As Too Many Cooks, Adult Swim’s 11-minute absurdist TV parody, climbs into the collective conscious of the Internet’s scattered dome, the kitschy farce has some lessons for the cinema in its wall-to-wall presentation — and debunking — of stale television tropes.
The cinema might seem like a stretch for a TV-based short that lampoons outdated ’80s and ’90s programming like ALF, Battlestar Galactica, Law & Order, Full House and Family Matters, but Too Many Cooks’ wacky delivery and its viral hitmaking frenzy are signs that maybe feature films are ready for some new strategies.
For starters, if you haven’t seen the short, it begins with a catchy little theme-song jingle that unspools a make-believe TV show’s cast. There’s a Flanders-like dad, several kids of varying ages, a mother and grandmother, and they all seem to be smiling a lot on the Married … With Children set. Just as the intro appears to be wrapping up, signalling the start of the actual show, the song adds verse after verse introducing even more characters as it skewers a variety of new shows, from G.I. Joe and Wonder Woman to The Cosby Show and Dynasty. Eventually, a serial killer plotline begins to get looped into the repetitive call-outs of actors, and slowly Too Many Cooks begins to unravel into madness as it is consumed by absurdity, doom and a surreal stupor, all with a gleefully oblivious smile on its twisted face.
The short, created by an enterprising young writer named Casper Kelly, has found fame — and infamy — because of its cheerful jingle (with lyrics about broth and stew), twisted plot developments with machetes and cannibalism, a teasing brand of parody that looks back on its targets with genuine fondness, and the wicked sense of humor it displays across its bleak, patience-stretching 11 minutes.
Film can learn a lot from Too Many Cooks starting with its guerrilla-style marketing. The short aired at 4 a.m. in the middle of a nondescript block of programming called “Infomercials.” There were no teasers, no PR blitzes, not even a notation in the description in the programming guide. The only reason the show found an audience was because someone uploaded a rough copy, presumably from their DVR, onto YouTube, and then another person (or maybe the same person) posted it to Reddit, where it rose to prominence.
Too Many Cooks is not the first of anything to drop itself into the world without warning: Beyoncé has done it with an album of music videos, and J.K. Rowling and other authors have done it with books written under pseudonyms. Movies, burdened under the weight of eight- and nine-figured marketing budgets, need to be nimble out the gate, and a covert release like Too Many Cooks isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It allows an audience to build organically and at its own pace. Due to the nature of film, and the large casts and crews involved, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see a secret movie just turn up in the theater, but the thought of that notion is intriguing. No Mt. Dew tie-ins, no teaser trailers, no Taco Bell combo items, no press junket tour, no social media campaign, not even known stars. One day the film just comes out and it forces audiences to be swayed by their own curiosity versus the media blitz that was rolled out months earlier.
Films on the festival circuit, including at big names like Sundance and Cannes, arrive with audiences mostly unfamiliar with what they’re about to see. But how many people can afford, let alone gain access, to Cannes to watch a movie unvetted by the marketing honchos? Not many, which is why it would be so impressive to see a major motion picture just turn up in theaters across the country, because it would involve ground-level movie fans as opposed to festival regulars and critics. The risk involved with that would be great, but the rewards would be greater when considering that the audience will be the film’s ultimate champions.
The Adult Swim show also hints that audiences might be ready for a new brand of storytelling. Something just southeast and down of center, something skewed into the bizarre. Airplane, Blazing Saddles and the original Police Squad! are appropriate examples, even if that genre of fourth-wall-breaking spoof comedy is worn and tired these days. Watching it again (and again and again), Too Many Cooks has a spontaneity that is so rarely seen in comedies, and I think its weird depravity and obsession with repetition would fit in well in the context of a larger comedy.
I’m not suggesting a movie-length Too Many Cooks, just a comedy that invokes its gonzo-bonkers style. Besides, 11 minutes is plenty.
