Lost Media: Mr. Birchum (2011)

Mr. Birchum sucks, but the pilot didn't. What went wrong?

May 27, 2024

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Mr. Birchum, an “Anti-Woke” animated comedy, recently limped its way to the Daily Wire. It follows the adventures of a no-nonsense woodworking teacher who’s had it up to here with all these triggered liberal snowflakes.

Series creator Adam Carolla, fresh from a diaper change courtesy of Ben Shapiro, had this to say to Newsweek:

"Society is obviously different now than it was 30 years ago, but Birchum's complaints are the same […] It's not the kind of show that works on many platforms, because of politics. Daily Wire was a good fit. Otherwise, it might not have found a home," Carolla said, noting that he originally pitched it to Fox 11 years ago but the entertainment network passed.

The essence of the show is "I've depicted you as the Soyjak and me as the Chad, therefore, I win.” This type of thinking typically evaporates once you win the pretend argument in the shower and go about your day, but a dark karma has manifest this energy into a cartoon with with a midsized animation budget.

I’ve watched the first 3 episodes, and here’s how the average Mr. Birchum scene plays out: A liberal strawman will say something bafoonish. Birchum responds by angrily saying why they’re stupid. The liberal strawman will either sulk away defeated or start crying (There’s a lot of crying from the guys Birchum chastises). Occasionally there might be a cutaway gag to spice things up, and this is what bugs me (or, using their nomenclature, made me triggered and owned).

The cutaway gags don’t add any extra context or twist. They’re so predictable that adding absurdist pop culture references, in the style of Family Guy’s “Manatee Jokes”, would be an improvement. Yes, this is so flat, that I am yearning for the worst parts of Family Guy.

Here’s some examples of cutaway jokes in Birchum:

Birchum says the table saw in his shop class is “so dull, it wouldn’t cut a balloon” and then they cut away to a student trying, and failing, to use the table saw to cut a balloon.
Birchum wonders if his adult son is going to eat dino nuggies forever. He then imagines the son as an old man, being fed nuggies with a robot arm.
Birchum’s friend, Don Gage, says he’s drunk-puked on every continent except one. There’s a brief montage of him hurling around the world, then cut back to present day where he shares that all that’s left is Antartica. We’re then treated to a cutaway joke of him, as an old man in a wheelchair, throwing up on a penguin in Antartica. He admires the northern lights before presumably passing away.

That last one especially hurt because it was so damn long and absolutely zero payoff. When Gage says he’s puked on every continent except one, I think, there’s no way this is building to Antartica being the only continent. The one you expect. The continent with the least amount of humans contact. And there it is! Antartica! And once we get to him imagining himself in Antartica, the scene continues to drudge out exactly as expected.

This joke setup would be the perfect opportunity to make an edgy comment about Israel/Palestine. It could be the kind of thing you could only say on a streaming platform, a sentiment guaranteed to legitimately offend people, a joke so cutting edge it farms outrage clicks from the left and approving fistpumps from the right. But all of Mr. Birchum is playing it incredibly safe. The way Carolla was hyping this up made me expect this would be like if 4chan had a rape-baby with a Jim Crow cartoon. Instead we got something too weak to have played on the Animation Domination lineup 13 years ago.

And thanks to the Lost Media Forums, we now know exactly how this would’ve played out 13 years ago.

crash4wumpa has unearthed the original 2011 Mr. Birchum pilot made for Fox.

I’ll post a link at the end of the post, because in the ultimate plot twist— this pilot isn’t that bad.

I saw the potential in the plot/characters. There were a few interesting twists in the plot. And yes, I laughed. Out loud. I know being amused by anything even tangentially in the sphere of the Daily Wire means I lose my Ally card, but they were able to lob a few decent jokes in its 9-minute runtime.

It can’t hold a candle to the best seasons of Rick and Morty or The Simpsons (no need to make a tier list- we all know these shows best seasons were 1-8, followed by whatever aired while you were in college). But if Mr. Birchum continued the same tone/style as its 2011 pilot episode, I would’ve given it a watch.

Just look at the difference in the opening shot between the pilot and the 2024 final version:

The tacked on signage in the pilot is a neat worldbuilding detail that sets the temperature for the broader social commentary. Meanwhile, 2024 edition weakly informs us that their school is “A safe space” on their bulletin board.

I don’t know if there’s a legal reason why they changed the sign- like, I’m trying to think of why this particular sight gag was cut and replaced with a generic shot of A School. The characters in the pilot were roughly the same, some of the jokes were even recycled. Are budget reasons to blame? It’s more time-consuming to draw the sign in the pilot than it is to throw a 3D model of a school onscreen. I said Mr. Birchum (2024) had a “midsized” budget, but truthfully, it looks very, very cheap.

The opening scene for both features Birchum and Gage bantering about the upcoming school year, lamenting on the sheer disrespect of the students. 2011's version begins with the two standing on the second floor of the school, tsk-tsk’ing at Kids These Days.

