The Idiot Box (TV series)

Last updated
The Idiot Box
Idiotbox1.jpg
The opening credits of The Idiot Box
Created by Alex Winter
Tom Stern
Tim Burns
StarringAlex Winter
Tom Stern
Country of originUnited States
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons1
No. of episodes6
Production
Running time30 minutes
Original release
Network MTV
Release1991 (1991)

The Idiot Box was an American sketch comedy television series created by Alex Winter, Tom Stern and Tim Burns, which ran on MTV in 1991. [1]

Contents

After the success of Bill & Ted, MTV hired Winter, Stern, and Burns to develop a half-hour sketch comedy show for the network. [2] As the channel was still strictly music-oriented at the time, The Idiot Box was mainly a showcase for popular music videos, but with a series of sketches, fake commercials, and parodies shown in between. Therefore, although an episode ran 30 minutes, there were only 7 to 11 minutes' worth of sketches.

Inspired heavily by the likes of Mad magazine and Monty Python's Flying Circus , the humor in The Idiot Box was rooted in absurdity and violent slapstick, often in the form of television and movie parodies and commercials for fake television shows (such as "Mumford the Yodeling Mutt" and "Who's A Total Idiot? with Tony Danza"). Each episode would end with a recap by the Max Headroom-esque VOTAR, "the future of television announcing", as he would criticize each of the sketches in the episode and occasionally quote lines from new wave songs.

Winter, Stern, and Burns chose to cease production after six episodes and instead accepted a high-paying deal with 20th Century Fox to write and direct their own feature film. [3] The result was 1993's Freaked , which featured the same brand of humor as The Idiot Box.

Recurring characters and sketches

Eddie the Flying Gimp from Outer Space
A parody of 1950s sitcoms, Eddie the Flying Gimp (Winter) is, as the name would imply, a flying gimp who came down from outer space to live with the relatively normal Knudsen family (whose patriarch was played by John Hawkes) and help solve their everyday problems, including murdering the school bully and unsuccessfully teaching the Knudsen boy to fly. Eddie is referenced in the opening line of Freaked , where a newscaster announces "the flying gimp has been destroyed" and that people can safely return to their homes.
Lockjaw
A parody of 1970s cop shows, Lockjaw (Stern) is a tough street cop who one day steps on a rusty nail. Failing to get a tetanus shot, he becomes stuck in a permanent state of lock jaw. Each episode deals with his increasing frustration over not being able to speak intelligibly. The "opening credits" for each sketch features musician Flea playing a criminal.
Willard Schreck's "If I Had My Way"
Willard Schreck (Winter) is a caffeine-addicted convenience store clerk who uses his store's security camera to broadcast his usually demented opinions, including making beef sticks out of k.d. lang and putting hippies to work in salt mines. Occasionally Willard is visited by a celebrity (impersonator), such as Carol Channing and Sinéad O'Connor, the latter of whom Willard catches trying to steal beef jerky. His sign-off catchphrase is "don't make a jerk out of yourself!"
The Burrowing Bishop
"Sir" Albert Woodneck (Winter) stars as the title character, a mumbling bishop who, along with his sidekick Falco the Sarcastic Clown (Lee Arenberg), uses his conical hat to burrow underground to perform good deeds, such as saving children trapped in wells and capturing escaped prisoners.
The Huggins Family
A parody of cheesy 1980s family sitcoms, The Huggins are a family who always use love, understanding, and hugs to work out their many problems, ranging from Dad's alcoholism to son Jared's affinity for siphoning the blood out of small animals. The Huggins children were played by Ricki Lake and Danny Cooksey.
Battle of the bands
A parody of which famous rock bands would face off in a football field, mostly the boo ya tribe would face off against famous musicians and bands like Wilson Phillips and Jerry Garcia and would be victorious with Alex serving as referee.
The very finest of tonight's idiot box
Voltar, a computer generated figure, who claimed to be the future of television, would do a recap of whole episode before it ended

Home media

Winter and Stern both expressed a desire to release The Idiot Box on DVD, but reportedly ran into troubles with MTV. According to an interview with Winter:

"I'm petitioning for it right now. I've been trying to get MTV to do it for years and it's just impossible. It's such a bureaucracy over there. I don't think there's anyone opposed to it but I just can't get anyone off their ass and actually deal with it. But I'm hoping sometime soon. There was a moment where Anchor Bay was actually going to get all of it on the Freaked DVD and then at the last minute MTV changed their mind." [4]

At a 2009 Los Angeles screening of Freaked, Winter elaborated that a big part of MTV's hesitancy to release the show is the short length of the episodes, which, when combined, clock in at just under 60 minutes' worth of material.

