In 2009 Adult Swim, a cult adult-orientated night time programming block
for Carton Network, broadcasted the
first of the "infomercials", an umbrella term for these short films
which are designed to catch people off-guard late at night, becoming a staple
into the current day. One, the first I am covering Too Many Cooks, even got cross over interest with the mainstream.
Starting in 2001, Adult Swim is an utter obscurity for me,
a curious sidebar of Cartoon Network
that has become its own institution as work for adults who craved something
weird, anti- or post-ironic humour. For every title I am personally interested
in like 12 oz Mouse (2005-7) to
popular titles like Aqua Teen Hunger
Force (2000-2015), they have however shown the dangers of post-irony when
they were bitten by Million Dollar
Extreme Presents World Peace (2016), which was created by a comedy troupe revealed
to be alt-right in politics and before the show's cancellation had caused
enough outrage in Adult Swim to have
people wanting to leave.
The infomercials I've covering
here, thankfully, do run a gamut instead of innovative, creative and proudly
weird to the point the ghosts of the surrealist movement would be delighted
with these, particularly the first...
Too Many Cooks (2014)
Director: Casper Kelly
Screenplay: Casper Kelly
The "infomercials" are
named after the concept of paid commercials, a concept that on public access
television in the United States could entitle any strange broadcast that abruptly
appears at late night, something which Adult
Swim ran with through these shorts produced by various little groups and
released annually. Ironically the most well known of these Too Many Cooks isn't really a strange broadcast like an advert, but
instead a satire on the engorged and mad spider's web of American television
that gets weirder and weirder as it continues.
Too Many Cooks is effectively depicting the era when The Flintstones abruptly introduced an
alien only Fred Flintstone could only see in a later series, something The Simpsons mocked in an episode in
the day, or when medical drama St.
Elsewhere (1982-1988) ended entirely by being all revealed to be the dream
of an autistic child, playing merry hell if you believe in the theories as
characters from Homicide: Life on the
Street (1993-9) crossed over, and then proceeded to appear in the likes of The X-Files and Law & Order. The idea is an opening credits of a drippy and
lame looking American sitcom...only for the cast credits to get increasingly
longer as the cast keeps expanding and expanding, even throwing in actual cooks
in for the jokes. What happens has to be spoilt to explain, that this will
develop into entirely different genres including a cop show and an animated G.I. Joe parody.
I've already mentioned examples
in the previous paragraphs, but before the Golden Age of Modern Television, TV
had hits but also producers trying to sustain shows to the point a term
"jumping the shark" were created by literally having a Happy Days character called the Fonz
leaping a shark on jet skis. Suffice the say that, in among the show that never
begins eventually even having a cat puppet named Snarf who can fire rainbows
out of his hands appear, a serial killer picking off cast members is not the
oddest thing in the entire short. The killer is arguably the weakest joke as
his is just there for shock value, for sick amusement and startling the viewer
with the gore and cannibalism, but Too
Many Cooks doesn't conclude on him and keeps going more for a greater
reward. The program does begin as mere mockery, an ever unending opening
credits of cast who get their names onscreen and wink to the camera, the short
revealing its hand slowly with literal chefs or the nubile young woman who
appears permanently topless, close to when Not
Another Teen Movie (2001), which parodied the late nineties and early 2000s
sex comedies, had a European foreign exchange student character who just
wandered around completely naked.
The jokes do get weirder as
already mentioned, and they riff on actual programming in American television
history, as even the aforementioned Snarf is not that broad a joke when ALF (1986-1990) exists, a show that was
popular in the eighties and was about a cat eating alien living with a human
family, made even more weirder as in 2001 the titular puppet even got his own
talk show that tanked after seven episodes. The tangents into other genres and
even animation is abrupt, but genre shifts could happen in the real life work
the short is parodying, and the short to its credit is immaculately produced,
so even that continuous theme song changes the tone for each change on a dime.
