''Too Many Cooks'' is a
surreal
Surreal may refer to:
*Anything related to or characteristic of Surrealism, a movement in philosophy and art
* "Surreal" (song), a 2000 song by Ayumi Hamasaki
* ''Surreal'' (album), an album by Man Raze
*Surreal humour, a common aspect of humor
...
black comedy short
Short may refer to:
Places
* Short (crater), a lunar impact crater on the near side of the Moon
* Short, Mississippi, an unincorporated community
* Short, Oklahoma, a census-designated place
People
* Short (surname)
* List of people known as ...
that originally aired as a
special during
Adult Swim
Adult Swim (AS; stylized as dult swim
Dult is a village in Batala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab State, India. It is located from sub district headquarter, from district headquarter and from Sri Hargobindpur. The village is administrated by Sarpanch an elected representati ...
and often abbreviated as s is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television Television channel, channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programme ...
's "
infomercial
An infomercial is a form of television commercial that resembles regular TV programming yet is intended to promote or sell a product, service or idea. It generally includes a toll-free telephone number or website. Most often used as a form of dire ...
s" block on October 28, 2014, at 4:00 am
Eastern Time.
It was created, written, and directed by
Casper Kelly
Chris "Casper" Kelly is an American writer, television director, and producer.
Career
Kelly is the co-creator of the Adult Swim live-action series ''Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell'', the Adult Swim animated series ''Stroker and Hoop'', and the ...
, and produced by
Williams Street. After its original airing, the piece became a
viral video online and was repeated each night at midnight Eastern Time during the week of November 11, 2014.
Premise
The short begins as a parody of
opening credits
In a motion picture, television program or video game, the opening credits or opening titles are shown at the very beginning and list the most important members of the production. They are now usually shown as text superimposed on a blank screen ...
sequences of 1970s, 80s, and 90s American
sitcoms
A sitcom, a portmanteau of situation comedy, or situational comedy, is a genre of comedy centered on a fixed set of characters who mostly carry over from episode to episode. Sitcoms can be contrasted with sketch comedy, where a troupe may use new ...
, then television
crime dramas,
prime time soap operas,
Saturday morning cartoons, superhero live-action series,
slasher films, and
science fiction television shows
Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.
Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...
, with each of them gradually bleeding into the next. Particular focus is put on a
slasher
Slasher may refer to:
* Slasher (basketball), a style of play in basketball
* Slasher film, a subgenre of the horror film
* Slasher (tool), a scrub-clearing implement
* ''Slasher'' (2004 film), a 2004 documentary film
* ''Slasher'' (2007 film) ...
film villain (played by
William Tokarsky), who is hidden in the background of several early shots but eventually starts killing the other characters with a
machete. The opening credits sequence ends after about ten minutes and transitions into the "episode", with all the characters from the opening standing in the one house; the short ends roughly ten seconds later, cutting to closing credits before a full line of dialogue ("Honey, I'm ho-") can be spoken.
Development and production
According to Kelly, he conveyed the concept of the short to his ''
Squidbillies'' writer-producer friend Jim Fortier, who in turn described it to Adult Swim executive
Mike Lazzo, who loved the idea. The footage was filmed over a period of three days in October 2013 with a cast completely composed of
extras from the
Atlanta area.
Post-production
Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments.
The ...
took a year, with Kelly recruiting friends and co-workers to help with the process.
While the video depicts the opening credits of a fictional television show, most of the cast members' real names were used.
According to Katie Adkins, actors were not presented with a clearly explained script, but rather coached on the go, in a somewhat nonchalant manner.
Among the series openings parodied are those of ''
Full House'', ''
Wonder Woman'', ''
The Brady Bunch'', ''
Dallas'', ''
Dynasty'', ''
Battlestar Galactica
''Battlestar Galactica'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Glen A. Larson. The franchise began with the Battlestar Galactica (1978 TV series), original television series in 1978, and was followed by a short-run sequel se ...
,'' ''
Falcon Crest
''Falcon Crest'' is an American prime time television soap opera that aired for nine seasons on CBS from December 4, 1981, to May 17, 1990. The series revolves around the feuding factions of the wealthy Gioberti/Channing family in the California ...
