Really goofy cult TV
A couple of shows for particularly perverse (not to mention somewhat sophomoric) tastes return for new seasons this weekend.
“Uncle Morty’s Dub Shack,� on ImaginAsian TV, is an aggressively stupid (but sometimes in a smart way) comedy in which four slacker buddies provide loopy looping for cheap and cheesy kung-fu movies. It’s kind of a variant on “Mystery Science Theater 3000,� with interstitial storylines and relentless movie-mocking, only here, they insert, as Woody Allen did back in 1966 in “What’s Up, Tiger Lily?�, absurdist dialogue that quite likely has nothing to do with whatever the godforsaken movie was about in the first place. (E.G.: When two guys are playing with a dog, a third instructs them, “Leave Sarah Jessica Parker alone.�)
In Friday’s second-season premiere, the guys embark on a viral marketing campaign to make the word “Diarrhea� mean “awesome� and take some awfully cheap shots at Katie Couric (also involving diarrhea), who, given that epic monument to hagiography that was her final appearance on “Today� on Wednesday, could probably stand to be taken down a peg or 18. “Uncle Morty’s Dub Shack� airs 9 p.m. Friday PCT (midnight EST) on ImaginAsian TV.
Even by Adult Swim standards, “Tom Goes to the Mayor� is a pretty peculiar animal. It’s about Tom Peters, a beleaguered and clueless community activist who brings his blinkered ideas to a buffoonish mayor who always manages to tweak them in such a way as to ensure the results are even more disastrous than they might’ve been initially.
For example, Tom’s participation in a program providing glass eyes for third-world children winds up with glass eyes for well, just about all involved. Season Two’s premiere on Sunday finds Tom starting a Extraordinarily-Big-Gulp business called “My Big Cups� – Sir Mix-a-Lot is the company spokesman – before embarking on a macaroni-art project.
Again, even by Adult Swim standards, “Tom Goes to the Mayor� has “animation� that makes online flash animation look like Pixar at its most brilliant. Bob Odenkirk, one of the geniuses behind the HBO sketch series “Mr. Show with Bob and David,� is one of the show’s executive producers and appears frequently; other upcoming guests include Sean Hayes, Dave Foley, Gary Busey and Louis Anderson. “Tom� airs Sundays at 12:30 a.m. (which, technically, is, yes, actually Monday morning).
