Edgiest puppet show: Wonder Showzen

[beaker]

Forget Greg the Bunny...forget Crank Yankers...check out the new ultra cryptic show Wonder Showzen on MTV2(fridays at (9:30 pm)
http://www.thedst.com/wondershowzen/
http://www.mtv2.com/#series/14484
http://www.tvtome.com/WonderShowzen/

and, the test pilot: http://waxy.org/random/video/kidshow2.wmv

For some reason this show is able to seem into your primal subconscious, a cryptic, hillariously shocking and sometimes frightening reimagining of cinema vertie puppetry and saturday morning live kid audience variety children shows.

 

[ravagefrackle]

gotta disagree with you thier, i saw, it was awful, yet another show that thinks bad puppetry is funny, its not very clever , and the only reason i was able to sit thur it was i was drinking at a bar, and my friends an d i were able to discuss just how bada show it was

 

[beaker]

gotta disagree with you thier, i saw, it was awful, yet another show that thinks bad puppetry is funny, its not very clever , and the only reason i was able to sit thur it was i was drinking at a bar, and my friends an d i were able to discuss just how bada show it was

The puppetry itself is early Sesame quality, but it's the shows sheer subversive and caustic nature that I have never seen before on a cable broadcast show. The underlying social edict of it is surprisingly stark and almost serious. I definately see promise in this. I forgot to mention, this show really shouldnt be seen by the younger folks, as the content is pretty extreme.

 

[ravagefrackle]

The puppetry itself is early Sesame quality, but it's the shows sheer subversive and caustic nature that I have never seen before on a cable broadcast show. The underlying social edict of it is surprisingly stark and almost serious. I definately see promise in this. I forgot to mention, this show really shouldnt be seen by the younger folks, as the content is pretty extreme.

dude seriously the puppetry isnt even early CAPTAN KANGAROO,its just a mish mosh, like it was written by someone with A.D.D.,

 

[beaker]

dude seriously the puppetry isnt even early CAPTAN KANGAROO,its just a mish mosh, like it was written by someone with A.D.D.,

Well in the last few years, Ive seen stuff like Greg the Bunny and Crank Yankers, which billed themseleves on being 'edgy'...but didnt really deliver on much of anything. If youve seen a couple of these episodes, it taps into something more complex and daring than any of those other efforts.

 

[DMETxix]

We do not receive MTV2 over here (well only if I pay more to go digital) but I did watch parts of the pilot you posted so I could get an idea what this is about.

I'm used to a lot, and there's not much that can really shock me, but I'm truely lost to the point of this show. To show adults bad things happen in real life? How gruesome hotdogs are made? I think we know that by now. (I knew that even as a child.) The only thing remotely innovative about this show was the fact they used puppets to convey their message.

Not everything was that horrible, but all the more confusing. The only thing I could think off while watching this is that they simply did it for 'shock-value', which (in my case) didn't even work. I've seen all of this before, without puppetry, in a much more proper fashion.

Edgy? I guess.. Edgiest? Not even close!
It's not my cup of tea, but to each his own.

Edit:
And on the subject of Crank Yankers and Greg The Bunny, I wholeheartedly agree with you, those shows were not edgy at all.

 

[Vic Romano]

I saw a clip of these guys stuff on ebaums world a while ago. Are they edgy? Yes, was it good? I thought it sucked hard. I don't mind "edgy" humor, but when a show relies strictly on sexual, twisted or controversial humor, well, I think it gets old real fast. The puppetry wasn't terrible, but it sure wasn't very good.
I like Crank Yanker's at times, but it does get annoying because it starts to rely on raunch.
I loved South Park when it first came out, but then it was just gay joke after gay joke, raunchy humor over and over again, rarely any really witty jokes cracked. I think that's why the Simpsons has been on for so long, they don't rely on the same thing all the time.
I also like Howard Stern, and he's considered raunchy, but he still changes it up. He even said that when he gets to satelite, he's not going to just drop f - bombs all over the place, he just wants more freedom. Yes, he does talk a lot about sex, retardation and the like, but he also cracks jokes on himself, pop culture and everyday stuff.
People think because they can get away with something on TV, that makes it funny or entertaining. Like reality television, I hope this low grade and poor quality type of humor is just a passing fad and we can get back to getting writers who think about something funny instead of writers who think what they can get past the censors.

 

[ravagefrackle]

Well in the last few years, Ive seen stuff like Greg the Bunny and Crank Yankers, which billed themseleves on being 'edgy'...but didnt really deliver on much of anything. If youve seen a couple of these episodes, it taps into something more complex and daring than any of those other efforts.

as far as im concered if a show calls it self "EDGY" it isnt ,

im really only commenting on the puppetry here, Crank Yankers , has some great puppetry , but the calls are lame, Greg The Bunny had some good puppetry but the scripts were lame, and this show is just lame , period,

I think SIFYL AND OLLIE was more entertaining, and they werent trying to be like any thing else , it was wierd and simple, and it worked real well, and they didnt put on any pretentions of being any thing but a sock puppet show

 

[FISH'N'WOLFE]

I think SIFFLE AND OLLIE was more entertaining, and they werent trying to be like any thing else , it was wierd and simple, and it worked real well, and they didnt put on any pretentions of being any thing but a sock puppet show

You're right, that was a great show and quite unique.

 

[Iokitek]

Check out their site:
http://www.sifl-n-olly.com/

I love Sifl and Olly. It's just 2 guys who shot a sockpuppet show at home. I don't know the entire background though of how they ended up on MTV. I guess they where first aired on an Nashville local channel and then discovered.

You can watch some episodes on Shoutcast right now. But those feeds are illegal so I wouldn't reccommend it. I watched some episodes there myself and then discovered it was illegal to stream them. So I left it alone out of respect for them. Although I really loved watching it. There are also some short clips available on their site if you're really curious. And if you really like it they also sell DVD's. The music is totally weird but very diverse. They do country, rap, rock, metal and even new age stuff. But ofcourse the songs all have very silly lyrics.

The content varied from interviews with planets in our solar system to an atom in Elvis' haircomb. Two of the puppets that cracked me up where the BDSM puppets appearing in Calls from the Public. One of them was all leather with two eyeopenings and a zipper for the mouth. The other one was a 'naked' hand with some leather straps and a nipple from a baby's milkbottle on top. That was hilarrious in my opinion

Some segments in the show were:

Calls from the public - silly phonecalls from 'the public', usually vidcalls.

A word with Chester - Chester is a mentally unstable kid who just talked a whole bunch of nonsense most of the time. He can't help it though

Precious Roy's Homeshopping Network - A homeshopping network specialized in selling such items as a bottomless pools and more useless stuff like that. Precious Roy usually ended the segment with calling us 'suckers' for buying his crap.


I just really liked this show. Or what I saw of it anyway. It was all poor quality but highly entertaining nonetheless.