'Tim & Eric's Bedtime Stories': More Nightmares Than Sweet Dreams
ARUN RATH, HOST:
If you're not familiar with the comedy of Tim and Eric - that's Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim - well, it's pretty hard to describe. They alternate between deadpan and total Dada-esque absurdity. They like to focus on the existential nausea of everyday interactions and take a sledgehammer to consumer culture. Their latest series is called "Tim And Eric's Bedtime Stories." They're short, extremely disturbing vignettes in the style of the twilight zone. It premieres this Thursday on Adult Swim. And Tim and Eric join me right here at NPR West. Gentlemen, welcome.
TIM HEIDECKER: Thank you.
ERIC WAREHEIM: Thanks for having us.
RATH: I am so delighted with your success because I've been a fan since "Tom Goes To The Mayor" - since your first Adult Swim show. But at the same time, I'm shocked at your success.
HEIDECKER: What success?
WAREHEIM: Yeah.
(LAUGHTER)
RATH: Well, you've had a bunch of series now. You've done commercial work. You're getting to do kind of like the stuff you want, right?
WAREHEIM: Yeah, I mean, just this year we celebrated our 20th anniversary of friendship.
HEIDECKER: Aww.
WAREHEIM: And I was looking at some old videos of stuff that we did in college when we first met. And it's almost identical to what we're doing right now -
(LAUGHTER)
WAREHEIM: - Movies and commercials.
HEIDECKER: It's definitely not mainstream. But luckily there's places like Adult Swim and the Internet now where you can kind of have your own niche. And we're not really looking to appeal to a large swath of people, you know.
(LAUGHTER)
RATH: And that's how "Tom Goes To The Mayor" started, right? You did that on the web first?
WAREHEIM: Yeah, we did it at home. We didn't have enough money or the skills to actually make a live-action TV show. So we just - Tim had this idea to make this sort of filtered cartoon with our voices.
HEIDECKER: We tried to make a cartoon and circumvent the actual cartoonists.
(LAUGHTER)
RATH: How did you get this bizarre thing on the air?
HEIDECKER: We sort of thought well, why don't we send our tapes to the people we like and see what they think we should do. And we sent one to Bob Odenkirk from "Mr. Show" and "Breaking Bad" now. To get his attention, we included an invoice for the DVD that we sent him.
RATH: (Laughter) You sent him a bill with it?
WAREHEIM: It was an unsolicited package. And we put our own headshots in there. And we charged him like $150 for the whole thing.
(LAUGHTER)
HEIDECKER: So we expect to receive this. He called me and was like who are you? What is this? This - I like this. And that sort of just opened the door.
RATH: You've moved on from that to another Adult Swim show - "Tim And Eric's Awesome Show, Great Job."
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TIM AND ERIC AWESOME SHOW, GREAT JOB")
RATH: A lot of the humor in that is from the low-tech, the bad editing and these moments of just delicious awkwardness.
WAREHEIM: Basically mimicking what we love back in Philly, which is people on cable access - people that almost shouldn't be on camera, you know, that had that true awkwardness.
HEIDECKER: Yeah - tried to create the authenticity that makes you feel like maybe this really is one of those, you know, local car commercials or something.
RATH: This is from "The Universe." You two are playing scientists in a kind of like Discovery Channel public broadcast.
HEIDECKER: Kind of a rip-off the original Carl Sagan "Cosmos."
WAREHEIM: Yeah, black sweaters.
RATH: Mmhmm.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "THE UNIVERSE")
HEIDECKER: (As Tim) When I was a child, there was thought to be nine planets. But there are now 90 planets.
WAREHEIM: (As Eric) You know, the ultimate fate of the universe is so dark and mysterious that it generates butterflies in my stomach. And that goes to tickles in my spine. And that creates goose pimples. And then that penetrates my mind and then the whole Big Bang explosion. (Making exploding noises).
(LAUGHTER)
HEIDECKER: Yeah, what I heard listening to that in my own voice was how close I was to losing it - to cracking up in the delivery of that. I'm trying to make Eric laugh and the cameraman laugh. And he's trying to make me laugh when he's on camera. And that's always at the heart of everything we do. And that's really the end of the conversation.
RATH: I'm talking with Tim Heidecker in Eric Wareheim, the that minds behind "Tim And Eric Awesome Show, Great Job" and now "Tim And Eric's Bedtime Stories," which premieres this Thursday on Adult Swim. So let's talk about the new show, "Tim And Eric's Bedtime Stories." Give me the Hollywood pitch.
HEIDECKER: We wanted to tell a little short stories that have a darker edge - kind of a nightmarish quality to them - but still funny and absurd and sort of go the opposite direction of the lo-fi aesthetic that we've kind of established and make something that looks pretty and big-budget looking.
RATH: Let's get a little taste of that. This is from the first episode, where you two are playing neighbors who are meeting for the first time. It turns dark.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, "TIM AND ERIC'S BEDTIME STORIES")
HEIDECKER: (As Tim) I'll tell you what would make you a big hit with the dudes - is get some key lime pie a la Mode. I'm talking about ice cream on the side.
WAREHEIM: (As Eric) Right.
HEIDECKER: (As Tim) And you have got to have a bite of my homemade ziti. I'm just going to warm 'er up. She's been in the freeze. So why don't you come by around eight o'clock, alright?
WAREHEIM: (As Eric) I actually have plans with the wife and kids so - but a rain check for sure.
HEIDECKER: (As Tim) Alright, sound good. See you at eight.
WAREHEIM: (Eric) No actually, I'm not going to come over tonight because I'm going to spend some time with the kids.
HEIDECKER: (As Eric) I'll see you at eight o'clock.
RATH: So your - Eric, your character does not meet up with him.
WAREHEIM: Yeah. Yeah.
RATH: And things turn much darker from there.
WAREHEIM: Yeah. After listening to that, I feel like 90 percent of my interactions with other humans are like that.
(LAUGHTER)
WAREHEIM: You know, like, I feel like...
HEIDECKER: Did you hear what I was saying?
WAREHEIM: Yeah. I feel like most of life is a nightmare, you know?
(LAUGHTER)
WAREHEIM: You have a couple friends and a couple beautiful moments. But everything else in this show kind of embraces those moments of like I cannot believe that this is really happening, you know.
RATH: Now, I've only seen the first two episodes. But this kind of feels like it's just dark.
HEIDECKER: Yeah. I mean, we're trying to get back to that really that a lot of entertainment is very passive and it's very sort of something you could have on in the background or that's sort of just fine. And we're trying to do something that's going to shake things up a little bit.
RATH: What's it going to mean if your style of humor becomes really mainstream?
WAREHEIM: The end times.
(LAUGHTER)
HEIDECKER: That there's going to be something else that comes along that makes it feel really lame.
WAREHEIM: I'm really hoping for this new generation of comedy that's just going to blow us away. The idea of laughing is over. And that's where "Bedtime Stories" comes in.
HEIDECKER: All comedy - yeah - all comedy, you know, Louis C.K. and you know, we're all like - we're tired of trying to make people laugh with our humor. We want to make people cry.
WAREHEIM: Yeah.
RATH: That's Eric Wareheim along with Tim Heidecker. They are Tim and Eric. And "Tim And Eric's Bedtime Stories" premieres this Thursday on Adult Swim. Gentlemen, thanks. It's been a blast speaking with you.
HEIDECKER: Thank you.
WAREHEIM: Thanks for having us. Awesome.
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