The Eric Andre Show: The Worst Show on Television
The Eric Andre Show is a show unlike any other. The point is to be as utterly pointless as possible, nothing is learned, nothing is accomplished, and nothing is gained. It still however manages to be one of the funniest programs on network television, as it is making fun of every other talk show before it. The Eric Andre Show was created because Eric was bored with how every late-night show was practically the same, the only real difference is who’s hosting. This led him to create a talk show that would be totally unpredictable. The object of the show is to make the guests as uncomfortable as possible, some of Eric’s tactics include turning the heat up until the guests start sweating, dripping water from the rafters onto the guests head Chinese-water-torture-style, and stuffing heat ducts with old clams to fill the room with a thick, disgusting smell. This is just what goes on off-screen, onscreen Eric Andre is an incredibly loud presence who is matched by his straight-man Hannibal Buress. When a guest arrives Hannibal will get out of his chair to let them sit, then he’ll stand almost directly behind it, as close to the guest as possible. Hannibal will usually be doing his own thing such as eating a sandwich or combing the guest’s hair for lice, while Eric will bombard the guest with the most unprofessional questions imaginable. All the questions asked are completely unrelated to one another and range from very heavy, deep topics to small talk questions that mean absolutely nothing at all.
In this clip, Eric is interviewing Maria Menounos. It begins with a conversation between the hosts before the interview. Eric is sitting quietly, thinking, when he suddenly remembers a photograph that was sitting in his pocket, he pulls it out and shows it to Hannibal. “You see this on the news?” asks Eric, “That’s not from the news” Hannibal replies. “Well it’s from something…” Eric turns the photo to the camera, it’s a picture of a bulldog rolling around in a dirt driveway. Eric flashes a faint smile that quickly fades as he announces his next guest, Maria Menounos. They greet each other while the band plays, then Maria takes Hannibal’s place in the chair. Hannibal looks down at Maria, nods, and says “Yeeeeeeeeaaaaah”. Maria gives out a braying, donkey-like laugh (no-offense to her). Eric closes his mouth and exhales, to create a sound like a raspberry, Eric then makes a long, grunting/humming noise in a way that makes it sound like he’s pushing very heavy. Eric then jumps immediately into the question “You think we should be drone-bombing Pakistan? Seems like a bit much, huh?”. Another example is later in the interview when Eric shouts out “Alright it’s time to play ‘THESE ARE PEOPLE’”. Three people come out onto the set and stand in a line next to each other, Eric tells Maria to select a person and she picks the man in the middle, the man with the card that reads “B”. As soon as she picks the man he is shot in the chest from off stage, and his blood flies across the set. While Maria is freaking out, the two other people grab the man by his arms and drag him across the floor, taking him behind the curtain they came out of. The clip ends with Eric asking Maria “What’s your name again?” before falling backward in his chair.
This show fits mainly into the genres of Surrealist/Absurdist Comedy, Anti-Humor, Stoner comedy, Talk-show. The main audience that this show is tailored to is the Adult Swim audience. Adult swim is a channel that airs on the Cartoon Network station from 9 pm to 6 am and is filled (especially later in the night) with experimental, very strange yet funny comedy tv shows. The main audience ranges from High Schoolers to Adults fresh out of college. This audience is more on the fringe in that Adult Swim isn’t really something that everyone gets behind. Now of course It gained a lot more ratings with Rick and Morty but other than that it remains just outside of pop culture. Eric intended the show to get popular, but not nearly as popular as it did. In the earlier days of the show, it was much easier for him to book D-C list celebrities without them knowing it wouldn’t be a regular talk show. Now as more people know about it, the guests have started to realize what they are in for and may not react as genuinely.
Eric is trying to say that talk shows are generally pointless and serve only one purpose, to advertise whatever project the guest is working on to the viewer. He tries to show this by hosting a pointless show, rather than fill the time with meaningless, friendly chit-chat. He fills it with equally meaningless chaos and gives very little attention to the project the guest is there to advertise, only mentioning it briefly, and without naming it. He argues that late-night can have the piss taken out of it. So much focus is on the host rather than the guest, the host makes jokes and almost tells the guest what to say, leading the conversation in a very predictable but entertaining way and so Eric puts the focus on the guest by putting them in extremely strange situations and seeing how they’ll navigate his show. He’s qualified to make this argument because he’s a fun, lively comedian, which is really the only qualification to be a talk show host. It is effective in that it puts a great new focus on the guest, where instead of talking about the crazy time they met Gary Sinese in an elevator or telling jokes, they are genuinely confused and in some cases scares, even concerned for their safety, just as anyone else would be. An example of Eric putting the focus on the guest is when he shocks Maria with electricity (presumably a device in the chair or her microphone rig) while asking about her new movie. She shrieks and begins laughing hysterically while Eric and Hannibal look at her confused, calmly asking “what’s wrong” and “What is up with you”. The audience reacts the same way, wondering what happened or what her deal is. It doesn’t make the audience interested in her movie or her stories, it makes them focus on her because they are fascinated by her actions, and her reactions to being on the show The argument is somewhat ineffective, however, in that it fails to take the spotlight off Eric. He is so foreboding and charismatic that the viewer can’t help but put all of their focus on him, what he says and what he does.
Eric manipulates the audience’s emotion in a few ways, he uses the environment, his actions, and various imagery to create very extreme feelings of dread, confusion, hilarity, and most importantly, Awkwardness. In terms of cultural assumptions, eric assumes his viewers are generally fans of Adult Swim and therefore are used to a certain brand of comedy. He still brings his own twists to the style and as a result, has drawn a much larger crowd of people, some of whom don’t watch any other shows on the network. He assumes they are open-minded, healthily immature, and annoyed with, or at least tired of Late Night talk shows. The way he deals with hot button issues is genius, He only uses humor to talk about anything, and when dealing with more serious issues he briefly states his own, unheated opinion in a way that’s lighthearted and easy to swallow. When Eric brings up the extreme and sensitive issue that is the US’ involvement in Pakistan and the use of drones/airstrikes, he immediately downplays the topic and adds levity by simply stating “Seems like a bit much.” His casual, laid-back, downplayed displays of opinion allow him to take on heavy topics in a way that’s funny to those that agree with him, and funny to those that don’t. He can get away with making people angry or expressing ideas that conflict with the audiences because his entire format is centered around unpredictability, irony, and chaos. Eric can sometimes take it too far, shooting someone square in the chest at the well-intentioned request of his guest serves as an example. But nothing in this clip resulted in him being sent a cease-and-desist or angry calls from his network. Though he has likely been blacklisted from ever collaborating with Maria Menounos again. The only other consequence of this show that I see is that It promotes an almost anarchist style of comedy, that’s not necessarily bad. It’s just that his now-popularized style is very quotable/imitate able. In the future, we may see quite a few copycat shows, which would create a new, expected format for every parody talk-show. Turning Eric into the one thing he sought to destroy. His audience is at risk of being exposed to the same monotony they came to his show to get away from. But by then I’m showing we’ll have a new show to make fun of those.