Bringing everything down: The character Roger Ebert called one of the most “disturbing” ever
We’ve seen many animated shows air on Adult Swim over the years, with some being considerably better than others. From Robot Chicken to Rick and Morty, countless fans tune in every day to get their fix. One of Adult Swim’s earliest animation works, however, is Tom Goes to the Mayor, created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, better known simply as Tim & Eric.
With the help of Bob Odenkirk, the budding comedians got their project off the ground and onto Americans’ late-night television screens in 2004. Dividing viewers with their farcical comedy, the duo soon went on to create another show for the network, Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!. It ran from 2006 to 2010, using short sketch segments to demonstrate their propensity for bizarre satirical humour.
After creating the spin-off show Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule, they were given a larger budget and the opportunity to make a feature-length film. It’s the sort of project that could go either way, becoming a classic comedy with a cult following or a giant mess – the jokes failing to land in a longer format.
Unfortunately for Tim & Eric, their film, Tim and Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie, was a massive failure. Despite being made on a relatively low budget for a film – $3million – the box office earnings were less than impressive, grossing just $201,436. The movie was particularly slammed by one of America’s most popular critics, Roger Ebert, who struggled to find any redeeming qualities within the movie.
Despite featuring a rather stacked cast of supporting actors, including Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, Zack Galifianakis, Jeff Goldblum, and Ray Wise, the movie’s terrible attempts at humour let it down. Ebert began his half-a-star review by writing, “I feel I’ve failed Tim and Eric,” before adding, “It must have taken them a great deal of work to maintain their low standard.”
Despite wanting to appreciate the movie for what it is – a feature-length version of their deliberately polarising comedy – Ebert admitted to “not finding even one moment […] slightly funny.”
Tim & Eric’s Billion Dollar Movie follows Tim & Eric as failed filmmakers, blowing their $1billion budget on frivolous things rather than actually making a good movie, leaving them in massive amounts of debt. Thus, to get themselves out of trouble, they buy and renovate a shopping mall in the hopes of turning a profit.
As they deal with strange characters and run into some rather gross situations, such as getting covered in diarrhoea, Tim & Eric attempt to trick the audience by revealing that everything we’ve been watching has actually been a movie within a movie. This lazy plot twist was just the icing on top of an already terrible-tasting cake, with Ebert adding, “Describing the movie is bringing down the level of my prose.”
He also pointed out his dislike for Reilly’s character, Taquito, a man who was left in the abandoned mall as a child and appears to have never grown up. In one scene, he explains his backstory in an awkward rap, finishing it by coughing up some spit. Ebert called him “one of the most disturbed and disturbing characters I’ve seen in a while,” adding, “To address Taquito as ‘Snotnose’ would not be an insult but the simple truth.”
It seems as though even popular actors like Reilly didn’t have what it would take to save the movie from disaster. It’s definitely one of his less impressive roles, although many people love to quote Taquito’s lines, celebrating him as one of the film’s weirdest characters.
Watch the clip below.