An internet petition was created to get The Idiot Box on DVD and has since accumulated over 1,000 signatures. All six episodes are currently available for viewing on YouTube, along with a rare commercial and 'Best of' video, uploaded by Winter and Stern's official website. In the 20th-anniversary interview for their album Nevermind on Sirius XM, remaining Nirvana band members recalled that Kurt Cobain was a fan of the show.

See also

Related Research Articles

Fridays was a late-night live comedy show that aired on ABC on Friday nights from April 11, 1980, to April 23, 1982.

Fast Forward was Australia's highest-rating and most critically awarded commercial television sketch comedy show, broadcast for 90 one-hour episodes from 12 April 1989 to 26 November 1992.

"There's No Disgrace Like Home" is the fourth episode of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It first aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 28, 1990. In the episode, Homer is ashamed of his family's behavior at a catastrophic company picnic and enrolls them in therapy. The therapist, Dr. Marvin Monroe, struggles to solve their problems − culminating in a shock therapy-based showdown between the family members − before eventually giving up and refunding their money.

<i>Get Smart</i> American espionage comedy television series

Get Smart is an American comedy television series parodying the secret agent genre that had become widely popular in the first half of the 1960s with the release of the James Bond films. It was created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry, and had its television premiere on NBC on September 18, 1965. It stars Don Adams as agent Maxwell Smart, Barbara Feldon as Agent 99, and Edward Platt as The Chief. Henry said that they created the show at the request of Daniel Melnick to capitalize on James Bond and Inspector Clouseau, "the two biggest things in the entertainment world today". Brooks described it as "an insane combination of James Bond and Mel Brooks comedy".

<i>The State</i> (American TV series) 1994–1995 American TV series

The State is an American sketch comedy television series, originally broadcast on MTV from 1994 to 1995. The show combined bizarre characters and scenarios to present sketches that won the favor of its target teenaged audience. The cast consisted of comedy troupe The State, who were 11 comedians who created, acted, wrote, directed and edited the show. In various combinations, the former members of The State have continued to collaborate over the years, with alumni playing major creative, directing and acting roles in a number of notable projects including Reno 911! and Wet Hot American Summer.

Chappelle's Show is an American sketch comedy television series created by comedians Dave Chappelle and Neal Brennan, with Chappelle hosting the show and starring in the majority of its sketches. Chappelle, Brennan, and Michele Armour were the show's executive producers. The series premiered on January 22, 2003, on the American cable television network Comedy Central. The show ran for two complete seasons. An abbreviated third season of three episodes aired in 2006, compiled of previously unreleased sketches.

<i>Liquid Television</i> Television series

Liquid Television is an animation showcase that appeared on MTV from 1991 to 1995. It has served as the launching point for several high-profile original cartoons, including Beavis and Butt-Head and Æon Flux. The bulk of Liquid Television's material was created by independent animators and artists specially for the show, and some previously produced segments were compiled from festivals such as Spike and Mike's Festival of Animation.

<i>Drawn Together</i> Adult animated television series and sitcom

Drawn Together is an American adult animated sitcom created by Dave Jeser and Matt Silverstein for Comedy Central. It premiered on October 27, 2004. The series is a parody of house-based reality shows such as The Real World, The Surreal Life, and Big Brother, and follows the misadventures of the housemates in the fictional show of the same name and uses a sitcom format with a reality TV show setting.

