Too Many Cooks indeed
Well Dennis didn’t work out (BIGGER NO) but all good, found a candidate from a beloved Adult Swim work.
Not much to say, but let’s get into iy
What’s The Work?
| “ | It takes a lot to make a stew, A pinch of salt and laughter too, |
„ |
Too Many Cooks is a beloved Adult Swim short created by Casper Kelley that was aired in 2014 as part of their Informercial segments. A satirical mind screw, the short takes form as the intro to a 80s family sitcom, akin to those of the time Full House, in which introduces the Cook family…each and every one, as soon more family members are introduced, genres shifts to workplace and police procedures and then goes FULLY off the rails. Now let’s discuss our main antagonist, shall we?
(Note for the characters I’m using the names of the actors that appear in their respective title cards since it’s easier lol)
Who is Bill Broth?
Described by WOG as a failed Sitcom dad who couldn’t get the part in the show, Bill Broth is a grinning serial killer who appears very early on in the short, appearing just in the background of the intros as the increasingly ludicrous family members are introduced. Soon, however, when the intro switches into satirizing the prime-time soap opera like show, Bill attacks and begins killing the casts at their title cards, starting by cleaving Candace Mabry right as the title card appears, followed by Brian Peck and then knifing Dan Triandiflou.
When the intro switches to a sorority dorm, Bill strikes and starts murdering the girls, dragging Elena Norde away, and drowning Amy Rollins in the sink. On the most famous scene in the short, when Katie Adkins freezes for her title card, Bill appears behind and slinks up ready to strike when she breaks free and runs away from him through the set pieces and back into the house (where the start of the short and intro started) with Bill eagerly following. Amy hides herself in the closet but Bill quickly finds her (due to the bottom text of her title card staying with her) and he promptly kills her.
When Kayte Giralt sees this she immediately spins and (after about 20 seconds) turns into a superhero, Bill promptly hacks into her face. Will Dove proceeds to spin around, but just gets decapitated mid transformation (lmao). It then cuts to a detective like intro for a moment as a Detective (Derick Huffmaster) inveistages the crime scene…only to get sliced in the head by the machete killer.
And in the next segment, in a genuinely unsettling moment it shows the various corpses as Bill had completely taken over the intro. Tne head of Sue Care is in the sink, Aimee Holmberg is dragged away and Bill starts replacing the other actors in their roles through the intro as he sits at the table, eating pieces of human flesh as body parts strewn the table and originally the wholesome lyrics puts on a very sinister tone…
| “ | It takes a lot to make a stew, especially when it's made of me and you, |
„ |
But then, Bill immediately explodes from a laser curtesy of Smarf, the lovable puppet animal of the Cook family. Then suddenly the short kicks into an intro to a sci-fi story about Cybernet Operational Optimize Knoghts of Science (COOKS) defending humanity from the Breat Rebels of The Hellscap (BROTH) , as it shows Bill now has an evil robot army out to threaten all of humanity.
Yeah, the whole intro just falls apart afterwards as things glitch out wildly and left in complete pandemonium (seriously nothing I’m describing does this justice) and Smarf, badly wounded, crawls over to some sort of reset button, seemingly activating it as he dies. Cue a brandy bunch square with all of the cast members before it cuts to the whole family taking a family photo in the living room, with Bill’s smiling face appearing among them…
And then cue the actual show.
| “ | Honey! I’m home-TO BE CONTINUED | „ |
Mitigating Factors
Nope! This is one just fucking mind screw fever dream of a short but does have a very loosely tangential storyline of a sitcom intro going off the rails. Bill himself is just a sadistic grinning maniac who enjoys killin* other cast members just because he was denied the role. While it’s later shown the whole cast seemingly infected with Intronitis (literally forcing them to be apart of the intro) Bill himself is pretty much shows no signs of infection as while everyone is forcibly posing, freed and acting like traditional sitcom characters, Bill is free to wander, mess everything up and kill people.
Heinous Standard?
Yep also clears for an 11 minute short. Sadistic serial killer who has the kill count of at least a dozen, presumably more, is a cannibal (look at those lyrics again, the baby too…) and is shown to be a humanity threat in the sci-fi intro. Overall? Yeah guess he’s good lol.
Silly?
God Yes. This whole short is just one long bit of a sitcom intro introducing character after character and genre after genre, with Bill himself just gleefully killing people as the upbeat intro keeps playing, Bill eventually replacing everyone and then suddenly being the evil head of a clone army out to threaten humanity. The whole short is a fever dream mind-fuck from start to the punchline at the end. Definetky silly enough.
Verdict?
Too Many Cooks! Yes