Some comedians are just strange. When two comedians run on stage dressed in skin coloured spandex, with two massive faux testicals hanging low, singing a song about diarrhea, you can’t help but think this. You also start wondering, “what would a dinner conversation be like with Tim and Eric?” and “what drugs were they on when they came up with this stuff… Can I have some?”.
As someone who loves his late night dose of Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and has seen plenty of live clips of the duo performing, I daresay I knew what to expect when heading to their second Sydney show last week. However, there was a factor to their performance I didn’t take into account: its length.
An episode of Awesome Show is about 10 minutes, and YouTube clips are much shorter than this. The live version takes what would normally comprise an episode or two of Awesome Show and extends it into an hour and a half or so of their famously bizarre sketches, spread out by celebrity guest appearances courtesy of a projector. And it’s here that it all made sense to me: Tim and Eric are at their best when interacting with others. John C Reilly’s Steve Brule for instance, who made a video especially for Austria… I mean Australia, is one of the best characters on their show, and his cameo was probably the highlight of the night. Most of the other videos would have been familiar with the crowd but still saw some of the biggest laughs.
Though the skits had their moments and the crowd had a smile on their face from start to finish, I personally was quite relieved to see it come to an end. Tim and Eric were definitely meant to be enjoyed in small doses. The characters they create and interact with are hilarious in their best moments, and awkward and draining at their worst. Definitely a show made for the fans, because even for a fan like myself it wasn’t an easy viewing. But as I said, I definitely knew what I was in for and can’t complain: a duo who have come to represent the late night, pot smoking, popcorn sucking culture of North America popped down to Australia and gave us a taste of their medicine. It’s just a bit salty.
DJ Dougg Pound opened up proceedings earlier in the night with a piss take of the DJ culture. Kept at a minimum, this was a great way to start the night, and pretty hilarious – though, again, the joke ran thin by the end of the set.
