Rent It! Mr. Show

One of my million and one annoying (but endearing, right?) habits is that even in company of friends or in the middle of conversation, I will, for no apparent reason whatsoever, start laughing out of the blue. It's a problem and its rude and I've tried to explain myself to people, but I can't help it. For example, a few years ago I was in a museum with this absolutely lovely girl, who really should have had my complete attention at the time. As it was, my habit for zoning out with horrible timing combined with spontaneous laughter got the best of me once again.

We were looking at a painting by Edward Hopper. I don't remember what it was, but it wasn't Nighthawks, but since it's the work of his most people are familiar with my mind went there. Then, I went on a further tangent to the "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"which is such an artistic horror show that it makes me angry just thinking about it. The third tangent went to comedian Jerry Minor's commentary on a Mr. Show DVD, who was doing a surreal impression of Billy Dee Williams at the time. For some reason he referenced "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" and said he had a version of that painting that replaced Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, and James Dean with Notorious B.I.G., Tupac Shakur, and Martin Luther King Jr. To be reminded of that sequence, especially in the context of a Billy Dee Williams impression was to much and I just started laughing. Of course, there was no way I could explain this so I just had to eat it and look strange. The point is that it's quite a common thing for me and in the last few years the final tangent that makes me break out in spontaneous laughter more often than not is Mr. Show.

Since wikipedia does such a fine job of summarizing the show here's wikipedia's entry on Mr. Show What I love about this series is that it slowly and subtly creates this absurd, bizarre alternate universe, which is just like ours but titled just slightly. The comedy is so anti-convention, mainstream mocking, and irreverent, that it feeds my inner-contrarian. The longer you stay in this universe the more accustomed you get to the humour. It's definitely vulgar at times and like anything else worthwhile, its often challenging. The sketches topics range from the banal ( "The Burgundy Loaf" restaurant who's chairs also function as toilets) to attacking of timeless institutions. Even though the series ended in 1998 it's observations are often foreshadowing such as the white soul duo 3 Times One Minus One and the particular clip I'm going to post here, dealing with blowing up the moon, which even in 1997 can accurately lampoon modern day attitudes.



All four seasons are available on DVD. They are also shown on Comedy Central, but watching it watered down with commercial breaks is almost as atrocious as "Boulevard of Broken Dreams"

Tags: Rent It, TV