The first of (remorsefully) only ten television episodes to ever live under the Stella moniker, episode 1: Pilot, is as hilarious a twenty minutes as you will find anywhere, and perhaps the season’s best. This first outing (in this series, anyway) for the Stella troupe (Michael Ian Black, Michael Showalter and David Waine, for those not yet indoctrinated) offers the viewer the comedy team’s unique comedic style without restraint.
In the first 30 seconds of the series, as Sho (as only the truest of fans can refer to him) and David bicker over listening to Funk Rock vs Funk Rock, Black gives the two an ultimatum that has been overused in our culture beyond meaning, “If you two don’t shut up i am going to drive this car into a pole.” To which the two reply, with childlike (an adjective that will apply to many gestures, exchanges and actions throughout the series) attitude, “Do it, do it.” He does just that. We then see Black emerge from the vehicle bloody and scarred, only to say (as David and Sho walk away still arguing), “Hey guys, wait up.”
This segment introduces the viewer to the absurdist, cliche-deriding, childish, immature, genius, sharp, satirical, endearing, earnest and surreal humor that fills every second of the Stella comedy trio (they were three guys doing stand-up before anything else) and series. I know that’s a long list of adjectives, but every one of them applies with full force to what these three men present as entertainment. For the next 20 minutes (and 9 episodes that follow) the Stella boys, perpetually adorned in business suits (a sharp and hilarious mockery of corporate America and all of its trappings), throw twisted jokes at the audience with reckless abandon, cramming goofy faces, deconstructions of the fourth wall (staring and waving at the camera at every opportunity), bizarre jokes and visual gags into every frame.
The plot goes something like this:
The “three guys,” as they’re often referred to by the ignorant outside world not in on the joke, get evicted from their apartment (by their landlord, who, due solely to his German heritage, is considered a Nazi by Black) for playing funk rock to loud. They then, in a series of 2-3 days, become destitute vagabonds, apply for and succeed in securing a million-dollar co-op , reveal that they can’t afford such a ridiculously priced apartment (“We don’t have this money,” a line long-established in the Stella routine that resurfaces throughout the series), go back to the streets, disguise themselves in mustaches (a topic for a later post) and return to rent their old apartment. They then cause their landlord to have a heart attack when their true identities are revealed, kill him in an emotional and intense open-heart surgery and finally learn, thanks to Eliot Morganthol of the Lebenthol Foundation, that Don the landlord was indeed a vicious, murderous Nazi. For killing off the international criminal, Michael, Michael and David are rewarded with three months rent (conveniently assuring their residence for 9 more episodes), a toaster, a wicker hamper from Pier 1 and fleece pullovers.
Did you follow that? The deliriously ridiculous plot provides ample opportunity for the three to skewer genre forms and norms, and provoke deep, real laughter from the audience.
Suspense: Don going to the dry cleaners to pick up a rug while MM&D wait anxiously in a tableau for him to return, sweating with fear.
Dance films: Our heroes secure the co-op through a blatantly fake dance scene that makes efforts to show the stand-ins dancing as them.
Melodrama: The three live as desperate hobos, in full, stereotypical hobo attire, hours after their eviction, sharing one single bean for dinner.
Romance: A subplot follows David’s swooning of the co-op realtor, their brief, passionate kiss, David’s rejection of the poor woman (Libby), his deep inner conflict during the surgery when Black says, in reference to the dying landlord whose chest he is elbow-deep inside, “It’s a shame when you have nobody to spend your life with,” his run through the rain to confess his love, his emotional speech at Libby’s apartment door (where it continues to rain on David, who stands in the hallway) and Libby’s ultimate rejection of David when it is revealed that Edward Norton (cameo!) is her husband. David’s supernatural desirability by the opposite sex is a common theme that runs the length of the series.
Hospital Drama: The surgery, in which the men operate with kitchen gloves, chip clamps and flashlights, goes horribly awry as MM&D pull out ribs, organs and various other body parts with indifference.
All of these conventions are forced into, and ripped apart in, one twenty minute episode. The episode ends in a full arc, Black drives a truck off of a cliff in the heat of another argument. The three climb back up the cliff and stumble up the road as the credits roll.
The Stella pilot is the beginning of a series as brief, exceptional and beautiful as a solar eclipse, and just as rare. Also if you stare at it for too long your eyes will burn.
The next 9 episodes continue the genre-, cliche- and expectation-smashing humor that bursts out of the pilot. And in every episode MM&D sport, alongside their suits, goofy grins that they make little to no effort to hide. They are having fun with such ridiculous and brilliant material, and they make it no secret. For 10 episodes, absurdity trumps the rules of logic and the standard sitcom, and three guys having fun onscreen translates into hours and hours of a delighted (and obviously too small) audience watching and rewatching their antics.
I realize that this is one long post, and you probably have already lost interest and won’t even come close to reading this far, but i can’t help it. i freaking love this show.
I Am Not a Turkey David 