“Occasionally, you have to run from the po-po.” – Leonard
Randal gets onto a reality show starring only Ugly Americans, created and produced by Clark Dungaree, the Australian lunatic at the helm of such shows as America’s Oldest Hooker. Mark is trying to help a bridge troll acclimate to life in the ordinary world but catches Clark’s eye by being bored while visiting the set, which sets of a string of weirdness as he’s forced to act out episode after episode of weirder and weirder reality shows. Meanwhile, Leonard has to take over Quaggle the Troll’s case, and instead of teaching him how to blend in, he teaches him how to be an anarchist. In the end, Clark leaves Mark alone, everything else was part of a new reality show called I’m Going to F*** With You, Mark Lilly, and Quaggle gets a job as a gameshow host on Clark’s new show, Riddle Me This, which puts his obsessive riddling to good use.
This show is supremely, awesomely weird. Less than half an hour when you take out the commercials, and they manage to cram so much weirdness in that a recap can’t even begin to show it all: Leonard’s fake legs that he wears all the time in case of gangster attacks? The meta-story of what actually happens vs what was shown on TV? Quaggle the Bridge Troll working at a toll booth and getting written up for forcing people to answer riddles before they can go through? That amazing montage of criminality when Leonard takes Quaggle out to see how it’s done? All of it and more was brilliant.
There’s mild social commentary in the discussion of America’s obsession with reality television and how it’s not really reality at all, and in the ongoing themes of integrating foreigners into our already weird society, but that’s not really the point of this show at all. The point is that it’s just so bizarre that it’s impossible not to like it. It’s funny, it’s breakneck speed, it’s clever, and even when people are not really all that likable, they’re still likable because of the way the show handles them. Nothing is too far as far as the show is concerned, because it’s all part of the world all these crazy people are living in.
Not bad for a silly late-night horror-comedy, right?
More thoughts on Ugly Americans, “Trolling for Terror”:
- Randal must have been such a schmo when he was a person; it’s hard to believe that zombification would change his slouchy, messy personality all that much. And yet, he’s all kinds of cheerfully into the whole reality TV thing.
- Every episode, I wonder who thought it would be a good idea to make Leonard a case worker with all these maladjusted people, but he’s the source of so much of the weirdness that I wouldn’t have it any other way.
- Clark Dungaree is such a psychopath that I hope he shows up again.
Some stats and info about Ugly Americans, “Trolling for Terror”
TV SHOW – Ugly Americans
SEASON/EPISODE – Season 1, Episode 12
AIRED ON – November 3rd, 2010
NETWORK/STREAMING SERVICE – Comedy Central
GENRE – Animated Shows, Comedy
CREATED BY – Devin Clark, David M. Stern
CAST – Matt Oberg, Natasha Leggero, Kurt Metzger, Randy Pearlstein, Julie Klausner, Michael-Leon Wooley, Larry Murphy, Devn Clark, Pete Holmes
This review originally appeared on TV Geek Army.