Tag: Bob Balaban

Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (Future Trade)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Directed by Bob Balaban

We’re back with another episode of Now That’s What I Call Twilight Zone!  You’re much more digestible and mainstream version of something good that you’ll forget about a heck of a lot faster!  Then again, we might just have a standout episode here if you can believe it as we’re talking about that one particular bug bear of internet sad boys; TOXIC MASCULINITY AND ENTITLEMENT!!  Yes, even back in 2002 the world thought you were all a bunch of losers.  ANYWAY!  Does this episode take full advantage of its premise to deliver an interesting take on the subject, or will it refuse to take off the kid gloves and give these ridiculous fools a pass for their behavior?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Martin (Frank Whaley) being annoyed by the most obnoxious and stereotypical hell beast of a bad wife who is literally screaming at him for being a loser and to feed the kids.  It’s like something right out of an MRA handbook as the only thing we get to see is the haggard man while the wife and kids are just voices in the distance with no discernable personality besides spite and venom.  Oh, it gets even worse from there!  The guy goes to work at a hardware store and his boss a total control freak who feels the need to tear him down for coming three minutes late for work and then when he tries to strike up a “friendly conversation” with a female coworker, she just walks away after an awkward silence.  Seriously, give this guy six months and he’ll be found dead in an alley with clown makeup and balloon animals full of anthrax.  Fortunately for the rest of us, it looks like THE TWILIGHT ZONE is about to stop his murder spree in its tracks with some twist of ironic fate as he keeps getting pop up ads about this company called Future Trade who wants to give him a one-time offer!  Now if it was you or I who got this message, I’d assume it was just another porn site trying to get your credit card details, but I guess Martin is so far down his own self-pitying spiral of misery that he’s willing to give it a chance.  Now let’s say that you or I DID go the extra step of visiting this strange company promising to give us the future we wanted, I’m pretty sure we’d turn tail and run when we realize that it’s run by Dean Winters.  HOLY CRAP, DEAN WINTERS IS IN THIS!!

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This is all an elaborate Allstate commercial, isn’t it?

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (The Layover)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

TGTTM

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

We’re back with another episode of Big Fish Freezers, and BOY are we in for a doozy toady!  This is the episode where everything about Tom starts to make sense as we finally get to meet his dad!  Sure it probably won’t be as emotionally draining as seeing what Clay Puppington had to deal with as a kid, but Tim & Eric are not ones to half-ass an opportunity like this (despite their intentionally tacky style) and I’m sure we’ll get lots of very revealing insights today!  The episode begins with Tom waiting at the Jefferton Airport (because Jefferton can afford one of those apparently) and holding up a sign for his father who is arriving any minute now!  Well speak of the Devil (no not The Mayor, although we’ll get to him soon enough) there he is!  Tom is so overwhelmed with happiness that he can’t help but embrace his father (Bob Balaban) in a beautiful display of affection!  One that his father rebuffs without hesitation.  Well then!  I think one giant piece in the Tom Peters puzzle just fell into place!  It’s clear that his father is emotionally distant to his son so he has to seek that affection in other male role models like The Mayor!  Do you SEE what you did, Mr. Tom’s Dad!?  All those deaths are because you couldn’t give him a few more hugs!!  Then again, I’m not about to let Tom off the hook just yet considering he’s a grown ass man and STILL manages to act like a fool.  Case in point, his father is a Fish Freezer Salesman who is here on a layover for a big Seafood Convention where he’ll make the majority of his sales for the fiscal year and his next flight leaves in eleven minutes (Oh hey!  That’s how long an episode of the show is!), but instead of simply greeting him there and maybe getting a cup of coffee, Tom has this ridiculous itinerary all planned out where his father will somehow visit several Jefferton locations in a brief window of time and even have a meal with Joy and the kids for exactly one minute.  Don’t worry though!  Tom will keep of all of this with his trusty stop watch and he even factored in explaining the itinerary into the itinerary!  Tom’s dad Mr. Walt Pickle (if you recall in Surprise Party, Joy’s last name is Peters which Tom took when he married her) may have a lot of explaining to do, but he surely can’t be held responsible for ALL of this!

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“And as you can see, we’ll be back here with seven seconds to spare!”     “How did you even come up with this?  Did I forget to teach you how to tell TIME!?”

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