A student from outside flips off Birchum, he rolls his eyes, and Gage says they’re going the way of the crocodile. We cut to a scene of crocodiles emerging from the river, as Gage explains in a voiceover:

“For 10 million years, nobody messed with crocodiles. They climbed up on the riverbank to sun themselves, and the whole village scattered. Then one day out of nowhere, guys in khaki shorts started jumping on their backs. They must’ve been like, what the fuck is going on?”

“No one’s afraid of us anymore,” verbalizes Birchum, through the crocodile.

We cut back to the school, and they continue riffing on the good ol’ days. “Remember when we were growing up? Other kid’s dads could hit you.” They sigh in unison, saying it was “simpler times.” The scene ends with the two gazing out the window.

Cutting away to the crocodiles as Gage explains is creative way to spice up an otherwise mundane conversation between coworkers. Suddenly turning them into the crocodiles was an unexpected, funny twist. Notice that in the first shot of the crocodiles, they’re not anthropomorphized at all—and you may not notice their transformation at first, since your attention is on the Crocodile Hunter jumping into the frame from the side. It’s a clever directing technique that takes advantage of the animated sitcom format.

I find their worldview laughably wrong, but these directorial slight-of-hands didn’t have me dwelling on the overt boomerism of their opinions. It’s a decent opening scene that invites me to these character’s mindsets. So if we’re going for empathy (or propaganda, if you’re firmly against this show), this honestly does a good job.

Now let’s see how it compares to the opening scene in the 2024 version.

The scene begins with Birchum parking his car before the school day begins, and here in the parking lot he greets Gage. After some small talk, they make a friendly bet: first one to get insulted by one of the students wins. To demonstrate Gage’s bad luck, the scene cuts to the two as spectators for a horse race.

The track announcer informs us that the horses Gage bet on have lost (The joke being that all of them had seemingly lucky names, so it’s very ironic that they lost). For extra morbidity, the losing horses are shot offscreen.

Again: I have to wonder why the change. Are the offscreen gun sound effects to demonstrate their edginess? Come on dude, every animated sitcom has tons of jokes about animal cruelty. Here’s Family Guy’s take on shooting a racehorse, uploaded in 2010:

The violence, and punchline, is way bigger than Birchum’s riff on the same subject. Sorting the comments by “Newest” there’s still people in Current Year popping in showing their appreciation - two commenters noting it’s a tradition to watch this every year before the Kentucky Derby. And I promise, no one’s going to make the Birchum racehorse joke a part of their Kentucky Derby tradition.

I have no way of proving this, but it would explain Birchum (2024)’s lackluster writing. There’s not a lot of scaling back for budget reasons - past episode 1, the show regularly devolves into outright .png animation for cutaway gags (so rewriting for budget isn’t an option, they’ll just skimp on the animation). My initial guess that the opening scene was changed for budget reasons has to be wrong.

I think episode 1 is based on an earlier draft of the 2011 pilot. I have no idea how much executive pushback, if any, exists with the Daily Wire. But if we look at the credits, it seems Carolla is the only one on the writing/directing staff who has an established footing in comedy.

Let’s take a look at the IMDb credits.

Showrunner and writer Nate Adams’ only other comedy credit is serving as an executive producer for Adam Carolla’s standup specials. Much of his work is very bro-core: movies and documentaries about nascar, guns, and MMA (one of his more recent movie credits follows the adventures of a detective “on the verge of retirement,” thus proving he’s versatile enough to branch out to the genre of dadcore)
Manuel Morales has only directed TV movies transmitidas en España, en español. No idea their genre or synopsis, they haven’t been added to IMDb. Before Mr. Birchum 2024, his latest film credit was from 2013 (I’ll talk more about Spain’s involvement with this show later).
Mark Hoffmeier has had a solid career in writing children’s television programs (Reboot, Spiderman: The Animated Series, various Lego cartoons, a handful of Power Rangers series, and most recently, a steady stream of Netflix cartoons for preschoolers).
Mike Lynch’s only credits are a producer for Carolla’s standup special, and appearing as himself on Pop Culture Crisis
Byron Kavanagh’s IMDb’s credits also show a background in children’s entertainment, albeit less illustrious than Hoffmeier (Kavanagh’s most notable work includes Marmaduke (2022), Pat the Dog, Gamer’s Guide to Pretty Much Everything, Kickin’ It)

In other words, Adam Carolla is The Man here. Sure, you don’t need comedy writing credits to write a joke (my blog is proof, since I’m a complete amateur and way funnier than any Daily Wire knuckleheads). But this isn’t a team built for feedback and collaboration to make the plot stronger and the jokes funnier. It looks like a group of Yes Men who will roll with whatever Carolla fires off. If Adam Carolla kicks down the door and declares “Episode 1 is going to be closer to what I originally wrote for the 2011 pilot” - who in the fuck is going to object?

