Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim have built a cottage industry around comedies that stretch the definition of comedy. They’ve been creators, stars, and producers (through their staggeringly on-point Abso Lutely brand) of some of the most potent, line-jumping funny stuff of the last decade, from Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! to Check It Out! With Dr. Steve Brule to Nathan For You. The duo’s new Adult Swim series, Tim & Eric’s Bedtime Stories—which starts its seven-episode run tonight—is simultaneously the strangest and most straight-forward thing they’ve done as creators. Each episode offers a standalone story with different stars—including Heidecker and Wareheim—and explores tones and rhythms that they haven’t touched on before, particularly (but not exactly) horror. Whereas the duo’s previous shows have been funny but flirting with scary, there are lengthy pieces of Bedtime Stories that are just creepy: Bob Odenkirk stars as a plastic surgeon whose job is to graphically snip off patients’ toes, for example. It’s a marked change from what was billed as the show’s pilot, “Haunted House,” which aired last year and starred Zach Galifianakis (along with Heidecker and Wareheim) in a Three Stooges-inspired goof. The first two episodes are much darker, with the duo starring as tormented/tormenter in “Hole” and Odenkirk getting creepy in “Toes.” The A.V. Club spoke with Heidecker and Wareheim in the midst of their stage tour with John C. Reilly.
The A.V. Club: The first two episodes were great, but very different than the episode with Zach Galifianakis that ran a year ago. Was there a concept change?
Tim Heidecker: From the beginning, we pitched the idea that it was going to be a different story every week, and the tone and the look and feel was going to be driven by the idea. So the first one that came together was the Zach one, and that one needed to feel sort of consistent with other things we’d done with Zach, and kind of bridge the gap between something like the Absolut thing and this new show. But we made that, and then we took almost a year off to get ready to do the series, and in that period of time, it started leaning more toward this darker, more cinematic vibe. But there are still episodes that are lighter, that aren’t quite as serious or horror-driven. The plan was always to elicit exactly what you experienced, which is to get something that you’re not expecting each week.
Eric Wareheim: We actually wrote “Hole” as the pilot a year ago, but we switched it to “Haunted House” because Zach was available.
AVC: When you were conceiving this series, did you have an idea, tonally, of what you were looking for? Do you speak in those terms, like, “We don’t want to be wacky…”?
EW: We’re definitely both in a place where we feel like we’ve done the Awesome Show, and we did everything we wanted to on that show. We made a couple short films that were more cinematic and had a different vibe, and that’s what we wanted to get across in this new series—playing with the idea of setting you up for this environment that feels normal for a few minutes, and then things start to twist and turn into this nightmare world. Each week it’s a different nightmare. We wanted it to feel very different. Not for the sake of throwing people for a loop, but because that’s where our heads are at now. We want to tell these stories, we want them to look a certain way. We’ve had musicians score them. Everything about them feels a little different. It’s more like the feeling you get when you’re in a movie theater and everything’s more all-encompassing—that’s what we wanted to get across.
AVC: Do you feel like you’re going out on a limb with this show? Have you ever felt that way?
TH: Maybe a little bit. Making season three of Awesome Show didn’t feel as much like going out on a limb, because we knew there was an audience for it. Or when we do more Check It Out! it doesn’t feel as dangerous. This felt like—is this even going to fit on Adult Swim? We had a few of those moments, like, “Is this going to be funny?” That sort of self-consciousness about it. But now I feel like it’s exactly what we wanted to do. You’ve have to just accept that, and hopefully people will be up for it.
EW: Luckily, the spirit of Adult Swim has always been just, “Throw it up there on TV, and see what people think!” That’s how Mike Lazzo operates, and that’s awesome for us. We screened a lot of these episodes, and you’re not laughing all the way through. You’re kind of absorbing it, and you’re getting freaked out, and you’re holding your face—you don’t want to look at what you’re seeing. It’s a whole different experience that Tim and I are really jazzed about.