Tom Goes to the Mayor and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros and Adult Swim
Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim
Welcome back to another episode of The Manchurian Mayor, which… actually makes a lot of sense considering how much damage the guy does in any given episode. Anyway, let’s continue our look at one of the best shows that Adult Swim ever produced! The episode begins with the very first appearance of Jefferton’s very own Married News Team Jan and Wayne Skyler (Tim & Eric) who are announcing the town’s Toodle Day celebration that will be happening that weekend! What is Toodle Day? It’s a holiday invented by The Mayor (of course) where dogs are legally married in the Jefferton Park and the citizens are all welcome to partake in the festivities as well as enjoy face painting and magic shows! Sounds like a rip-roaring good time… I guess. At least the Married News Team looks excited! Aren’t they just ADORABLE together?
The Mayor as well cannot WAIT to start the celebration and is even pitching some ideas to City Council to improve it. You see, the biggest problem with the event is that statistics show that the divorce rate among Toodle Day participants has gone through the roof, which means that they need to make sure the RIGHT dogs are getting married; lest it set a bad example for the kids! Sadly, his proposal to invest in a super smart dog to play matchmaker fails to inspire them and only brings about mockery from City Council. If only someone would walk through The Mayor’s door and do all the work for him… Wait a minute! Isn’t there someone who GOES TO THE MAYOR rather frequently!? That’s right! Good ol’ Tom Peters comes by the office to see if The Mayor will endorse his wife Joy (not QUITE her first appearance in the show, but this is the first episode where we hear her voice) as she is running for Town Webmaster. If Tom can deliver this super pup for The Mayor, he will get the endorsement his wife needs to win the election!
From there the episode is mostly a training montage between Tom and the dog he gets at a local pet store (his name is Stamps) and the Toodle Day ceremony at the end; neither of which are particularly funny in my estimation as the show’s usual sharp witted and bleak humor is mostly overtaken toilet jokes and scatological references. Now gross out gags ARE a part of this series to be sure, but here they just kind of overtake the story and it’s not a good substitute for the kind of humor we got in past episodes. We already covered the idea of sad local festivals in the last episode, so the same basic joke being recycled for this one (in the form of Toodle Day) mixed in with shit jokes means that this is possibly one of the weakest episodes in the entire series. Even Jeff Goldblum can’t quite save this episode despite his scene as the pet shop owner who sells the dog to Tom being such a highlight.
Somehow Tom manages to train Stamps into a matchmaking machine (while getting plenty of feces on himself in the process) and is ready to show him off to the world while also finally getting that crucial endorsement from The Mayor! Of course WE know that things cannot go Tom’s way for very long and sure enough The Mayor runs over Stamps with his ludicrous Dog Chariot; leaving Tom holding the bag once again. Still, if there’s ONE thing you can say about Tom, he’s certainly willing to throw himself into whatever’s asked of him; no matter how humiliating!
I mean, I GUESS if Tom was skilled enough to train Stamps to be an expert matchmaker then it wouldn’t be THAT much of a leap to say he knows how to do it as well, so he pairs up ALL the dogs with their best matches and saves the ceremony from becoming a total bust! It’s too bad that his strange behavior gets the ire of the citizens of Jefferton and the scandal ends up costing Joy the race for Town Webmaster. Oh well. At least The Mayor is happy, and after all. Isn’t that what’s MOST important?
Yeah, when I think back to what I loved about this series, this isn’t one of the episodes that spring to mind. Despite a solid turn from their celebrity cameo and some of the strange visual moments peppered throughout, it just doesn’t have enough going in it for me to really chew on the same way that other episodes managed to do. While a lot of the episodes in this series made me think, this one just makes me want to think about something else. Oh well. I guess they can’t ALL be winners.
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The Recap Recap!!
Celebrities Galore
- Jeff Goldblum shows up as the sardonic pet shop owner who convinces Tom to take his last puppy off his hands!
Here’s Bobby!
- Bob Odenkirk has a very minor role doing the voice over at the beginning of the episode that explains what Toodle Day is.
Tom Who Now?
- No one actually gets Tom’s name wrong in this, though he probably would have PREFERRED everyone not knowing who he is considering the controversy he becomes the center of.
Fun Facts from the Commentary!
(NOTE: Since Tim & Eric are… well Tim & Eric, anything said on the DVD commentaries should PROBABLY be taken with a grain of salt)
- Tim & Eric gave Jeff Goldblum a DVD of their early skits and to their surprise they each received a phone call the next day telling them how much he loved it.
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The Bonus Screenshot
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