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Series / Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!

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Great job!

"The nightmare version of television."
Tim & Eric themselves, in the matter of their show.

Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! (2007-2010) is a 15-minute long [adult swim] original centered around comedians and video artists Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, the creators of the absurdist cartoon Tom Goes to the Mayor. Known for often skirting the border between comedy and gratuitous absurdity (or worse), and also for recruiting extremely obscure, untalented, and non-telegenic performers as recurring cast members, such as James Quall, David Liebe Hart, Palmer Scott, and the late Richard Dunn, and sticking them alongside frequent cameos from well-known comedy actors. All of this comes together as what low-budget local public-access television from The '80s and Nineties would look like if it was made on mind-altering substances.

As of 2010, the show's run has ended, replaced by the Spin-Off, Check It Out! With Dr. Steve Brule.


Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! provides examples of:

  • AcCENT upon the Wrong SylLABle: In "Green Machine" Eric pronounces "condo" as something like "cuhn-DOH".
  • Accidental Misnaming: In "Universe", Richard Dunn credits David Liebe Hart as "David Lieber Mintz", requiring the introductory caption to be hastily changed
  • Amusing Injuries: All over the place.
    • "Road trip!" *Tim runs over Eric with a van*
    • The "bloody nips" song.
  • Arc Number: 5. Five seasons, Channel 5 news, everything's run by a company called "Cinco". Even the fifth season of the show was promoted as "Season Cinco".
  • Artistic License – Chess: Briefly parodied in the series 5 episode 3: Re-Animated, where the layout of pieces and the 'checkmate' is clearly wrong.
  • Award-Bait Song: Both Little Dancing Man and Little Danson Man feature examples.
  • Baby-Doll Baby: Played with for the commercial for the Cinco Boy. A mother loses her child and is told about a life-size replica that gets replacement models at it grows older. Deconstructed as the mother looks rather disappointed in the obviously fake replacement later in the episode when the spokesperson checks in on her. He's still pleased with the results.
  • Beauty Inversion: Taken up a notch: in addition to making well-known celebrities uglier (like John C. Reilly as Dr. Steve Brule), they also take their average-to-below-average-looking cast and do the same.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Brothers Cinco. Terry is sent to jail for the murder of his wife, and it turns out the only reason Mark made him use the E-Trial software was just so he could take over the company. Worse, Mark learned Terry was guilty because Terry and his wife planned the death just so Terry could take over. However, once they admit what they've done, they begin exchanging ideas for new inventions and make up.
  • Black Eyes of Evil: Often used for nightmare sequences.
    • The giggling man from Crows who shouts, "The Dark Man is coming! The Dark Man is coming!"
  • Black Comedy: Shows up constantly if you look for it, almost too numerous to mention. One of the truly great redeeming qualities of the show despite the absurdist/grossout moments.
    • Jan & Wayne Skylar's rocky marriage.
    • "All the food is poison!"
    • Characters having dark meltdowns. "The New You", "Shopping Indoors", etc.
    • The neglectful parenting revealed through the songs of Casey Tatum. ("A Song For Mommy" is especially tragic and dark.)
    • Everything about the concept of child clowns. Especially the instructional video.
    • Druwing on Drawing. Druwing digitally manipulates photos of corpses.
    • "My New Pep-Pep" and "Cinco Boy Synthetic Child".
    • The "Weekend Wear" skit involves a "Beautify" option that changes the man's entire face with different sets of eyes, nose, and mouth. Essentially a jab at self-consciousness and excessive makeup.
    • "Trick My Trick" involves the Great Gregory (who first appeared in an episode of Tom Goes to the Mayor, portrayed by Bob Odenkirk) reduced to having his magic entirely depend on CGI. He suffers from arthritis and loses his train of thought throughout the sketch.
    • Dr. Jimes Tooper in "Universe" and his monologue about looking for raccoons. "I do this every night with your son."
    • The Kid Break song "Boogs". The lyrics are about a kid who eats boogers for sustenance because their father has no job and doesn't apply for food stamps.
    • "...put my daughter's name Susan, 69."
    • The i-Jammer, a toy that triggers seizures in children.
    • "I'm Gonna Be a Mommy", a catchy song about an unplanned pregnancy.
