There’s one thing you should know about me immediately: I love Chris Elliott and have for a long time now. I loved him on the David Letterman Show, I loved him in “Get A Life” on FOX (back when FOX had the chutzpah to air edgy, weird comedies), and I loved him in “Cabin Boy,” so when I heard that he was going to have a new show on Adult Swim, I resolved to watch it no matter what. I even put aside my increasing annoyance with the exploding number of live-action shows on “Cartoon Network.” I really went into “Eagleheart” blind, with no idea what it was about, and I was ever so pleasantly surprised by what I saw. The three main characters on the show, Chris Elliott, Maria Thayer, and Brett Gelman, as well as Michael Gladis (the Cheif), Jason Woliner (exec producer), and Michael Koman (creator) were all present at their NYCC panel.
“Eagleheart” is a satire of “Walker Texas Ranger” primarily, but it also picks up tropes and themes from many other action and police procedural TV shows. For instance, almost every episode starts off in a warehouse, similar to where many episodes of the A-TEAM ended up. Warehouses just spawn evil and criminality. There is no bit of nefarious dealing that hasn’t involved a warehouse at some point. There actually seem to be three recurring motifs in “Eagleheart”: warehouses, beards, and exploding heads. These are all things that I consider myself a fan of. I believe that at some point Maria Thayer (who is incredibly tiny in real life) will sport a beard on the show. The cast promised that their show may be the world’s leading consumer of fake blood, which is a promising start. Turns out this is the first show produced by Conan O’Brien’s production company, Conaco, to be picked up for a second season. Good for them I say. I’d prefer it if shows like this were on Comedy Central, leaving more room for cartoons on Adult Swim, but I can’t be angry that there is some funny off the wall stuff on television somewhere.
Eagleheart never even tried to be a normal show. I asked the panel if there was any point in the show’s creation process where the plots came someplace close to normal, and their answer was that the first episode created was “Deathpunch”, where Chris Monsanto learns a secret technique that causes people to explode with one punch. That pretty much answered my question. When asked if Chuck Norris himself had ever weighed in on the show himself, the panel replied that he had not, and Chris stated that “Chuck Norris is a horrible person.” He said this several times in fact. I don’t think Chris likes Chuck, which is fine by me because from what I’ve heard I would not like him either. I’m glad Bruce Lee killed him. Chris also said that he likes the 15 minute format because it reminds him of the sketches he used to do on the David Letterman show, and it’s a good format for the kind of silliness they have on “Eagleheart.” Make sure to check out the show this Fall on Adult Swim.
