fiction is lying.

New shows on adult swim this week are insane.

• Aqua Teen Hunger Force seems to be going on this odd journey with Carl and this new landlord guy, and the food people are nowhere to be found (they got cocooned I think). Carl is lured by the new neighbors, giving the episode the title “Sirens”. Lots of blood and innuendo.
• Tim and Eric erupts into a complete civil war. Steve Brule does a wine tasting. Full-on classic level of blood and puke. Honestly, WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN?
• I gave up the on the Boondocks a couple weeks ago. It was a very disappointing decision to have to make.
• Squidbillies is inhumane, excessive, all over the place, on fire, genuinely unpredictable, and covered in hair. uh, all to save Rusty from dyslexia I think. Lots of blood and burns.
• That Crook’d ‘Sipp was classically southernly uncool, but it’s a pretty interesting pilot with great art that I missed a while back.

All shows this week contain seriously fucking traumatic injuries. Lot of boobs.

Not the best week but certainly an odd theme. I am getting convinced almost completely that they do coordinate the creation of these shows to the small degree necessary for them to share overarching themes.

The Boondocks has become almost a frustratingly dumb show replicating finally in style and writing what it always replicated in visual design: shitty anime. This week was much, much better than the last, but the show is still very shallow. It’s a fun ripoff of the The Mighty Ducks ripping off The Bad News Bears or Slapshot or South Park or something.

Xavier’s not a big thinker this week, but it’s also not as gratuitously gratuitous. Some interesting ideas, but a lot of garbage that some people might accidentally take seriously.

The hook with Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job is that anything is fair game as long as it could possibly be considered funny by anyone. Or maybe it’s an inside joke. Or maybe it’s performance art (complete with everyday people performing in weird ways) blended into video art (complete with shitty vhs effects) and something worked. Steve Brule rules also. This week’s is about dolls but this clip isn’t (pull the timer to :50 to see what I’m saying):

video removed!

And Garth Marenghi was a weird, slight letdown.

Each of the big adultswim.com premieres this week are absurdist explorations of male-only parenthood. They’re so goddamn serious about being retarded that they can only be described at cutting-edge-ridingly hip.

• Garth Marenghi’s main character acquires a baby man-eye that drives him a bit crazy.
• Xavier finds himself in the care of seven babies after he steals them, and then solves the mystery of who stole them before he does a phoenix act.
• Tim and Eric introduce their huge collection of cutting edge children, all conditioned and disciplined to be ready to active achievers in the next generation.
• Boondocks hasn’t been getting along this season (unwatchable again this week), taking itself way the fuck too seriously.
• Check the full Tom Goes to the Mayor episode this week entitled “Glass Eyes” to get an eyeful of retardedly serious nonsense.

Stupid serious is a serious phase of hilarity.

I follow up tomorrow.