The Heart, She Holler

Well, that was pretty great.

The Heart, She Holler was a six episode miniseries on Adult Swim, created by PFFR, the same people who brought us Xavier: Renegade Angel and Wonder Showzen. So two things about it were pretty much be guaranteed: it would be totally disturbing, and pretty damn funny. And Holler was definitely both. It begins when the head of the Heartshe family, rulers of the town Heartshe Holler, dies, and leaves his inheritance to his son, who he had previously kept secret, hidden in a cave behind a wall. That son is played by Patton Oswalt, and after he learns how to dress and say "hot dog" and gets his penis swapped with his father's through a misunderstanding, tries to run the town while coping with his own insecurities and the meddling of his power hungry sisters; one who can read minds and has other mysterious powers, and another played by Kristen Schaal who will sleep with anything that movies and his pretty impressive physical strength.

That that summary only begins to describe the insanity of The Heart, She Holler should say plenty. There's plenty of gross moments, including repeated references to incest and bizarre imagery like a wall socket being connected to some sort of intestine, but the show doesn't just rely on shock value to get laughs. It's mostly a bunch of insane rambling, but it's clever insane rambling, and running jokes like the former patriarch's seemingly infinite supply of instructive video will VHS tapes and the tons of jabs at religion and insular southern towns keep it from relying on disgust to drive the story. The whole thing barely lasts over an hour, and by the end I was wishing there was more to see, especially because of the distinct lack of closure in the ending, even though describing what came before as a plot would be very generous. It's well cast, funny, and just has the right amount of horror to definitely be a PFFR creation. If you're really into alt comedy, it's definitely worth seeing.