We’ve made it to Season Two, and I hate to do it, but I have to start things out on a somber note. This episode is dedicated to the memory of Casey Tatum, the 17-year-old star of “Uncle Muscles’ Hour.” There may be winners and losers in this strange, cruel world of ours, but there will never be another one like you, Casey.

It’s been a long, strange ride through Season 1, and we’ve reached the end. Who will win? Who will survive? And what’s going to happen to Casey?

Episode Nine, “Hamburger,” makes use of an extended guest appearance, introduces us to the future Winterman, and gives us an extended look at the barely contained chaos that constitutes the creative process behind an episode of Awesome Show. Awesome Show has looked at the “behind the scenes” ideas of creation, teamwork, and creativity in the past. In Episode Two, “Friends,” the boys experiment with writing a jingle, while in Episode 4, “Salame,” Eric has to take on the burden of “making” the Awesome Show himself.

Awesome Show does not obey the laws of space, time, or good taste. So, for Episode Eight, “Anniversary,” we’re taken fifty years into the future where nothing has changed, only Tim and Eric have aged, and a green monster named Grum taught us all the joys of snack food. If only our own future were so bright. “Anniversary” builds on many earlier episodes in its exploration of loss, friendship, and regret.

Do you love inept local commercials, corporate training videos, and 70’s style pizza boy pornos? Boy, have we got an episode for you. As the title implies, Episode Seven deals with the idea of abstinence in several segments--primarily the “Pizza Boy” skit and “Channel Five’s Only Married News Team.”

With Season 1, Episode 6, “Slop,” the deranged duo double down on the disgusting, the unsettling, and--for a little extra kick--give us two of the series’ most iconic characters! Grab a bucket of Tragg’s branded brown slop, and let’s dig in. At a fundamental level, “Slop” is fascinated with the perversity of bodies.

Halfway through season 1, Tim and Eric introduce three of their most memorable characters, challenge us with the idea of an unknowable reality, and teach us all to love New Wave again. It’s not gonna get any easier from here, so you may as well just pay attention and we’ll get this episode over with fast. This episode is monomaniacally concerned with the instability of reality.

Episode four is simply required viewing. From introducing David Liebe Hart to giving us the first appearance of the nefarious Mahanahan brothers, “Salame” is a disturbingly elegant entry in the Awesome Show canon. Repetition is a mainstay of Awesome Show’s humor.

With Season 1, Episode 3, Awesome Show truly began to stretch the boundaries of the absurd. While no one is going to accuse the first two episodes of being too normal, the third episode goes whole hog on the insanity and fully embraces the giddily strange. Awesome Show as many preoccupations, and in the maelstrom of gleeful madness, certain areas of interest emerge again and again.

After all of that zesty intensity covering Season 1 Episode 1, I had to stop and think that there had to be a better way to give you, the ever-patient CineDump reader, your comprehensive celebration of Awesome Show in an easily digestible, elegantly packaged method. Thankfully, I happened to discover the Cinco patented THAW system, the one-stop, all-inclusive, one-size-fits-all, wham-bam-thank-you-man approach to all things encyclopedic. Each entry in this Awesome Show Cincopedia, will be structured according to this infallibly precise system

March 28th is a blessed day for all fans of Tim and Eric Awesome Show Great Job! The deranged duo’s newest perversion, The Beefhouse Boys, premiered on Adult Swim, and, it should be noted, this glorious gift could have been ours much sooner if Eric Wareheim had his way. During the early days of Coronavirus Panic, he called on Adult Swim to “release the Beef” and let the show drop earlier.