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(S02E02) This episode of Wonder Showzen began with Chauncey visited by himself from two minutes in the future. It turns out Chauncey's future self is a hundred times cooler than Chauncey, so Chauncey sets out to build a time machine and travel even further back in the future (four minutes) so he can be even hipper. But we'll get to all that in a moment.

I said in my last review that the "Beat Kids" segment wasn't my favorite, only because I don't think it always works in the execution. Of course, that was before last night when they had a kid put on zombie make-up, dress as the Pope, and interview people in front of a Catholic Church under the pseudonym "Little Dead Pope." Trey Parker has been quoted time and again saying Cartman was his way of creating a character who could say things that would get most real people burned at the stake. Wonder Showzen takes that concept one step further and actually uses real children, which adds a whole layer of apprehension when you hear them say things to unsuspecting adults like, "The Pope should go to Hell for promoting a corrupt system. High five!" Not many shows can make you almost fall of the couch laughing while at the same time fearing for a child's life. They should have some kind of award for that.

I apologize for piggybacking something personal onto this blog post, but I thought you should know that this is what's happening inside my head all the time. How this girl was able to capture it, I'll never know.

Speaking of animation, last month I mentioned a new animated series from comedians Jeffrey Ross and Tracy Morgan called Where My Dogs At? At the time I couldn't find much information on the series, but it turns out the show is part of a new effort from MTV2 to go head to head with Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block. Besides Ross and Morgan's new series, the network also plans to bring back Celebrity Deathmatch, one of the most boring uses of clay since Gumby. MTV2 has actually been testing the waters with animation for awhile now, tossing in old episodes of Beavis and Butthead and Celebrity Deathmatch into the schedule. Personally, I think they should bring back Liquid Television, or at least show old episodes. I don't know if MTV is in any position to go up against Adult Swim, which is clearly the undisputed champion of experimental animation right now. However, MTV was once a lot like Adult Swim, home to a lot of really great and weird animated shows. It'll be interesting to see if anything they come up with can rival what Adult Swim is offering.

Last night marked the start of the second season of Wonder Showzen, and I almost missed it. Thankfully they repeated the episode later in the evening so I was able to crank up the ol' Tivo and capture it. After watching the same Season One episodes about twenty times each, it was nice to finally see something new.

Last night's episode was about heroes and victims, with the main focus being put on the letter P, who was once very pretty but gained a lot of excess weight. Chauncy, the puppet's ringleader, decides P just needs a healthy dose of tough love, so he and the rest of the gang scream things at her like "stupid bitch" and "dumb slut" because "she needed to hear that."

Andy Milonakis fans can now rejoice, and those who loathe him can... not rejoice, I guess. The Andy Milonakis Show is coming back to MTV2 for a second season, so we can expect to see more crazy hijinks, angry people on the street, and whatever surreal nonsense Andy can come up with. The new season will kick off on March 31 as part of MTV2's "Sic 'Em Friday" lineup. The new season will correspond with the DVD release of the first season.

Either I've been spending too much time alone in my room, or I'm dead, but somehow I've completely missed Wonder Showzen, a show which borrows aesthetically from Sesame Street, but with a lot more heroin use and puppet sex. While its satire can sometimes seem a bit tired, it's done in a unique and manic way. Children are often utilized as on-the-street interviewers of unsuspecting adults in a segment simply called "Beat Kids." It's not a show you want to examine too closely, but when it works, you'll need a team of janitors to clean up your splattered brains after your head explodes from laughing so hard. And besides, it does the TV Funhouse thing better than TV Funhouse ever did. The show airs on MTV2.