Round One

RED BAND SOCIETY

VS

TIM AND ERIC’S BEDTIME STORIES

SEE THE BRACKET AT challonge.com/popfilter

Comparing Red Band Society and Tim and Eric’s Bedtime Stories is like comparing apples and orangutans. Tim and Eric’s Bedtime Stories is a 15-minute comedy on Adult Swim from two alt comedy darlings, and Red Band Society is a prime-time network drama about dying teenagers living in a hospital. Let’s start with the former. Tim and Eric have been responsible for a string of shows on Adult Swim that follow the exact same formula. They feature random, non-humorous narratives, contain a lot of odd facial expressions and clothing that’s been out of style for 30 years all masquerading as jokes, and Bedtime Stories looks to be no different. Adult Swim isn’t attempting to grab at a wide audience with these kinds of shows; they are perfectly happy entertaining stoners. I award Adult Swim no points for this because it isn’t exactly difficult to make a stoner laugh. If you recite letters of the alphabet to me when I’m high I’ll go into a giggle fit. The problem is watching it sober. Random and funny are not the same thing. Looking strange is not in and of itself a joke. The only people who swear these guys are comedic geniuses are the ones who won’t shut up about the amazing powers of medicinal marijuana. I get it. You love pot more that I love anything and think it’s magic. Well it’s not and Tim and Eric aren’t funny.

That being said, Red Band Society is worse. Compared with TEBS, it has insane production value and the story did have its touching moments. But the fact remains that Red Band Society is completely unnecessary. It relies on an audience who have never seen The Breakfast Club, Degrassi, St. Elmo’s Fire, Mean Girls, My So Called Life, or SLC Punk— people who are over confident in their taste and believe that anyone can easily be pegged into a few archetypes. That’s right: teenagers. Every single f’ing thing about this show is done so that teenagers would think it was cool. The sets and costumes all look like they were designed by someone from MTV. The main characters are all pretty, clear complected and neither look nor act sick. They say things like, “Deal with it.” The shots are framed in a hyper rock’n’roll motif that just makes me wonder why they would be framed that way, or “what is the narrative impact of that?” The truth is there isn’t one. It’s just cool for the sake of being cool. Only someone who had never seen anything like that would be impressed by it. The most interesting character by far is a nurse, played by the incomparable Octavia Spencer, who is way under utilized as this authoritarian figure who has a tough exterior but underneath really loves the kids. If this show wants to be anything more than ordinary it will forget the stupid sick kids and focus on her. But it won’t. Producers of the show will continue to cater to teenage audiences because they are loyal viewers who represent a key demographic that advertisers want. Mediocrity– Cha-ching.

This round goes to Tim and Eric’s Bedtime Stories, but only by the tip of their dicks. And that’ll do it for this round, next up we have

MADAM SECRETARY VS MR. PICKLES

-Stephanie Rose