Tim and Eric to visit historic Heights

Since 2007, fans of late-night television have been treated to the comedy genius that is Tim and Eric, starring (surprise, surprise) Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim. This weekend, Houstonians will be delighted even more with the opportunity to see the comedic duo live at the newly remodeled Fitzgerald’s.

Unfamiliar with Tim and Eric? Think Robot Chicken, the animated social commentary created by Seth Green, but with real people. If you still can’t get a good idea of what it’s like, know that Zach Galifianakis, Weird Al Yankovic and John C. Reilly are regular guest stars. Yeah, that’s right; if you weren’t already watching it, suddenly you want to.

Short sketches, songs and faux commercials for products that don’t exist (though very well could) are what the show is all about. It’s like the Grand Theft Auto of television — you don’t have to watch on a regular basis to be a fan. It’s easy to turn on one episode, even for a just a few minutes, laugh hysterically and then continue about your day.

But Tim and Eric didn’t get famous solely on people liking their material. In fact, part of their fame is derived from a number of people who despise them and their brand of comedy.

“The hatred for our show comprises about one-tenth of the population of people who actually go onto a message board or the Internet to communicate how they feel about something, so I don’t think that represents a lot of people,” Tim said in a recent interview with suicidegirls.com. “There are just not that many people that communicate what they think about something so publicly. I don’t know anybody who would go online and say how much they hate Murphy Brown if they didn’t like Murphy Brown. I think that in the very beginning, there was a reaction from people that hated the show, but they also hated all the other shows when they first came out. They hated Aqua Teen Hunger Force when it came out. I think they use that forum to just be ridiculous and say horrible things.”

Tim and Eric have thick skin, though. The naysayers don’t get to them.

“Over time much of that went away. There are still people that really hated it, but we are more interested in the positive than the negative, especially with the new show. There are always people who just don’t get it and that’s fine with us. We don’t want everyone to get it, because who cares?”

This type of attitude is part of what makes Tim and Eric such a dynamic duo. While the two receive a lot of flack from (or are completely overlooked by) the media, their niche market of college students eating Cheetos in bean-bag chairs at 3:00 in the morning remain true to the cause, sometimes going as far as to make skits cheaply to further infuriate their critics.

“Half of our sketches purposely look (crappy),” Eric said. “We do them on a bad green screen, and then we run them through VCRs so it looks like it was on a public access channel 10 years ago. We want a lot of this stuff to have a feeling that it didn’t happen too long ago.”

Maybe it’s not your cup of tea, or perhaps you like to go to bed at regular hours and have never heard of two comedians, but their live performance this weekend is sure to be a blast, and since tickets are still available (and cheap), you should probably buy a pair.

Follow @thedailycougar on Twitter for a chance to receive free tickets to Tim and Eric’s show on Friday night.