I’m not surprised that the most famous person to come out of my hometown is the Eric half of the infamous comedy duo Tim and Eric. Honestly, I don’t remember who won the “Most Likely to Succeed” award for Eric’s high school class, which was one year above mine, but it was probably some smarty-pants with straight A’s who burnt themselves out in college and was too socially maladjusted to do anything but become an accounts receivable clerk. Knowing what I know now, I see that Eric possessed many of the attributes correlated with future success: He was smart, creative, ambitious, well-liked but not crazily popular, quite tall, and, according to my best friend AS, a phenomenal kisser. He was also opportunistic. I remember him driving me and a group of 6 other girls to a Sonic Youth concert in his station wagon and charging us $5 a piece. Yep, he is definitely showbiz material.
Over the past year, I’ve watched bits of the ‘Tim and Eric Awesome Show’ on YouTube and signed up for their mailing list, which last month alerted me that the nationwide ‘Tim and Eric Awesome Tour’ was coming to TT the Bear’s Place, a music club in Cambridge. I managed to buy tickets for last night’s show before it sold out in, like, a day.
While squeezing through the packed crowd in TTs to secure a good spot to stand, I saw that the bulk of the spectators were in college, dressed like punky hipsters, and expressing fresh-faced fanaticism about Tim and Eric. Mr. Pinault and I were visibly on the higher end of the age range and were dressed like old office-working dorks. I didn’t get it: This was comedy, not a rock and roll music show featuring a band of dirty noisy primitive teenagers. Are all the other 30-year olds safely tucked in their condos watching South Park on their LCD televisions while the college kids lap up the gritty amusement on the streets? Is humor really generational?
But I understand why Tim and Eric’s unique brand of comedy is popular with the younger set: Tim and Eric are not political but exude subversion; they appear to be simultaneously trying very hard and not trying at all; they seamlessly meld animation, music, and multimedia effects in their act; and they do funny dances. As people get older, they become conditioned by mainstream humor to always look for the punchline. They don’t want uncomfortable, edgy, open-ended humor anymore than they want to leave the house on a cold day without their hat and gloves. Kids today, they don’t seem to mind the cold. And they want to rebel against society’s conventions by laughing at stuff that no one over the age 25 finds funny — like Tim and Eric.
Personally, I find the majority of Tim and Eric’s sketches to be funny, maybe because I got a trickle-down taste of Eric’s bizarre sense of humor as a teenager. First and foremost, no one can play out a scene of intentional awkwardness like Tim and Eric. Their scatological and sexual sketches are so puerile as to be actually quite sophisticated. Their parodies of commercials and products are also spot-on, and range from subtle (discussing how much they love Shrek) to over-the-top (Child clowns, B’owl). And Tim and Eric are masterful at beating a dead horse until it comes back to life.
After the show ended, I considered sticking around to see if Tim and Eric emerged from the backstage area. If I approached Eric and said “Hey, I’m from Audubon. I went to Methacton,” I’m positive he would have remembered me. Eric probably would have said my name without me saying it, maybe ask what I was doing in Cambridge, maybe exchange a bit of hometown news. My worst fear, and the reason why I left without trying to see him, was that he would have brushed me off by saying “Hey, yeah, thanks for coming out! Buy a t-shirt!” and then walk away to jabber with his legion of fanboys. After all, he is now a very, very cool kid.