  • Bloody Hilarious: The "Tairy Greene Machine" sketch starts with Eric walking into the room with his hands bleeding profusely. He applies gauze, but to no effect - as the sketch goes on, the amount of blood-soaked gauze on his hands and the size of the blood puddle on the table increase, to the point that at the end he dies from the blood loss while attempting to use a mop with boxing glove-sized mounds on his hands.
  • Breakout Character: Steve Brule, as seen above.
  • Brown Note:
    • The Cinco i-Jammer's "i-Jammer" and "e-Bumper" settings emit tones that apparently cause seizures.
    • Will Grello involuntarily wets himself when he thinks about his father.
  • Butt-Monkey: Tim, roughly — notice in most sketches he ends up on the short end of the stick.
    • In some episodes, Eric trades places with Tim: most noticeably in the episode Road Trip. In Season 2's "Vacation", Tim turns Eric's disregard for their creative partnership back onto Eric by the end.
  • Candid Camera Prank: Played with in multiple ways...
    • Played straight with their prank call sketches.
    • Parodied with Spagett, Whoopsie Daisy, and in a parody of Jackass, the spider web prank sketch.
  • Casanova Wannabe: The Beaver Boys. In the one instance they actually do start getting close to some ladies, they get distracted by shrimp.
  • Cassette Futurism:
    • Puppeteer and Cloudcuckoolander David Liebe Hart holds a giant VHS cassette with a "VHS for sale" sign nearby.
    • Uncle Muscle's Hour sketches feature 1980s and '90s icon "Weird Al" Yankovic, and feel like a warped version of a bad '80s cable access show (such as Stairway to Stardom). The "special effects" look like they were ripped right from old Genie analog editing consoles.
    • Several Cinco products reek of this, including the "Cinco MIDI Organizer" (which organizes your MIDI files by assigning them impractically-long access codes), the Cinco Video Cube Playback System (an equally-impractical distribution method for films that involves plugging a titular cube into a VHS cassette), and "The Internette" — which simulates the internet all on one CD! (you have to see it to believe how deep into this trope it really is)
  • The Cast Show Off: Tim does a lot of singing.
  • Catch-Phrase Spouting Duo: Bullseye! Nice.
  • Christmas Special: The Chrimbus Special.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Virtually the entire cast...
    • The titular duo, depending on the occasion.
    • David Liebe Hart, a ventriloquist who obsesses over aliens and good Christian values (despite foraying into the occasional dirty joke or Bawdy Song).
    • Pierre, a Depraved Kids' Show Host who obsesses over kids' dads, barbequed meats, and the internet.
    • Richard Dunn, who's constantly winging his way through whatever situation he's put into.
    • Robin Williams, in his (simulated) appearance, only speaks gibberish and pisses off the hosts, who kick him out of their flat. He walks away, muttering "asshole..."
  • Commercial Pop-Up: The Snuggler.
  • Comically Missing the Point: Much of the humor is derived from this: especially the Cinco products.
  • Couch Gag: The "Great Job!" is read a different way in each episode's title sequence.
  • Cringe Comedy: A lot, but "Spagett!" might be the very best example.
  • Despair Event Horizon: Subverted in the commercial for Cinco's H'amb, where a man driven to suicide after losing all of his money finds hope again thanks to the titular H'amb, substitute lamb made from ham. And then Double Subverted after hearing the horrible Pun for substitute lobster made from ham, Ham'bster.
  • Drone of Dread: Often, during awkward silences to up the uncomfortable factor.
  • Dysfunction Junction: The entire channel five crew.
    • Jan and Wayne's marriage slowly falls apart as the series goes along due to Jan's implied affair with Steve Brule.
    • Steve himself is an extremely awkward childish person
    • Casey is obviously a parody of severely mentally challenged kids who have amazing talents.
    • Tim and Eric themselves. Tim is starved for attention and even his own parents favor Eric over him, and Tim pushes Eric down the stairs in the "Anniversary" episode. By the Chrimbus Special, it's apparent that Tim's hate for his partner and self-esteem issues are festering and festering hard.
  • Distant Finale: They did this one prematurely, with a fake 50th Anniversary episode.
  • Escalating War: Any sketch involving Tim and Eric in competition with each other.
  • "Everybody Dies" Ending: In the series finale, "Man Milk", Tim and Eric send out their milk to every reoccurring character in the series, but it turns out they forgot to pasteurize the milk beforehand.
  • Exactly What It Says on the Tin: The Tairy Greene Machine, which contains every work Tairy has ever done, collaborated on or been vaguely associated with - this includes a film about Ted Danson being reduced to six inches tall, because it happens to have a name (Little Danson Man) similar to a Tairy Greene film (Little Dancing Man).
