A new limited series premiered tonight on PBS loosely inspired by NPR’s Car Talk. I don’t listen to that show, but I thought I’d tune in to As The Wrench Turns. Although the premise is good, I was disappointed by the result.
The basic premise of the show is the exploits of Click and Clack in their garage/studio. They have various friends and acquaintances who work with them: a foreigner who misinterprets many statements (to a pledger: “What you mean you ‘listen?’ You KGB?”), an intelligent fellow who gives the duo advice from such books as Fundraising from B.C. to Barack, the garage manager who gambles away their fundraising money on whether or not the number of the day on Sesame Street is even, and the producer Ms. Totenbag.
As you can tell, there are many jokes at the expense of PBS, and these are pretty funny. But the rest of the jokes fall flat. There are some clever bad puns (in the opener, where Click and Clack run for president, other politicians are named M. Bezzle and Phil Landerer), and I noticed a few inside jokes referring to the staff (writer Tom Minton’s name written on a piece of paper, a reference to a Local 839 of the lugnut tightener’s union- director Tom Sito was the president of the Animation Guild, IATSE Local 839), but the rest of the jokes are pedestrian and don’t really stand out. With a professional staff of writers and directors who have some of Warners’ and Disney’s finest on their resume, the show just doesn’t add up. Click and Clack should bring their show in for a tune-up.
It was meh. I didn’t have high expectations. I just couldn’t imagine that they had real writers. Tom and Ray aren’t really that funny if you really listen to the show. They have a lot of fun on the show and I learn great car stuff, but it’s only fun and not funny.
I didn’t have high expectations, but by about 15 minutes into the first episode I (and the friends I was watching it with) realized it was awful. Unfunny, stiff, badly paced, and way too much reliance on hokey sound effects.
The best thing about it was the music by Brave Combo.
The second episode was a little better, but that’s not saying much. I may watch another episode or two, but if they don’t get significantly better, I’ll pass on the rest.
I’ll still listen to the radio show every week, though.
Last week, during a confrontation with a certain clandestine quasi-government organization I shall now name, I, ah, acquired a few dozen neuralizers. Anybody who watched the show and needs to forget it, let me know and I’ll pop one over.
I was hoping for the best; not knowing it was going to be a cartoon helped in that regard. I watched a few minutes then surfed away, astounded that anything that bad had been greenlighted by anybody but the Cartoon Network. Came back and was disappointed it hadn’t been cancelled halfway through. Saw that it was not only not cancelled but they intended to show a second one. Decided it was a thinly veiled threat by PBS of what can happen if more people don’t pledge, but remembered the crap they show during pledge drives. Realized that was where it belonged, with Ray and Tom guesting during the drive segments so their fans would sit through the godawful cartoon.
It was the worst shit I’ve seen on PBS in ages, or since the last pledge drive, when they featured such luminaries as Suze Orman’s hair, Wayne Dyer’s lack of hair, and the guy from “Rich Dad, Poor Dad.”
I stumbled across it at the end of the first episode. I kept wondering where Click was. Or was it Clack? There was one guy who looked like he could be Click (or Clack), but none of the other characters looked like they could be Clack (or Click). I had to watch the beginning of the second episode to find out that the character who looked like a terrorist was the missing Clack. I watched for a few minutes more, and I couldn’t believe how bad it was. It sucked. It just plain sucked.
The gentleman and I watched it last night. About the best I can say is it was very ordinary. It was funny in places, but if felt rather amateurish to me, you know, in a kind of “Hey, gang! Let’s put on a show!” sort of way. I liked the second episode better because the first had too much of a pledge drive skit feel to it. I won’t be heartbroken if I never see it again, but I’ve watched worse.