There's
one entry in today's post that's somewhat of a cheat or at least exception to the rules. I put Looney Tunes / Merrie Melodies (1930)
as a catchall for the different programs that had license to show
those old theatrical cartoon shorts. I didn't watch The Bugs Bunny
Show (1960) much, I watched Looney Tunes On Nickelodeon (1988), Bugs
'n' Daffy (1995), and other blocks of similar programming with
various names. These shows, synonymous with Saturday morning cartoons
helped raise generations of animators, comedians, and everyday imagination-filled children of all ages who simply liked having a good
laugh at explosions, sound effects, and wacky characters.
Chuck
Jones, Tex Avery, Friz Freleng, Bob Clampett, Robert McKimson, and
others worked making shorts for Warner Bros. from the beginning of
the thirties until the end of the sixties. That's nearly forty years
of both Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies on the big screen and even
longer on the small screen at home.
Obviously
animation has much fewer limitations than live action, which broadens
possibilities. Certain formats and mediums are fertile ground for the
surreal. Anything that allows the creator(s) to quickly cycle from
one thing to the next is good for this. In theory, sketch / variety,
because the focus can move on within a single episode, has the
potential to be more unconventional than an anthology show that only
changes from episode to episode or season to season. The uncanny, the
unexpected, the shifting plot makes both comedy and horror very
common. However, you generally gotta pick one or the other for the
most part. Horror-comedy typically doesn't lend itself to weirdness as easily. You're in danger of taking away from the horror by adding in laughs, so it can be a delicate balance. Unintentionally funny plays weirder. The more unexplainable and less
in control, the better.
Appearing
on this list isn't a recommendation or sign of quality necessarily. People want to talk about seeing something different that they enjoy, so this list leans heavily towards “good weird” and not “bad
weird”, but there's multiple examples of everything from universal
acclaim to widely panned.
Here's NPR's Fresh Air guest TV critic David Bianculli talking about “Chapter 11”, the season two episode of Legion: “I've been watching TV professionally for a long time now. And nothing excites me more than seeing something new – not new as in the premiere of a new series but new as in something unexpected, unpredictable, something I've never really seen before. The extreme version of that – when it feels like I'm on some sort of amusement park thrill ride and just holding tight, when the visuals, the sound and the story are equally exciting and unusual – has happened to me three times now. The first time was in the '80s with the first musical hallucination in Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective. The second was in 1990 with the third episode of David Lynch's original Twin Peaks – the one with the Red Room and the little dancing man. And the third – well, if you watch Legion Tuesday night on FX, you'll see the third.”
He goes on to talk about how the speculation about these shows' unanswered questions is part of the fun, citing Lost and The Prisoner as other cases of this. Notice the same throughline of avant-garde narratives from The Singing Detective to Twin Peaks, but with Legion rather than The Curse as this viewer's most recent example.
There's
some lanes that are just easier to be weirder in. Like British
children's programs. Or programmes, if you must.
420
Weird Shows: 181-240
The
Jerry Springer Show (1991)
Jigsaw (1979)
Joe Pera Talks with
You (2018)
John From Cincinnati (2007)
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
(2012)
KaBlam!
(1996)
KATLA (2021)
Kevin Can F**k Himself (2021)
Kid Nation
(2007)
The Kids in the Hall (1988)
Kikaida:
Android of Justice (1972)
Kill
la Kill (2013)
La
Vie des Botes (1986)
Lady Dynamite (2016)
Lancelot Link, Secret
Chimp (1970)
Land
of the Lustrous (2017)
Lazy Company (2013)
LazyTown (2004)
The
League of Gentlemen (1999)
The
Leftovers (2014)
Legends
of Tomorrow (2016)
Legion (2017)
Lexx (1997)
Liquid
Television (1991)
Little
Britain (2003)
Lodge
49 (2018)
Loki (2021)
Look Around You (2002)
Looney Tunes /
Merrie Melodies (1930)
Los Espookys (2019)
Lost (2004)
The
Lost Room (2006)
Louie
(2010)
Love
Death + Robots (2019)
Lovecraft Country (2020)
Lucky Louie
(2006)
MPD Psycho (2000)
MAD (2010)
The
Magicians (2015)
The Man in the High Castle (2015)
Man Seeking
Woman (2015)
Man vs. Beast (2003)
Man vs. Food (2008)
Maniac
(2018)
Manimal
(1983)
Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman (1976)
The
Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack (2008)
Max
Headroom (1987)
The Maxx (1995)
The Middleman (2008)
The
Midnight Gospel (2020)
Midnight Mass (2021)
The Mighty Boosh
(2004)
Mike Tyson Mysteries (2014)
Miracle Workers (2019)
Misfits
(2009)
Must
see TV content during part five tomorrow.
