Wonder Showzen: Cooperation
(S02E06) If there was any doubt in my mind about the brilliance that is Wonder Showzen, it was put to rest by last night's episode, which was by far the funniest and most insane episode so far this season. There are a lot of comedic elements that come easy for Wonder Showzen: the gross-out humor, the surreal twists, and the acid-induced logic, but what really makes the show for me are those moments when it outright defies the viewer to keep watching. Last season they did it with the episode "Patience" in which the whole last half of the episode was just the first half of the episode played backwards. In this episode, after a fight breaks out between the regular show and a bootleg knock-off of the program, they decide to split the television screen 60/40, so the audience can watch both shows at once. Eventually more and more shows begin to take over the television screen, which resulted in four minutes of sometimes as many as eight segments all being shown simultaneously at equal volume.
There were so many great moments in this episode I can't recall all of them here, but here's what stuck out:
Chauncey lamenting the fact that Wonder Showzen, thanks to people downloading it out of existence, is now "broke as a two-cent nickel up a hobo's dumper" and later, while watching a bootleg version of Wonder Showzen called "Wondur Showzey" he insists everyone "make like an Australian and keep watching this abortion."
Later we're treated to a cartoon in which a pregnant woman is executed via electric chair and gives birth at the same time, prompting the warden to exclaim, "This is the first time they aborted the mother and kept the baby!" The executioner, who turns out to be a donkey in disguise for some reason, adds, "Always love a twist on the classics!"
David Cross also returns for this episode, but with more screen time. He recites a story to a group of children just before having his throat slit by a terrorist. Other highlights included Chauncey vomiting blood into Him's mouth, and a film about the plight of the mushroom cloud which uses the term "tragiluckily." Again, the best episode of the season, me thinks.

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