As a long time listener I can say without malice…yeeech! What were you guys thinking? Your show should have been an exploration of various topics in the vein of the green car special you did. This cartoon was unwatchable.
Shameless in Seattle
By Jove, I think that you have really nailed it. That is just the kind of thing that they would do !!!
So if that is Berman’s ultimate design, he’s a genius, you seem to be implying…
The ratings companies don’t think PBS matters. They are only rating programs in order to help commercial stations and their advertisers agree on price for commercials. I used to fill out viewer surveys for one of the main companies, but since I hardly ever wrote down that I watched anything but PBS, they stopped mailing the surveys to me. I understand that some surveys are done by channel-monitoring set-top boxes now, but they probably yank them out of households that don’t watch enough commercial TV. Advertisers don’t want that information and there is no incentive for them to pay the ratings companies for useless information. Maybe the Wallet-Vac could tap into the rating circuits and do a little mischief. It would serve them right.
David, it’s really hard to believe that anyone could sit through this sorry attempt of a cartoon more than once. I imagine it would grow on you. (Like warts). It seems that you may be the only one that thought this show contained even a hint of humor. I suspect that you may be one of the producers that sank your money into this dud. A word of advice from a long time cartoon watcher. Take your money and invest in Edsel
stock. You’ll get a better return, and probably a few more laughs than were attempted by this bomb. This was positively NOT “a funny cartoon show with a pretty funny story line”. It should have been named “As the
Stomach Churns” Trying to watch this show can definitely give you a stomach-ache.
Click & Clack: Hang onto your radio show boys. It’s more fun than a tree full of owls. In the vernacular of the day, this cartoon SUCKED. (BIG TIME). Try to put this behind you. (WAY BEHIND).
Regards. BIG RED
OK. The third and forth episodes were better. Or am I now acclimated to what the show is like? My expectations were lower? I’ll watch the fifth and sixth episodes, also. And my daughter wants us to give her a copy of the fourth and fifth ones - even though they saw them. Hmmmm.
OMG. that is the worst cartoon I’ve ever seen. Cars that run on pasta, robots repairing cars causing backouts, are you kidding me?
Don’t Be Fooled!
The Boston Project (Eerily similar to The Manhattan Project)
WMD - Weapons Grade Cartoon
I have got this whole thing figured out. It is just like the beginning of the WWII U.S. nuclear bomb program. Tests were conducted in our deserts and on Bikini Island. This weapons program (notice how “cartoon program” also has the code name “program”) is being tested on untold tens of viewers right in our own backyard and so far appears to be successful.
From what I can ascertain, people who are exposed to it even for short bursts, drop their wrenches, turn away from the light (TV) and suffer a gut-wrenching (notice similarity to a “Wrench Turning”) feeling that leaves them repulsed, weak, willing to denounce citizenship, and flee.
Once perfected, these shows can be dropped from the air as DVDs or sent via e-mail to Taliban held territory in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Weapons dropped, disbanding troops, people fleeing, perfect!
I have personal good news and bad news. The good news is that my PBS station mysteriously went off-line (I am not kidding!) just before I was to watch the show. The bad news is that if I can’t get a chance to view it I will not be part of the lucrative class-action-lawsuit that is sure to come down follwing these weapons tests on innocent civilians.
How about it! Any lawyers out there working on this, yet?
P.S.
I just had another thought. Weapons of this sort were used by ancient warriors, too. Trebuchets (similar to catapults) have been used, historically, to hurl dead, decomposing, diseased, cattle over castle walls ( notice the similarity to “of this sort”). Same impact… nausea, blurred vision, drooling, fleeing, etc.
This discussion board is run by someone who’s simply too thin-skinned. A week ago I posted a joke (still funny to me) that after 15 minutes I flipped over to the the P*****y Channel and watched “ATWT” (take “As the Wrench Turns” and drop the first “r”). It was immediately removed for being tasteless. I wonder how long THIS posting will last.
I am still getting the stench out of my nostrils. Don’t get me wrong, I love youz guys, but stick to what you know best. I would like to see simply a filmed version of your radio show.
What’s next - your own Martin guitar model??
Watch it online then. It’s the… I’ll find it. http://www.pbs.org/wrenchturns/video
Has anyone noticed how the cartoon tweaks Click and Clack’s body images? To me, Tommy looks thinner than photos of him I have seen, and Raymie definitely looks younger and absent the wrinkles and graying hair all these years of working with his lousy brother have finally been giving him.