'', ''
ALF,
G.I. JOE'', ''
Roseanne
''Roseanne'' is an American sitcom television series created by Matt Williams and Roseanne Barr which aired on ABC from October 18, 1988, to May 20, 1997, and briefly revived from March 27, 2018, to May 22, 2018. The show stars Barr as Roseann ...
'', ''
Family Matters'', ''
T. J. Hooker
''T. J. Hooker'' is an American police drama television program starring William Shatner in the title role as a 15-year veteran police sergeant. The series premiered as a mid-season replacement on March 13, 1982, on ABC and ran on the network un ...
'', ''
Seinfeld
''Seinfeld'' ( ) is an American television sitcom created by Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld. It aired on NBC from July 5, 1989, to May 14, 1998, over nine seasons and List of Seinfeld episodes, 180 episodes. It stars Seinfeld as Jerry Seinfeld ( ...
'', and the ''
Law & Order
''Law & Order'' is an American police procedural and legal drama television series created by Dick Wolf and produced by Wolf Entertainment, launching the '' Law & Order'' franchise.
''Law & Order'' aired its entire run on NBC, premiering on ...
'' franchise. The short briefly mentions
avant-garde film director
Lars von Trier.
Reception
Upon its release by a third party on
YouTube, ''Too Many Cooks'' became a
viral video,
with ''
Rolling Stone'' calling it an "instant
cult classic".
Director
Rian Johnson said that, "no joke", ''Too Many Cooks'' should have been nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film (although it was in fact ineligible for this honour, not having had a cinematic release).
Comedians including
Penn Jillette,
Simon Pegg,
Zach Braff, and
Richard Kelly tweeted their positive reactions to ''Too Many Cooks''.
David Sims of ''
The Atlantic'' wrote that ''Too Many Cooks'' relied on "the classic
anti-comedy
Anti-humor is a type of indirect and alternative humor that involves the joke-teller's delivering something that is intentionally not funny, or lacking in intrinsic meaning. The practice relies on the expectation on the part of the audience of so ...
premise of taking so long with something that it goes from being funny, to being not very funny, to being boring, to suddenly becoming hilarious again. More than that, it's an excellent piece of non-narrative sketch comedy that sets out boundaries for its own weird reality and then goes about breaking them over and over again."
Dr. Julian Darius called it "a sublime postmodern masterpiece" and analyzed its metafictional aspects.
In 2022, ''Rolling Stone'' ranked it the 10th-best TV theme song of all time, calling it an "
earworm" that is "somehow ''every'' theme song, from every genre".
[10: ‘Too Many Cooks’: Adult Swim, 2014]
by Alan Sepinwall, at '' Rolling Stone''; published November 24, 2022; retrieved November 28, 2022
Legacy
CNN created a parody of the video in March 2015, using it to mock the number of potential candidates in the
2016 United States Presidential Election
The 2016 United States presidential election was the 58th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. The Republican ticket of businessman Donald Trump and Indiana governor Mike Pence defeated the Democratic ticket ...
. The video was conceived by digital producer Eric Weisbrod; Chris Moody, a senior digital correspondent at CNN and the video’s creative director, noted that "b-roll from cheesy political ads...are almost taken right out of '90s sitcoms. If you look at old ads, it’s families smiling at each other and smiling at the camera. It just fit so nicely."
In June 2018, Adult Swim published a short film by
Casper Kelly
Chris "Casper" Kelly is an American writer, television director, and producer.
Career
Kelly is the co-creator of the Adult Swim live-action series ''Your Pretty Face Is Going to Hell'', the Adult Swim animated series ''Stroker and Hoop'', and the ...
and Nick Gibbons titled ''Final Deployment 4: Queen Battle Walkthrough'', which parodies
livestreaming gaming culture. Kelly described this short as his
spiritual successor
A spiritual successor (sometimes called a spiritual sequel) is a product or fictional work that is similar to, or directly inspired by, another previous work, but (unlike a traditional prequel or sequel) does not explicitly continue the product lin ...
to ''Too Many Cooks''.
References
External links
*
*
{{Adult Swim pilots and specials
2014 television specials
Adult Swim pilots and specials
American drama short films
Black comedy television shows
Cannibalism in fiction
Metafictional television series
Film and television opening sequences
Parodies of television shows
Viral videos
American black comedy films
Television shows filmed in Atlanta