UNIVERSAL DONOR
REVIEWS THE WORLD
- opinions formed while-u-wait! -

.
.television
Wonder Showzen
god knows when on MTV2

I don't really like this show. I hate the puppets in the studio, I really hate the puppet they use to assault people on the street (lacking as it does any of the wit or restraint of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog), and I super-duper hate when they use kids to be mean to old people on the street.
     The show is supposed to make the viewer cringe, and I know the creators are trying their damnedest to get something rejected, and so far only their ep with the "Little Hitler" bit has been removed from the air permanently. As a rule, I don't dig on the schadenfreude. What's the other show that makes people feel bad on purpose for viewer's entertainment? I had to call my sister to figure it out, and surprisingly it's The Daily Show: I hate the segments where they're interviewing somebody and making them look stupid. Whoop! She just called me back to say: The Andy Milonakis Show. Yup. She's on my wavelength.
     BUT! Some of their cartoons are just mind-blowing. I can't count the people I've shown "D.O.G.O.B.G.Y.N." -- which may be the most offensive, least redeemable cartoon with a cute dog in it ever. "WinoBot" is amazing for a) how close it comes to offending me without offending me, and b) how stupid it could have been but isn't. Or something. Still, not all the cartoons are winners; I saw one called "He-Bro", which was offensive and surreal without being funny enough.
     Again, one of the things that makes me uncomfortable about this show is that sometimes they hit me just right, and I don't want them to be able to do that.
.: . . .4.7: . . . . :
4/26/2006 • link

6 comments:


Blogger pooja* said...

mmph, i hate those parts of the daily show too. i feel that slightly stunned, slightly horrified feeling, which i've been told is the reason reality tv is so popular.

hee, i was going to defend tom robbins in your earlier post, but realized i hadn't finished a robbins book in close to 6 years. i do remember liking them though, when i could get through them.

4/26/2006 10:35 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said...

i LOVE like 10-20 minutes of each 30 minute episode of this show... i kinda liked He-Bro, but was mostly just scared of it. weird shit just kept ooozing out of his muscles? i love watching the "Beat Kids" kids give people high fives with that whip-crack sound effect... and they use the Ultimate Scream sound bite every once in a while, which makes any show worth watching. if you don't know the Ultimate Scream, call me and I'll try to emulate it.

i totally agree about the puppet-on-the-street bits. that's some wack Tom Green shit...but I do like the Daily Show interviews because I assume, or at least hope, that after the camera stops rolling they apologize for being assholes and explain what the show is about.

I thought I remembered you loving Da Ali G Show... how are his interviews different from Daily Show ones?

4/27/2006 6:13 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I googled for the Ultimate Scream clip (that's just a name I've made up for it, it might have its own industry moniker). I couldn't find the clip I was talking about but I found this article about another scream. It's far less ultimate than THE Ultimate Scream but similarly overused... the Wilhelm Scream.

http://filmsound.studienet.org/cliche/wilhelmscream.htm

4/27/2006 6:51 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ok. I've found an an example of Wonder Showzen using the Ultimate Scream. It's in the Beat Kids segment at the statue of liberty.

http://tinyurl.com/repb5

About 3/4 of the way through the video when the girl is bugging out going "clack clack clack" while the leather-jacketed guy stands by confused, the girl leans in towards the camera, weird faces replace her pupils, the clip pauses and there is a sound bite of a scream. That... is the Ultimate Scream, but it seems like they kinda cut it off a bit, faded it out maybe.

4/27/2006 7:13 PM  

Blogger Universal Donor said...

CW, I''ll check your link for the ultimate scream, but I think I know what you mean.

Oh! It's not what I thought. But at the beginning of the show, before the theme song, I guess during the big full-screen "this show will crush the souls of children" Warning card, there is a sound in the background that I love. It's also a scream, it sounds really full and terrifying. My favorite part of it is that they put in the sound of pigs squealing or horses screaming on top of the human scream.

I saw some of the movie Constantine on HBO with the closed captions on, and when a demon yelled, it said "[UNHOLY SCREAM]" which seemed nicely editorial on the part of the captioner. The unholy scream also combined human and animal sounds.

4/28/2006 12:31 PM  

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Yeah, I know the warning screen scream you're talking about. It's definitely a solid scream.

Another thing I like about Showzen is the recurring referrals to the mysterious "Lord Kromdor."

New episode tonight. Ready ur Tivos dudes.

4/28/2006 12:45 PM  

Post a Comment






GO BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE


PREVIOUS POSTS
Hard Taco Project
Pedialyte
Nostril Zits
Villa Incognito
Tom Robbins
misuse of the word "schwag"
Lucky Number Slevin
Entenmann's Glazed Popems
bancomicsans.com
Metrosexuality
REVIEW
CATEGORIES
books
movies
music
television
games
people
websites
products
concepts
miscellaneous
GENERIC RATING SCALE
rating approximate meaning
10.0Godlike perfection
9.5Mortal perfection
9.0Great! Classic!
8.0Pretty awesome
7.0Good stuff
6.0Don't knock it 'til you try it
5.0Exactly half good and half bad
4.0If it's on sale...
3.0Last resort
2.0You might prefer root canal
1.0Contact could lower your I.Q.
0.0May cause cancer


SUGGESTIONS
Want me to review something? Use this box to make topic suggestions:
Review topic:

Recent Suggestions:
[shaving, nicotine patches, girlsarepretty.com]


LINKS
Universal Donor
UD's Book Reviews
UD's Reference Page
TopTen Reviews.com

Powered by Blogger