 new episodes.
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 a
MySpace 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.
One of Tim and Eric's first live performances incorporating characters from
Awesome Show was
Muscles for Bones, a spoof
telethon seeking bones for Richard Dunn.
This was performed at
Troubadour nightclub in
West Hollywood, California.
Major portions of this live performance were incorporated into season three, episode 8 "
Muscles for Bones".
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
and was titled
Awesome Tour Live 2008.
Speaking with
Vanity Fair in July 2009, Wareheim said that season five (or "Season Cinco") would represent "a very dark side of the
Awesome Show series. I think people are going to be very scared and very disturbed by it."
[Vanity Fair article: "Q&A: Tim and Eric on Child Abuse, Diarrhea, and Yerba-Mate Tea".] He also noted that the pair draw equal humor from the awkwardness of
The Office as they do from the awkwardness of
David Lynch's films.
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 with
fecal-related fake commercials; they plan to "outdo" themselves on season five with a "
diarrhea disease"-based commercial.
The fifth season premiered on February 28, 2010. The series finale aired on May 2, 2010. On May 16, 2010 the spin-off
Check it Out! premiered.
Tim and Eric acquired funding to shoot and air a one hour special that aired on December 5, 2010, called
The 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, entitled
Tim 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.
Following the release of the movie, they may make additional seasons of
Awesome Show.
[Tim and Eric Celebrate Chrimbus and Talk Tour, 'SNL' and a Possible Season 6]
The duo's Abso Lutely Productions
signoff 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 timanderic.com DVD and also on
YouTube.
Featured sketches and recurring characters
Reception
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! has had a wide range of reviews with many differing in opinion. Columnist for
The 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 like
Craigslist, who bring an additional layer of deliberate amateurishness to their skits.”
James Norton from Flak 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 also 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.”
Episodes
Awesome Record, Great Songs!
On May 6, 2008,
Williams Street Records released
Awesome Record, Great Songs!, a compilation of songs from the first two seasons.
Spin-offs
While doing press for the first season of the program, Heidecker and Wareheim told an interviewer that they had aspirations to create a
spinoff featuring
Awesome Show regular Richard Dunn; "It's just him interviewing people like
The Charlie Rose Show. We would love to produce that. No one would ever watch it."
Using characters and skits from Awesome Show, Heidecker and Wareheim (via their Absolutely production company) created an online-only show called
Tim and Eric Nite Live!, originally broadcast on the website
SuperDeluxe.
In July 2008, the
New York Times reported that an
Awesome Show spin-off,
Check It Out!, with Steve Brule, would air on Cartoon Network beginning sometime in 2009.
[New York Times article: "The Bizarre Brains of Nightmare TV".] The show parodies
local newscasts, and as Heidecker briefly described it: "It's like his half-hour to go around town and interview the local
beer-maker or whatever."
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.
reported that the program would begin airing on August 23, 2009;
however, the program did not air on that date, and
LA Weekly reported in September 2009 that
Check It Out! was "forthcoming."
[LA Weekly article: Are Tim and Eric Getting Political?".] The first episode aired May 16, 2010
[Teaser posted by Eric Wareheim. video:[1]"] and the last on June 20, 2010, with a total of six episodes.
In the same July 2008
New York Times article, it was reported that the duo was in the process of developing a surreal
game show series starring
Neil Hamburger, titled
The New Big Ball with Neil Hamburger.
[Hardford Advocate article: "Hamburger Helper: America's 'worst' comedian performs in New Haven and then in Northampton".] Wareheim described it as a mix between "
bizarre Japanese game shows and
The Price Is Right."
In late July 2009, Neil Hamburger posted a blog on
Myspace stating that a
pilot had been filmed, but that Adult Swim was not satisfied and had "pulled the plug on the project."
[MySpace blog post by Neil Hamburger: "The New Big Ball".]
DVD releases
All five seasons and the Chrimbus Special have been released on DVD.
Madman Entertainment has also released Season 1-4 in Australia and New Zealand on Region 4 DVD, it has yet to be announced when Season 5 or the Chrimbus special will be released
| DVD | Release date | Discs | Episodes
|
| Season 1 (2007) | April 22, 2008 | 1 | 10
|
| Season 2 (2007-08) | February 10, 2009 | 1 | 10
|
| Season 3 (2008) | August 4, 2009 | 1 | 10
|
| Season 4 (2009) | September 14, 2010 | 1 | 10
|
| Season 5 (Uncensored) (2010) | May 17, 2011 | 1 | 10
|
| Chrimbus Special (2010) | December 15, 2010 | 1 | 1
|