Adult Swim also laces its premise
with quirky touches like Danish filmmaker Lars
von Trier's cameo as a pie or when credit texts and cast change places. The
best joke for me is when the Too Many
Cooks theme becomes a contagious disease, and the short does even get a
apocalyptic vibe as it becomes almost a hellscape its cast cannot escape,
something which is probably been reduced as a joke as the internet has used it
way too many times in parodies, but is acceptable here as there are so many
bizarre moments of note crammed into this short's length.. Certainly, for a
short I was ambivalent about originally, it has grown on me just for the
ambition.
Abstract Spectrum: Surreal/Weird
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None):
None
Joe Pera Talks You to Sleep (2016)
Director: Kieran O'Hare
Screenplay: Joe Pera
Cast: Joe Pera
Out of the four infomercials I
have watched, this was such a surprise as whilst there are dark moments of
humour (and one answer phone message being stopped) this is an abruptly mellow
and pleasant short. There are no shocks, no twists, no mockery of the titular Joe Pera, just a persona of the comedian
who comes off as Mr. Rogers if he was
permanently sedate.
The character got a series from 2018
on Adult Swim, so details here
suggest there's a bit of a joke about this character being a little dull, a
piano teacher with a really quiet slow voice helping you to sleep. Pera however also comes off as a sweet
figure in character, contemplating a justification for Stephen Hawkins to commit infidelity on his wife, in lieu of his
scientific theories on the infinite nature of the universe, only to change to
contemplating how the same theories question why he should've betrayed the one
woman who loved him too. Between this and his views of baseball being therapeutic,
it's a nice counter to the other shorts I have seen and offers that, in
reference to the controversy with Million
Dollar Extreme, it shows that Adult
Swim can have different sides, providing a nice warm mug of (charmingly
messy) animation providing the twist of a complete lack of twist.
Abstract Spectrum: Sedate
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None):
None
Broomshakalaka (2013)
Directors: Dan Kwan and Daniel Scheinert
Screenplay: Justin Becker and Steve Clemmons
Cast: Michael McCafferty as Denny; Randall Park as Mark; Jean
Villepique as Eileen; Ava Bianchi as Jenny
Broomshakalaka is playing up to the infomercial format, in which
the titular object is a broom equivalent of a Swiss Army Knife, breaking
physical reality by having anything from a blender blade to a tattoo removal
laser in its numerous buttoned options. Obviously, it goes amiss in the three
person cast, the seller and two bemused spectators, as Adult Swim can get away with gore and many of the attachments are
sharp and cumbersome to use on the Broomshakalaka.
Where the infomercial improves is
when these shorts have a habit of being usually over ten minutes, one of their
blessings as that time scale allows a one note gag to change drastically into
something more esoteric and unpredictable. In this case, apparently, sells of
the Broomshakalaka can resurrect the dead, which is unexpected as the punch
line and goes to show these Adult Swim
productions have a very good habit of undermining expectations for more
idiosyncratic jokes. The cast (especially Randall
Park as the rational man going
through an existential crisis as this all transpires) deliver the material as
deadpan and seriously as need be, gamely performing and helping the joke.
Abstract Spectrum: Weird
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
Alpha Chow (2014)
Director: Dave Green
Screenplay: Justin Becker and
Steve Clemmons
Cast: Alan Ritchson as Kent Ross;
Curt Neill as Brian; Justin J. Randall as Alphie
With that in mind, the last to be
covered is the weakest, just because at only six minutes, an ad for body
building health diet for canines that only gets past the initial joke and
little else. The result is a dog related infomercial with roided up humanoid
dogs that even includes a costume furries would be proud of. It is funny when
man's best friend desires humanity to roll over now, actor Alan Ritchson as the stereotypical health nut body building host
perfect, and it's a very weird combination of The Island of Dr. Moreau with Planet
of the Apes by way of a format that is idiosyncratic to tell the tale with.
It has darker layers too; the poor guest who realises what he is involved with
slowly even catching in earshot that the diet is based on 1930s research,
suggesting a really twisted reference to Fascist ideas.
If anything, Alpha Chow could've become a longer product. That its only six
minutes, when the others escalate to weirder levels, is a detriment to it. It is
nonetheless fun and a nice way to end this review. All four of them together definitely
show the best in one of Adult Swim's
most well regarded trademarks fully.
Abstract Spectrum: Weird
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None):
None
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