Tim Heidecker

With his partner Eric Wareheim, multihyphenate Tim Heidecker oversaw some of the most offbeat and challenging television comedy programming of the new millennium, including "Tom Goes to the Mayor" (Adult Swim, 2006), "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" (Adult Swim, 2007-2010) and "Tim & Eric's Bedtime Stories" (Adult Swim, 2014- ). The Pennsylvania natives teamed in 1994 while students at Temple University, and quickly established themselves in alternative comedy circles with their unique perspective on entertainment and popular culture.

As the main writers, directors and stars in their series, Heidecker and Wareheim celebrated the most uncomfortable and occasionally unpleasant elements of amateur productions, public access television, late-night commercials and vanity projects; their comedy style hewed somewhere between the free-form absurdity of "Mr. Show" (HBO, 1995-98) and the disquieting awkwardness of confrontational surrealists like David Lynch or Werner Herzog. The duo's cutting edge comedy attracted numerous big name guest stars like Will Ferrell and Ben Stiller, and led to guest appearances for Heidecker in Hollywood projects like "Bridesmaids" (2011).

And if mainstream audiences didn't wholly embrace his own efforts with Wareheim, the best of their work remained some of the most adventurous, cutting-edge comedy programming on television.

Born February 3, 1976 in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Heidecker attended Temple University in 1994, where he met and befriended fellow student Eric Wareheim. The pair produced a string of short comic films that they submitted to several of their influences, including Bob Odenkirk of "Mr. Show" and "Breaking Bad" (AMC, 2008-2013). Odenkirk was taken with the short "Tom Goes to the Mayor" and worked with Heidecker and Wareheim to expand the project into a series.

"Tom Goes to the Mayor" debuted on Adult Swim in 2002 and immediately attracted attention for its unusual visual approach - photographs taken of the cast exhibiting various facial expressions and stances were then filtered through Adobe Photoshop's photocopy image filter and "animated" in a very limited fashion - and bizarre plots, which hinged largely around Tom (Heidecker), a hapless entrepreneur whose business ideas are inevitably ruined by the Mayor (Wareheim), a inept, occasionally corrupt and seemingly insane small town official. The series established a signature style that would run through all of Heidecker and Wareheim's work - absurd storylines, eccentric and occasionally grotesque characters who gave deliberately stilted performances, a visual palette comprised of garish costumes and tacky props, and gleefully amateurish production values.

Critics were sharply divided on the pair's comic aesthetic, but "Tom Goes to the Mayor" set the foundation for their devoted fanbase.

When "Tom Goes to the Mayor" ran its course in 2006, Heidecker and Wareheim launched their second series, "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" The series applied the duo's unique sense of humor to a barrage of sketches, faux commercials and parodies of public access programming; characters and elements from "Tom," like the Cinco Corporation and its vast array of useless and dangerous products, were also carried over to the new series, but the new series often took a darker and more uncomfortable tone - as Wareheim noted in an interview, much of the show's humor drew on the discomfort experienced by characters and viewers alike when confronted with sketches like the "Channel 5 Kid Break," which featured Heidecker and Wareheim as overgrown children rapping about scatological matters; the perverse hidden camera terrorist Spagett (Heidecker), so named for his marinara-stained lips; and real-life oddities like celebrity impressionist James Quall and ventriloquist David Liebe Hart.

The series also featured an impressive array of celebrity guests, from comedians Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis and Patton Oswalt to actors like John C. Reilly, who appeared regularly as the addled Dr. Steve Brule, as well as Jeff Goldblum, Alan Thicke and Michael Gross. "Awesome Show, Great Job" proved to be a significant hit for Heidecker and Wareheim, who launched an array of related and spin-off projects. Heidecker contributed vocals to Awesome Record, Great Songs! and Uncle Muscles Presents Casey and His Brother, a pair of compilation albums featuring songs from the series, then teamed with Wareheim to create and co-produce "Check It Out! with Dr. Steve Brule" (Adult Swim, 2010- ), a painfully stilted interview show that pitted Reilly's deeply troubled host against real interviewees.

In 2012, they co-wrote and co-directed "Tim and Eric's Billion Dollar Movie," which attempted to translate their stream-of-consciousness style to a feature film format. Heidecker and Wareheim also starred as a pair of inept filmmakers who attempt to revive a failed mall filled with bizarre occupants. "Billion Dollar Movie" was met with mostly negative reviews from the mainstream press and only modest box office receipts.

During this period, Heidecker also appeared as a solo performer in a wide variety of films and TV projects, including the hit comedies "Bridesmaids" (2011) and "The Five Year Engagement" (2012), as well as episodes of "The Sarah Silverman Program" (Comedy Central, 2007-2010), "The Simpsons" (Fox, 1987- ) and "Eastbound & Down" (HBO, 2009-2013). In 2012, he starred in the independent film "The Comedy" (2012) about a mean-spirited, rootless Brooklynite, which received few positive reviews. With "Awesome Show" composer Davin Wood, he also formed the group Heidecker & Wood, which released an album of '70s-style soft rock titled Some Things Never Stay the Same (2011), then released a pair of solo music projects: Cainthology: Songs in the Key of Cain (2012), which parodied the political philosophy of Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain, and Urinal St. Station (2013).

Heidecker also launched a humorous podcast, "On Cinema," which reviewed thousands of new and vintage films, in 2012. The following year, Heidecker and Wareheim collaborated with Silverman, Michael Cera, and Reggie Watts for a YouTube comedy channel called Jash. They returned to cable television in 2014 with "Tim & Eric's Bedtime Stories" (Adult Swim, 2014-), a 15-minute comedy series that focused on a single sketch per episode rather than the visual assault that defined "Awesome Show." They also returned to musical side projects, issuing a 12" single titled "Jambalaya" under the moniker Pusswhip Banggang.