Is the cartoon, among other things, their way of getting a make-over at the expense of PBS? Whatdya think?
This was quite possibly the lamest thing I’ve seen on TV in years. Truly. Heads must roll. Did you guys really sign off on this stuff? Quit while you still have a good reputation. Seriously.
Hey!!!
I actually kind of liked the show. Should I be embarassed to mention it? I will admit that I am in my 20s and I also like Family Guy, The Simpsons, Futurama, etc., if that makes any difference.
I didn’t expect it to be a cartoon version of their call in show…I mean what would be the point in that? I also didn’t expect it to be full of award winning social commentary and witty satire–this is Tom & Ray, right? (I mean that in the nicest possible way). Some (most?) of the story lines are implausible at best, but that just contributes to the hilarity. Maybe it’s just me?? Do you guys just have an aversion to the cartoon format or did you actually want to see/hear them talk about cars/car repair?
I think that Tom and Ray are, like me, not very good actors. I appreciate it when they don’t act, when they behave as themselves. I knew it would not be just like the radio show when they told us it was going to be a situation comedy. I didn’t think the American public needed another animated sitcom. Tom and Ray are so entertaining as themselves, why would they want to be actors? Here are some alternative ideas that would work for me:
-Simply set a camera in the studio when they do the radio show. I would really like to see the “wheel of misfortune” and other visual jokes that don’t work so well on the radio. You wouldn?t even need to put this on television. Just make it a webcast that we can see online as we listen to the show.
-Use Muppet type puppets to act out the calls, like they did on Comedy Central with their Crank Yankers show. It could be quite funny if done well. It certainly doesn?t need to be as sophomoric as Crank Yankers to be funny.
-Create an American version of Top Gear (the car show on BBC America), only funnier than the British show. Show Tom and Ray hosting the show, testing various cars on their own track, and interviewing celebrities about what they drive. I would love to see this!
My condolences to Tom and Ray on the colossal setback of their attempt to launch a cartoon. It (the cartoon) was
about as funny as a wart plague and will make us lose the war for sure. We are constantly inundated with Posts,
from “Plymouthsavoy”, telling how great this caper was and the great job Doug Berman did on this dud. Have you noticed “Plymouthsavoy” just won’t let it go? Is that really you writing these Posts Dougie? Come on,'fess up!
Say what you want about this turkey but one thing is a truism, As the Wrench Turns will go down in infamy as THE
EDSEL OF THE CARTOON WORLD. Love your radio show, Boys. Keep it up. Regards, big red.
I was looking forward to your PBS program, since I’ve been a fan of Car Talk for some time. However, I’ve watched the first two weeks and am debating whether to tune in for the 3rd week. As much as I enjoy hearing you guys on the radio, somehow that same entertaining humorous quality just doesn’t come through on television. Please stick with what works for you; you’ve been doing radio successfully for such a long time.
Seems like you just don’t get it. The problem isn’t that it violated any expectations. The problem is that on its very own terms, it wasn’t funny. It just plain wasn’t funny. The scripts were bad. The characters were dull. The animation was vanilla. On its own terms, the show was sub-par. There is nothing unfair about the judging. There isn’t anything we missed. Our expectations were somewhat violated, but not enough for this to be the deciding factor. It was just a bad show.
I’ve even suggested a great way to turn Car Talk into a cartoon. Film the show in the studio, send it to Bob Sabiston and his team in Austin to rotoscope it, done. If we’re gonna stick with scripts, Doug, Doug, and that Bob guy need to stop writing scripts that they guess are what comedy scripts are supposed to be. They need to take a scriptwriting class. Also, instead of Beth Totenbag, the show’s producer should be Doug Berman; he should write for himself instead of some flat character he doesn’t really believe in. He and the others should develop real characters and clever situations instead of coming up with a zany idea and then half-realizing its potential. And the show should get a better animation team that really brings out the personalities of the characters.
To those of you who keep saying Tom and Ray should “stick with” or “stick to”: Do you really feel that they shouldn’t try to expand their franchise into different creative outlets, or are you just saying that because your conversational vocabulary is limited to a few snowclones?
I think they should try to expand their franchise, but they should first perform a SWOT analysis (a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats). This show demonstrates to me they are not aware of their strengths and weaknesses. If they are going to expand, they would be wise to build on their strengths, which I don’t think they have done with this animated sitcom.