TV Weekend: ‘Tom Goes’ returns for second season
by Christy Lemire on Jun. 02, 2006, under UncategorizedExecutives say unique ‘Adult Swin’ block toon show already has a loyal following, even in its wee-hours time slot
Bob Odenkirk ("Mr. Show") serves as executive producer of "Tom Goes to the Mayo," and has appeared as The Wizzard, a bassist who seeks to play the low G note, three octaves lower than any man has ever done.
NEW YORK – It’s not exactly the highest-rated show on Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim” block. It airs at such a wee hour, even its creators admit they don’t stay up to watch it. And its visual style is so unusual that purists say it doesn’t even qualify as animation.
But “Tom Goes to the Mayor,” one of the most inventive shows on a channel that prides itself on unique programming, returns for a second season late Sunday (actually 12:30 a.m. Monday) with another eclectic array of guest stars, including Sean Hayes, Bob Balaban, Janeane Garofalo and Sir Mix-a-Lot.
“Tom” is one of the most polarizing programs in a lineup that includes “The Family Guy,” “Aqua Teen Hunger Force” and “The Boondocks.” Viewers either love it or hate it, and animation fans, who can be rabid about what they watch, light up the “Adult Swim” message boards with topics like: “My Hatred for Tom” and “Don’t Put Tom Goes to the Mayor Back On!!”
Part of what makes the show so divisive, say co-creators and stars Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, is the look of it: a mixture of photographed images and live action that’s intentionally static and crude, like an airplane evacuation manual. It doesn’t have the kind of “lip-flap” you’d see in more traditional cartoons. Then there is the absurd humor and a twisted streak that critics perceive as cruel or even vaguely gay.
At the same time, fans who e-mail them range from “young kids who are fascinated by it because it’s so weird to college students who understand it to older people,” Wareheim said. “There’s been a huge, wide spectrum of people who’ve really latched on to it.”
“Adult Swim” executive Mike Lazzo believes such debate “is a good thing.”
“I just remember early on when we put out ‘Aqua Teen,’ people hated it: this is stupid, this character is mean. That changed in a season,” Lazzo said. “We hope the same thing happens with ‘Tom’ as people get more used to that style, that humor, that look.”
The series takes place in fictional Jefferton, a wasteland of buffet restaurants and power lines. Each 15-minute episode finds new resident and hopeless screw-up Tom Peters visiting the mayor’s office – located in a nondescript, double-decker strip mall – with some ridiculous entrepreneurial idea. Invariably, things go horribly awry, whether Tom is promoting a calculator shaped like a unicorn (which always spits out the wrong number) or investing in a pyramid scheme involving porcelain birds.
“High expectations met with complete disasters” is how Heidecker, who provides the voice of Tom, describes it.
“I think at the core, these two guys want to help each other, they try to do things together, and at the end the mayor turns on Tom,” Wareheim, who plays the scatterbrained, selfish mayor, added in a joint interview with The Associated Press. “But at the core I think there’s a friendship between them.”
The friendship between Heidecker and Wareheim, both 30, began at Temple University, where they lived four doors down from each other on the same freshman-dorm floor and quickly realized they shared a similar sense of humor. They began making short films together, a DVD of which they sent to several of their comedy idols, including Bob Odenkirk of “Mr. Show with Bob and David” and “The Larry Sanders Show.”
In the first episode of the second season, the mayor visits inventor Tom in his Big Cups store. Viewers are split on the charms of the crude animation.
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ON THE NET
“Tom Goes to the Mayor” Web site:
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“Tom Goes to the Mayor”
Cartoon Network,
Mondays 12:30 a.m.
