Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule

Last night, I got an urgent e-mail from the friend who introduced me to Tim and Eric, saying that Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule was premiering in a few hours, and I didn't even know it existed. I certainly didn't know what to expect, and yet, I think I got it, but that it wasn't exactly what I wanted. Tim and Eric's shows can only really be reviewed in intuitive, mush-mouthed, double-speak, because they don't follow any story or comedy rules at all. For that reason, after a long day of script reading, or after a string of lackluster shows or movies, Tim and Eric is all I can bear to watch.

I'm a big fan of "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!", have watched their online talk show in its entirety, have downloaded special appearances they've made, very nearly went to editor DJ Dougg Pound's garage sale, and have seen their live show. That show's crowd was disturbingly comprised of mostly urban professionals, which I can only assume was due to Tim and Eric's TV show now being littered with famous guest stars, like Will Forte, Jonah Hill, John Mayer, David Cross, Michael Cera, Fred Armisen, Zach Galifianakis, Jeff Goldblum, Patrick Duffy, Tom Skerritt, Ben Stiller, William Sanderson, Karen Black, John C. Reilly, who has played Dr. Steve Brule for years, and many more. I've also started seeing more of Tim and Eric in individual projects, like Tim on "The Sarah Silverman Show" and Eric directing music videos. I don't mind them any way I can get them, but I like them best when they're just Tim and Eric, alone on their own fifteen minute show.

The reason that live show's demographic shocked me is that Tim and Eric's show can't possibly be reaching that sort of person and not my hipster friends from college with whom I used to watch "Tenacious D" and listen to Wesley Willis. The sketch show is mostly cast with a stable of found "talent" that would be the most memorable actors at any public casting call, for exactly the reason they would never get cast. I could wager some are homeless, or were found in passing on the street, but who knows. I assumed DJ Dougg Pound was a random weirdo cousin of theirs until I saw him at the live show and realized he could be the genius behind the whole thing. So now I have no idea if everyone on the show is doing a method character, or if they are what they seem to be. They've got their own language (Pep-Pep, Chippy, spaghett), their own inventions (the "Cinco" lines feel like the hand of producer Bob Oedenkirk, whose "Mr. Show" had a similar, but tamer omnipresent corporation), and their own interests (gross-out, bodily humor lately, but outdated technology is a constant, as are Comic Relief star impersonators and improperly preserved meats). Every few episodes, I find myself entertained purely by trying to figure out how they decided that any of their ideas should be filmed, or what reaction they're looking for. And yet, it always makes perfect sense when one sketch goes on too long, is too stilted, or just makes no sense, and the image shifts to a black and white freeze frame with a sarcastic "Great Job!" stamp. The show doesn't get attention from critics, possibly because Tim and Eric won't explain themselves to prevent destroying the comedic mystery, or because it is hard to write and support an argument for something that can only be judged with the gut, like David Lynch movies (Tim and Eric went through a very big Lynchian phase awhile back that blew my mind), except that it is even tougher with comedy. Plus, at this point, as may be evident from my attempt to explain Tim and Eric, its a deep universe they've built by now; maybe it isn't that easy to join late in the game.

John C. Reilly's Dr. Steve Brule never (well, maybe once) got the "Great Job!" stamp. That he fits right in with their troupe of possibly real, middle-aged-and-up misfits is a testament to what a great actor he is. Unfortunately, I don't think any of Tim and Eric's other characters could entirely carry their own show, so I'm not sure Brule can either, no matter how good John C. Reilly is. The first episode made me laugh a lot and I've already used the term "cat scraps" a few times today, but I'm worried about a lack of their signature unpredictability in a one character show. At the end, I wished they completely switched it up like they did between "Tom Goes to the Mayor" and "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" and made a Dr. Steve Brule sitcom, though they kind of did that with their sketch series with Zach Galifianakis, "Just Three Boys". However, there is the possibility that I am an urban professional just like the crowd I found myself in at the live show, and people working in the film industry get and need what "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" gives. For that reason, the tamer "Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule" may ironically reach wild youths and make them famous. Or, like everything else they do, the new Brule show will just take a few episodes to get loose and then go nuts.