Tom Goes to the Mayor: My Big Cups

(S02E01) To celebrate thirty years of Jefferton, the Mayor has decided to hold a contest to see who can come up with the best painting to represent the city. After a slightly modified opening sequence where the Mayor announces the contest, we cut to a scene in his office where he rejects contestant after contestant by knocking their paintings out of their hands with a stick. Like clockwork, Tom Peters shows up with a great new idea that's going to inevitably end up in disaster. This time, Tom has invented something called Big Cups, large receptacles that hold almost two liters (1.8 to be exact). Tom, not one to always think his ideas through completely, doesn't enlarge the cups to house an entire two liter bottle of soda, but instead offers a smaller disposable cup and a plastic bag with which to dispose of the extra soda. Tom Goes to the Mayor is full of subtle gems like that, where even the most absurd moments aren't given much more than a passing glance. A lot of these moments center on the Mayor himself, who always greets Tom in person as if he's answering his phone: "Hello, Mayor's office!" There's also the "one-man band" toward the end of this episode, which is really just a man with a CD player taped to his chest. Also, instead of walking behind the podium to give his speech, two people actually drag the podium in front of Tom. It's hilarious because it's complete unnecessary.

Somewhat impressed by his Big Cups, the Mayor visits Tom's store and falls in love with one of Tom's paintings, a picture rendered in macaroni of his three stepsons and his wife Joy. Despite Tom's repeated insistence that it was his son, Brendon, who made it and not him, the Mayor offers Tom $500 to create a macaroni painting for the city. Tom comes up with a concept: a painting of Jefferton with people saluting the flag, an eagle in the sky leaving a trail of gold dust, and a giant locomotive in the middle of everything. He cons his children into making it, and when it's finally unveiled it's essentially several boxes of macaroni glued haphazardly to a canvas with a dead bird taped to it. The Mayor loves it.

A pretty good opener, I think, though I did miss Bob Odenkirk in this episode. Given the awesome guest stars assembled for this new season, I expect the episodes to get even better. Not really an animated show, and not entirely a live-action show, either, there is nothing like this on television right now, and I can't think of any series that takes such a brilliantly aloof approach to comedy.