Day: July 27, 2008

The New York Times today profiled Tim and Eric (Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim) in advance of tonight’s season 3 debut of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! on Adult Swim. Don’t know if I’d call it "Nightmare TV," but there certainly is a bizarre aesthetic to their approach to humor — I think their Absolut comedy comrade Zach Galifianakis helped me put them into perspective when he described what he loved about Tim and Eric, and that’s how they tap into their inner children. Essentially, these guys embrace their immature adolescent former selves in an uninhibited way, and that has an appeal, particularly to the Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim viewership of boys and men in their teens and early 20s. When they appeared on FOX’s Talk Show with Spike Feresten, Feresten introduced them as the voice of stoner comedy. That’s selling them a bit short. Not a lot, but a bit. It’s more accurate to put them in with a group of currently successful comedians who rely on acting like big kids, such as John C. Reilly (who collaborates with Tim and Eric) and Will Ferrell (see this weekend’s Step-Brothers in cinemas), as well as the stoner antics of Seth Rogen and Judd Apatow’s crew. Of everyone in this group, Tim and Eric take the most chances. Throwing pizzas and hot dogs into audiences may inspire some...