  • Extreme Doormat: In "Casey Reanimated"'s "No. 1 Co-Worker" sketches, the titular co-workers allow Tim and Eric to urinate all over their office spaces, including in the trash can, on the carpet, in the office supplies, and on the co-workers themselves.
  • Eye Scream: In "Crows", Tim and Eric get their eyes pecked out by crows.
  • Failed Attempt at Scaring: The subjects of Spagett's "spookings" tend to react with mild confusion or annoyance rather than fright.
  • Flanderization: Casey seems to grow more sickly and physically repulsive as the series progresses. In his first appearance he's somewhat composed and only devolves into sputtering and gagging when the song begins to skip. In later appearances he's visibly sweating and rash ridden and far more prone to aggressive outbursts of sneezing, violent gagging, and occasionally vomiting.
  • Genre Throwback: Most sketches look like something out of the 80's or 90's, the era of low-budget, So Bad, It's Good television.
  • G-Rated Drug: The i-Jammer and eBumper, marketed towards children but appearing to be a seizure trigger/hallucinogen.
  • Grossout Show
  • I Am the Trope: "I am The Snuggler."
  • Inherently Funny Words: The script frequently uses "pep-pep" in place of "dad" or "granddad."
  • In Name Only: Afternoon Review (The Daytime Show For Women) and Morning Meditations, which open with the promise of a feminine talk show, then quickly cuts to people doing strange activities before cutting back to the title.
  • Invisibility: "Missing" features invisible dog-possum creatures called rascals.
  • It's A Small Net After All: The Innernette.
  • Kitschy Local Commercial: These are mocked to no end.
  • Large Ham: The Dark Man from "Crows".
  • Laser-Guided Broadcast: Tim and Eric air and star in an advertisement that they intend for Jim Booney, who they really, really badly want to give a free house to.
  • Last-Second Word Swap: Two involving Richard Dunn. The first being Dunn introducing David Liebe-Hart per the teleprompter, but the word Hart is replaced with Mintz instead (which almost makes Liebe-Hart corpse). The second being during his interview with Dave Navarro, where the teleprompter hangs on the word "David" for long enough to suggest that it will be Liebe-Hart again, but is eventually followed by "Navarro".
  • Lightning Can Do Anything: A lightning strike reduces Ted Danson to a few inches tall in Little Danson Man.
  • Live-Action Adaptation: The episode "Pepperoni" was to feature a live version of Tom Goes to the Mayor, but Tim and Eric weren't satisfied with the results. The opening is still in the episode (with Tim making a cameo as Tom near the end), but the full sketch is part of the Season 2 deleted scenes.
  • Made of Plasticine
  • MegaCorp: Cinco produces almost every single product in the faux infomercials.
  • Metaphorgotten: Over and over again in "Universe".
  • The Movie: Tim & Eric's Billion Dollar Movie
  • Mind Screw
  • No Celebrities Were Harmed:
  • Noodle Incident: "Do not send in squirrel bones. It's complicated."
  • No-Sell: The targets of Spagett's "spookings" barely react.
  • Numerological Motif: All products come from a company called Cinco and all programming airs on Channel 5.
  • Once per Episode:
    • A frame will be frozen, and "Great Job!" will be scrawled on it.
    • An ad for a Cinco brand product which is inevitably overdesigned, pointless, and most likely highly dangerous to use.
  • One-Letter Name: In the episodes "Origins", before being renamed, Tim was called 'Q'.
  • One-Steve Limit: Averted. Three other people are named Tim in 'Origins'.
  • Oscar Bait: Tairy Greene's Little Dancing Man.
  • Overdrawn at the Blood Bank: Eric in "Greene Machine".
  • Parody Commercial
  • Parody Episode:
    • The episode "Jim and Derrick" is basically one giant mockery of MTV circa the late '90's and early '00's.
    • The episode "Comedy" is a spoof of Saturday Night Live.
  • Perverse Puppet: David Liebe Hart's puppets aren't directly malevolent, but they're definitely only there to be creepy. There was also an episode in which the doll version of Tim turned evil.
  • Pizza Boy Special Delivery: Subverted in the Pizza Boy sketch with David Cross, which turns out to be a PSA for abstinence.
  • Punny Name: Many of the names of the people from the commercials have ridiculous and quite possibly offensive names like Bradley Michael Fahrtz for the Poop Tube, Dick Dousche and his eponymous Cleaning Rag, and Diah Riah-Jones for D-Pants (which is itself a Punny Name).
  • Primal Scene: Implied in Channel 5 Kid Break song I Wear My Dad's Dirty Socks.
  • Retraux: The whole show, but The Uncle Muscles Hour especially.
  • Satire/Parody/Pastiche: This show does all three. Some examples include...
    • Satire: A good majority of the effects, commercials, and character satirize corporate advertising (such as any number of the Cinco products) and bad pop culture (the episodes "Comedy" and "Jim and Derrick").
