Fortin' with Will-Season Cinco-Episode 2
Re-Fortin; with Will
Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job is insane, stupid, and ridiculous, which is why it’s so hilarious. Tim and Eric is a live-action comedy sketch on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim featuring comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. Although the show is only about fifteen minutes long it is fast paced and action packed.
Currently airing is Season Cinco, a play on words referring to the manufacturer of their fictional products advertised on the show. It is, as well, the fifth and supposedly final season of the series. Throughout all five seasons the show has featured guests such as Will Ferrell, Will Forte, John C. Reilly, Weird Al Yankovic, Michael Ian Black, Patrick Duffy, Rainn Wilson, Zach Galifianakis, Michael Cera, Jonah Hill, Patton Oswalt, David Cross, and Jeff Goldblum.
Aside from an impressive roster of special guests the show’s main strength is in its editing and comedic timing. Sketches often end in a humorous freeze frame or in the rapid repetition of the final sound. Although the sketches are often awkward due to confrontation between characters ending in such a manner encourages the viewer to laugh and emphasizes the ridiculousness of the sketch. Throughout the series sketches have consisted of a number of goofy, slap-stick scenarios including old people dancing and a middle-aged man teaching kids how to make forts while also dealing with past issues with his own father.
A popular sketch in Season Cinco is “Fortin’ with Will” featuring Will Forte. The sketch opens and presents itself as an average daytime television talk show taking place in the 90s, as many of their sketches do. Will Forte, who plays Will Grello, is sitting on a couch surrounded by children, which he asserts none of them are his own. As he begins to talk about the proper construction of couch forts he begins to scream in what seems to be an involuntary impersonation of his apparently verbally abusive father. As this happens the camera pans over the kids looking awkward and nervous. Finally the camera cuts to Will’s pants as they are becoming wet. To conclude the sketch he says, “Excuse me, when I think about my father, sometimes there is an involuntary release of urine. I wet my pants. I’m gonna need a new pair of pants.”
While this is immature and mindless humor that has been done a thousand times before the strength of this particular version is in the presentation. A consistent theme throughout the five seasons of Tim and Eric seems to be the mockery of television, especially daytime television. Anyone who has watched a bit of daytime T.V. would recognize Tim and Eric’s ads for Cinco products as satirical representations of daytime infomercials.
Throughout the previous four seasons Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job has gone through a number of progressions. However, Season Cinco is an excellent culmination of all the best parts of the previous seasons. Tim and Eric will keep viewers guessing about special guest and sketch style until the very end of their run. With all these surprises in store, it will be the viewers saying, “I’m gonna need a new pair of pants.”
