"...that sucking sound."

Car Talk has the biggest listenership on public radio. So it's no wonder that someone would try to build on the Ciick and Clack brand by expanding the Tappet Brothers schtick to TV. It was tried once before, a live-action sitcom starring George Wendt and originally titled Under The Hood, retooled to (what else?) "The George Wendt Show". It bombed. Now Tom and Ray have become cartoon characters.

Click & Clack's As The Wrench Turns premiered three weeks ago on PBS. How bad was it? The title of this post is an actual line from the current episode, spoken by an animated Sister Wendy, that art historian nun with the buckteeth. Here's a brief rundown of the episode I saw: It sucked. Then it sucked some more. Then it kept on sucking. Then it sucked real hard. Then it sucked once more. Then it was over. Jesus, how DOES a trainwreck like this make it to TV without someone screaming "THIS SUCKS!"? Here's a good review by the Los Angeles Times Television Critic Robert Lloyd.

Don't mistake me, I'm a long-time fan of Car Talk. My dad was a mechanic by trade and I've always been into cars. The format of the radio show is simplicity itself: Tom and Ray take calls from people with car problems. They try to solve them, tell some bad jokes, throw in a Puzzler, say some funny names and end with "Don't like drive my brother. And don't drive like my brother." I'm sure most people think the show goes out live but it doesn't. It's pre-produced but maintains a live feeling thanks to the banter of Click and Clack.

If the producers of this disaster, Howard K. Grossman and Robert Harris, had trusted that simple formula to carry the day, they might've had something. Instead, they fictionalized Tom and Ray, gave them a mult-culti backline and put them in situations like the dilemma tonight: will Tom and Ray sell out to the big bad car company (Gigantic Motors) or will they come to their senses in time to realize they're killing their own little corner of the planet? There's also a Fitzcarraldo reference and Al Gore as the Deus ex machina.

You can watch a preview of this piece of crap here: As The Wrench Turns. There are four full-length episodes you can also stream - but unless you need a purgative, why bother?

Comments

[Derek]

Having some idea of how much work it takes to get an animated show from concept to broadcast makes it doubly tragic. It's a little shocking to realize how absolutely no one, throughout the entire process, noticed how bad the show was.

[Dale Hazelton]

Thank God. I only saw one episode and I switched channels half way through. The script was lousy, and while no strangers to a booth, their lines were incredibly wooden in delivery. If they took their personalities and used them in the same way they were used in Cars, it might have stood a chance.

As an aside, if you watch Fitzcarraldo on dvd, their is a neat extra showing Mick Jagger as the Klaus Kinski character. I didn't know he was the original star but had to bag filming when the weather kept them from shooting on schedule. Kinski is much better, anyway.

[Scott]

Actually Dale, Jason Robards was the original star. He got very ill and they had to bag production. Mick Jagger's character (Fitz's assistant) was cut from the subsequent re-shoot script since Mick had prior Stones tour obligations.

[Lex10]

Suckfest. That fucking esurance animation, the fucking ancillary bogus lightweight characters, yecch. Too bad.

[Dale Hazelton]

Thanks Scott...I do remember Robards now. At least Mick only has Freejack to foist upon moviedom (I'm sure there's more, but you get my drift.)

[Krys_O.]

Mick Jagger is fabulous in Performance and he's not that bad either in Ned Kelly. Wish I could have seen Jagger in Shelley Duvall's Fairie Tale Theatre's version of The Nightingale.

[haywarmi]

Yep, it sucks. And I also wanted it to work so bad. I don't expect it to be around for very long.