    • Parody: Brules Rules parodies advice columns, Quall of Duty parodies cop shows, Crows parodies horror films (with Homage to Birdemic).
    • Pastiche: "Pusswhip Banggang" with late 70s rock, both Back To Squall and Road Trip with 80s comedies.
  • Shout-Out: "Space Course Horse to Horse".
  • Similarly Named Works: invoked "Greene Machine" features trailers for the films Little Dancing Man and Little Danson Man.
  • Sketch Comedy
  • Snap Back: Tim has died at least five times. In "Resurrection", David Liebe Hart even comments about how death is not a big deal for Tim. However, things don't always snap back at the end of an episode. Casey remained dead until being reanimated by his brother, but Steve Mahanahan, who died in the same explosion, came back to life with no explanation.
  • So Unfunny, It's Funny:
    • James Quall's entire act tends towards terrible impressions of celebrities and frequent use of the words "spaghetti and meatballs" as punchlines. He also has no sense of comic timing or delivery, and stammers his way through every joke he makes. It's just so terribly unfunny and cringeworthy you can't help but find it hilarious.
    • This is Tim and Eric's M.O. in general. They delight in creating situations that are so bizarre and awkward you can't help but laugh, if you haven't clicked off in disgust already, that is.
  • Special Guest: Jeff Goldblum, Michael Cera, Will Ferrell, Paul "Pee-wee Herman" Reubens, "Weird Al" Yankovic, Tommy Wiseau, The Lonely Island, and Mr. Show's Bob and David, among others.
  • Spell My Name with a "The": "Greene Machine" refers to shows called The Star Trek and The Cheers.
  • Spin-Off: Check It Out! With Dr. Steve Brule. It's exactly what you'd expect from a Tim and Eric spinoff, for better or worse.
  • Spiritual Successor: With its fever dream visual style and Anti-Humor, the show can be seen as the Monty Python's Flying Circus of the 21st century.
  • Stylistic Suck: Considering what the show is already like, imagine how bad any shows within the show are.
  • Surreal Humor
  • Thanatos Gambit: In the narrative episode Brothers Cinco, Terry Cinco and his wife Lynn planned to help him take over the Cinco company by staging her death and then feeding on his brother Mark's sympathy until he gained total control. As a result, Mark goes out of his way to care for his brother, even going as far as developing a foolproof court software, E-Trial, to prove his innocence... until we learn he overheard Terry and Lynn's plans, and it turns out the only reason he made E-Trial was so he could take over the company.
  • Too Much Information: Many, many skits derive their humor from this, particularly anytime when Will Grello (played by Will Forte) reveals disturbed events from his childhood.
  • Toilet Humor: A pair of plastic pants worn under your actual pants to help contain uncontrollable diarrhea — followed later in the same episode by a "Napple" sleep aid product that has a laxative intended to wake you up (indeed, the ad does recommend using the products together). Other sketches had an invention that allowed someone to poop using a toilet while standing the entire time, an adapter to use a urinal to take a shower, and pills that contain chicken embryos that incubate in the user's intestines (thus allowing the user to "lay" eggs in their toilet).
    • Tim and Eric have stated their intention to have every season opener feature a diarrhea related Cinco product.
  • Totally Radical: "Jim and Derrick" is a pitch-perfect parody of MTV's teen-oriented skater reality TV shows such as Viva La Bam.
  • Transplant: The Married News Team and the Cinco Corporation both originated in Tom Goes to the Mayor.
  • Two Decades Behind: As implied with Retraux above, the entire show (even the "Anniversary" episode, which supposedly takes place in 2057) appears to take place in a world that never culturally nor technologically matured past 1995.
  • Vanity Plate: "Jim and Derrick" ends with about six vanity plates for numerous (fake) production companies with inane or nonsensical names, including a parody of their own production company.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Tim and Eric themselves, oh so very much.
  • Watch It Stoned
  • Who Writes This Crap?!: Commonly used, but most often by Eric during the Channel 5 Kid Break raps.
    Eric: *After Tim raps about having bloody nipples* I think I want to quit this band. This is a song about a woman's problem and it's disgusting.
  • You Mean "Xmas": Chrimbus, the "lifetime season of the year" and "the season of getting." You decorate everything in yellow and blue, eat a pound of your hair, and if you keep Chrimbus bush trimmed and wet, Winterman (a large naked person wearing only a vest who lives in a cave) will stuff your Chrimbus bush with your favorite present.

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