Hello, fellow Dewey Award winners!
Today, we're starting our review of Season 3 of Mr. Show With Bob And David, or, as we like to call it, "the red box at last!". By 1997, HBO had enough confidence in Mr. Show to commission the longest season to date. (Although not enough confidence to market it competently; as we're reminded by the DVD set, the network thrice found it necessary to put the show on hiatus for a week to "air a late-night sex show".) And as anyone who's ever written comedy for a living can tell you, nothing kills the funny like having to produce it quickly and regularly.
Still, Mr. Show was more than up to the challenge. Though Bob Odenkirk & David Cross had to nearly double their previous show commitment, a ten-episode season was hardly daunting, and they felt they could deliver at a level of quality far higher than most sketch comedies were capable of. They'd also assembled an incredible team of writers, who, in season 2, had shown themselves perfectly matched to Bob & David's comedic sensibilities. The cast was in place, the crew was in place, the network had given them more time and (slightly) more money, and they were ready to show off what they could really do in what passed for a regular season on HBO.
Season 3 is my second-favorite after season 2. It develops some rough patches late in the season, but it starts off with the two episodes we'll be analyzing today, which can stand with the best work the show has ever done. If they wanted to convince any doubters, this was the way to do it. 1997 was also the year that word of mouth was beginning to spread about Mr. Show through its devoted cult fans, so "Heaven's Chimney" and "Peanut Butter, Eggs And Dice" were the first episodes a lot of people — pestered for months by their comedy-nerd friends — ever encountered. It's not like I've taken a poll or anything, but it seems like these are two of the most-remembered episodes, which might be attributable to the fact that a new audience was finally beginning to seep in. They'd be richly rewarded.
EPISODE 1: "Heaven's Chimney"
What Worked: One of the most interesting things about this episode is that its sketches, for the most part, aren't the kind of over-the-top masterpieces the show usually delivers. While "The Limits of Science" and "Hail Satan Network" are high-test genius, most of the early scenes aren't outside the realm of what you'd see on another, lesser sketch show. They're not exactly high-concept metahumor, but they work because the entire cast has a firm foundation in the basics of sketch comedy. This is something we probably haven't discussed enough: as with any other artistic medium, you have to know the rules before you break the rules, and the Mr. Show staff all had pretty solid grounding in the way regular skit comedy worked. If they'd come in with no experience determined to subvert every trope of the medium, it likely would have resulted in a lot more misses (this was, I think, one of the problems The State had). But the fact that they were pros as well as mavericks allowed them to take relatively simple sketch ideas like "Watch Us Have Sex" and "Directions" and elevate them to something special.
What Didn't: That same lack of complete over-the-top inspiration did slow this episode down a bit, and it was starting here that the connecting bits started to seem a bit more padded than usual; with a ten-episode order, links that previously might have lasted 30 seconds now went on for a few minutes. But even the least of this episode's scenes isn't bad, and there's nothing that just outright doesn't work.
The Cast: The "Hail Satan Network" sketch, which delivers a pitch-perfect Satanic mirror image of Christian evangelical programming, is a hilarious high-concept bit that would have worked just great by itself, but everyone in it — David's lazy wheelchair-bound Kevin, Tom Kenny & Jill Talley as the unctuous host couple, and especially Bob's amazing physical comedy as a fat preacher — goes way above and beyond, making it one of the best bits in the show's history. Elsewhere, Bob does a fine job translating his ingratiating showbiz phony persona into a cult leader role in the "Up Heaven's Chimney" intro, and in the amazing educational film parody "The Limits of Science", Tom demonstrates the value of having a top-notch voice actor on call. With Mary Lynn Rajskub sadly departed (love's a bitch, baby), Karen Kilgariff would start showing up more often, and "Watch Us Have Sex" is a good intro to what she could do.
The Crew: In season 3, Mr. Show would start looking better and better, thanks to a slight but badly needed bump in the show's budget. That's in evidence right away, as the excellent film-work on "The Devastator" and "The Limits of Science" make clear. (Of course, it could still look cheap as hell: check out "Directions" and the sloppy animation in "Crazy Religious Beliefs" for evidence.) Paula Elins' work in costumes continues to excel, with "Hail Satan Network" — check out Tom's suit and Jill's wig — riding the fine line between outstanding re-creation and absurd parody.