<i>The Weird Al Show</i> Television series

The Weird Al Show is an American television show hosted by "Weird Al" Yankovic. Produced in association with Dick Clark Productions and taped at NBC Studios, it aired on Saturday mornings on the CBS TV network. The show ran for one season, from September to December 1997. The show was released on DVD on August 15, 2006.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Winter</span> British-American actor and filmmaker (born 1965)

Alexander Ross Winter is a British-American actor and filmmaker. He played the slacker Bill S. Preston Esq. in the 1989 film Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure and its sequels Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey (1991) and Bill & Ted Face the Music (2020). He is also known for his role as Marko in the 1987 vampire film The Lost Boys; for co-writing, co-directing, and starring in the 1993 film Freaked; and for directing documentaries in the 2010s.

<i>Robot Chicken</i> American adult animated stop motion sketch comedy television series

Robot Chicken is an American adult stop motion-animated sketch comedy television series created by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich for Cartoon Network's nighttime programming block Adult Swim. The writers, most prominently Green, also provide many of the voices. Senreich, Douglas Goldstein, and Tom Root were formerly writers for the popular action figure hobbyist magazine ToyFare. Robot Chicken has won two Annie Awards and six Emmy Awards.

<i>Freaked</i> 1993 American film

Freaked is a 1993 American comedy film directed by Tom Stern and Alex Winter, both of whom wrote the screenplay with Tim Burns. Winter also starred in the lead role. Both were involved in the short-lived MTV sketch comedy show The Idiot Box, and Freaked retains the same brand of surreal humour seen in the show. Freaked was Alex Winter's last feature film before he shifted to cameo and television films for many years until 2013's Grand Piano.

<i>Wonder Showzen</i> American adult black comedy television series

Wonder Showzen is an American adult puppet black comedy television series that aired between 2005 and 2006 on MTV2. It was created by Vernon Chatman and John Lee of PFFR.

Idiot box is slang for a television. It may refer to:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David M. Stern</span> American television screenwriter

David Michael Stern is an American television screenwriter. Among his first work in television was writing episodes of The Wonder Years in the late 1980s. He then proceeded to write several episodes of The Simpsons in the 1990s. In 2010, he developed the animated television series Ugly Americans. Stern is the younger brother of actor Daniel Stern, who served as the narrator of The Wonder Years.

Tom Stern is an American actor, director, writer, and producer.

<i>Harry & Paul</i> British television series

Harry & Paul is a British sketch comedy show starring Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 13 April 2007. Prior to broadcast it was trailed as The Harry Enfield Show.

<i>Monty Pythons Flying Circus</i> British sketch comedy television series (1969–1974)

Monty Python's Flying Circus is a British surreal sketch comedy series created by and starring Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam, who became known collectively as "Monty Python", or the "Pythons". The first episode was recorded at the BBC on 7 September 1969 and premiered on 5 October on BBC1, with 45 episodes airing over four series from 1969 to 1974, plus two episodes for German TV. A feature film adaptation of several sketches, And Now for Something Completely Different, was released in 1971.

Tim Burns is a Canadian writer and producer for Canadian and American television; more popularly known as the show runner/executive producer of the Teletoon-Disney Channel shared, supernatural comedy-drama series, My Babysitter's a Vampire and for writing its TV pilot film. He was also supervising writer of the third season of Crank Yankers and was a composer on The Sunny Side Up Show.

<i>The Kids in the Hall</i> (TV series) Canadian sketch comedy show

The Kids in the Hall is a Canadian sketch comedy TV series that aired for five seasons from 1988 to 1995, and a sixth revival season in 2022, starring the comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall. The troupe, consisting of comedians Dave Foley, Kevin McDonald, Mark McKinney, Bruce McCulloch, and Scott Thompson, appeared as almost all the characters throughout the series, both male and female, and also wrote most of the sketches.

References

  1. Willman, Chris (23 March 1991). "TV REVIEW: Hey, What's Wrong With a Little Idiotic Stealing Among Friends?". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 5 April 2021.
  2. The Idiot Box: A show by Alex Winter and Tom Stern
  3. Chronogram.com Conversation
  4. SuicideGirls > Interviews > Alex Winter