In 2006 Steve Dildarian created An animated short titled Angry Unpaid Hooker which went on to win best animated short at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival. This was the short that started off The Life & Times Of Tim which was picked up by HBO in 2008. HBO has not seen an animated series on its network since 1997 (Todd McFarlane’s Spawn).

With an animation style much like that of Beavis and Butthead The Life & Times of Tim uses the same kind of speech and feel as Home Movies except with a vulgar edge. I have to say that I liked the series as I watched the first episodes on the disc I was allowed to preview (Tim’s Beard/Unjustly Neglected Drama). Tim is representative as the unassertive 9 to 5 Joe existing, still kind of holding onto some kind of moral ground that is non-existent in both the fast moving corporate world he works in and the ugly social circle which includes his abusive friends and apathetic girlfriend. It’s a satire on life that worked for me because Tim simply is the everyman with everyman problems.

The next episodes (Pharmaceutical Sales Rep Gone Wild/Amy’s Got A Gun) add a sense of over enthusiasm giving Tim’s life a bit more action then anyone other then Jack Bauer could possibly land in a single day. Again satire, this time on health insurance and medical professions, so spot on and hilarious even if a bit overzealous. Amy’s got a gun is a little slow moving but hilarious. I think the formula that worked so well here is that The Life & Times Of Tim plays the comedy very dry. Your already invested in this kind of comedy after one episode so you simply sit there expectantly and when it happens its like sitting in a quiet room and then boom your surprised by a loud sound you’d been expecting. Its hard to explain lol. The show started to go a little more explicit with the dialogue but still funny.

(London Calling/Novelist) These last episodes were a big disappointment. The charm the show exuded in the first set of episodes all but melts away leaving the show to be carried by explicit dialogue and not really much of a storyline which the other episodes did contain. It felt like an uncensored run of South Park cartoons just looking to shock you more then anything else. Hopefully these are deviations from the season because they were simply bad.

All together this is a pretty hilarious show that I would follow (if I had HBO) and that would easily fit well in with the Adult Swim crowd. Tim begins it’s second season starting February 19th, 2010 at 9:30 PM. Enjoy.