The Idiot Box

US

Comedy
English     6.5     2014     US

Overview

The Idiot Box is an American sketch comedy television series created by Alex Winter, Tom Stern and Tim Burns, which ran on MTV from 1990-1991. After the success of Bill & Ted, MTV hired Winter, Stern, and Burns to develop a half-hour sketch comedy show for the network. As the channel was still strictly music-oriented at the time, The Idiot Box was mainly a showcase for popular music videos, but with a series of sketches, fake commercials, and parodies shown in between. Therefore, although an episode ran 30 minutes, there were only 7 to 11 minutes worth of sketches. Inspired heavily by the likes of MAD Magazine and Monty Python's Flying Circus, the humor in The Idiot Box was rooted in absurdity and violent slapstick, often in the form of television and movie parodies and commercials for fake television shows. Each episode would end with a recap by the Max Headroom-esque VOTAR, "the future of television announcing", as he would criticize each of the sketches in the episode and occasionally quote lines from New Wave songs. Although the show was a hit for the channel, Winter, Stern, and Burns chose to cease production after six episodes and instead accepted a high-paying deal with 20th Century Fox to write and direct their own feature film. The result was 1993's Freaked, which featured the same brand of humor as The Idiot Box.

Similar

Blue Collar TV is a television program that aired on The WB Television Network with lead actors Jeff Foxworthy, Bill Engvall and Larry the Cable Guy. The show's humor dealt principally with contemporary American society, and especially hillbilly, redneck, and Southern stereotypes. The show was greenlighted on the heels of the success of the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, which the series' three lead actors toured with in the early-mid-2000s. It was created by Fax Bahr and Adam Small, in addition to J.P. Williams and Jeff Foxworthy. Blue collar is a US phrase used to describe manual laborers, as opposed to white collar for office or professional workers. Fellow Blue Collar Comedy Tour costar Ron White declined to star on Blue Collar TV due to a fear of being typecast as "blue collar." However, he guest-starred on many episodes of the show. On his 2006 comedy album, You Can't Fix Stupid, White jokingly cited his own lack of work ethic as a reason for not participating more on the show. Unlike most sketch comedy programs, each episode of Blue Collar TV was generally centered around a theme, which Foxworthy revealed at the start of each episode. Themes included "Food", "Kids", and "Stupidity", among others, with Foxworthy generally performing a short comedic monologue based on the theme. Most sketches in each episode featured at least one of the three Blue Collar Comedy Tour veterans in an acting role, but the second season saw more sketches featuring the 6 other cast members exclusively.

More info
Blue Collar TV
2004