There is definitely residue from the 2011 version, and not just in a few recycled quips from the pilot. The B-plot of episode 2 features Mr. Birchum’s wife, Wendi, going to the spa with her friend, Deena. Wendi, who’s (inexplicably) very pro-Obama, is shocked that Deena (who is Black) did not vote for Obama. They argue as a typical Liberal strawman and a Black republican and it’s as boring as it sounds. I don’t know why this show needed to address Obama’s presidency in 2024. The only reason I can imagine is this was a plot thread they wanted to use in 2011, and now it can finally come to fruition.

By the way, here’s another unique disappointment. Wendi’s sex appeal was turned way down for 2024.

It sounds like 2011 Wendi was voiced by Pamela Adlon (there’s no official confirmation, I’m just a really good listener). And, yes, her sex appeal may be lost on some viewers who can only see her as a post-op bimbofied Bobby Hill. But her cans are big enough that anyone with an appreciation for cartoon milfs would easily bookmark her Rule 34 page.

I hate this show too much to double check, but I can’t remember 2024 Wendi ever showing decent cleavage. It’s definitely not part of her default outfit (another example of the supposedly “no limits” Daily Wire version playing it waaaay safer than network TV). She shows a little more skin in the spa episode, but her transformation into a political strawman was a bigger turnoff than the Bobby Hill voice.

I’m pretty deep into this post and I haven’t given any nods of acknowledgment for Birchum 2024- what it did “right”, and why someone might enjoy it. I try this for all of my reviews, even the crap I hate, so, let’s give it a go.

The few positive reviews are mostly from guys who had a shop teacher/dad like Birchum, happy there’s a show that’s not afraid to tell it like it is!. And plenty of reviews mention they’re happy Rosanne Barr has been rehabilitated from that kooky Qanon commune upstate, hopeful that she’s now on the path to reintegrating with polite society. There’s not a lot said about its storytelling— just guys in the choir, happy they’ve found a preacher.

So since none of the Birchum appreciators can say something good about its story, I will.

man in white crew neck t-shirt wearing black framed eyeglasses — If I had a cartoon avatar for my reviews, he’d be crossing his arms

One thing I found interesting about 2024 Birchum was the family dynamic. Wendi is Birchum’s second wife- it’s pretty interesting that a show that’s all about “trad” values is so open about the protagonist being divorced. It’s not much—most people are fine with divorce—but it’s a neat little detail, and I wonder if he’ll ever get any in-universe pushback for being divorced.

I’m reminded of Stan Smith, the protagonist of American Dad. He began the series as strongly xenophobic, but over the course of the series eventually grew more tolerant of homosexuality. There’s even an episode (I can’t find which one) where he says pretty directly that he used to be anti-gay, but has now changed. It was an interesting moment in the world of animated sitcoms, where Status Quo Is God. Stan is meant to be the stand-in for the mainstream American Republican values. The series ran long enough that the general consensus on homosexuality had shifted, so the character himself reflected that.

I don’t expect Birchum to have this same self-awareness or potential for growth. But just giving him one thing that might offend someone a notch more conservative was an unexpected twist. Same thing can be said about Birchum’s vibrant friend group. His best friend is Black, and tied for second is an Asian man and a gay man. Even if everyone’s different, they all get along just fine. Despite the bellyaching about “wokeness”, this cartoon managed to score more kumbaya points than the Burgerking Kids Club. And I’m not saying that as a “gotcha” (although, let’s be clear: This is an hilarious gotcha). It’s good when a show features different types of characters to create unique comedy dynamics (whether or not they executed on this is another subject).

But back to the divorce. Birchum brings his adult son to this new family, and his wife brings a 9-year-old daughter. Wendi is closer to her new son (she’s fully supportive of his streaming career), while Birchum is closer with his new daughter (they bond over a shared interest in woodworking). There’s not a lot of media about blended families, and they’re making the most of it with this interesting, unexpected dynamic. I’ve never seen a show where a parent dotes on their stepchild but feels a bit more agitation over their bio kid. And that’s neat.

And while I’m dishing out compliments, the daughter, Jeanie, needs to be mentioned.

She’s the best holdover from the 2011 version, playing out the exact same in both iterations. Both are kids who are unusually enthusiastic about woodworking (the only real difference is 2024 Jeanie now has a suffragette pride shirt). What’s interesting is since she’s a child, she’s not afforded the same privileges as her dad. So she can’t just blow up and get angry to own the libs, although she’s similarly frustrated with the way the world works.

In episode 1’s B-plot, she’s livid that her mother repainted a mahogany fireplace, and protests this terrible design choice by handcuffing herself to the fireplace (evoking imagery of youthful climate change activists). It’s a pretty far departure from the “typical Birchum scene” I outlined earlier in this post. And she’s a character who takes more losses than wins, since, again: just a kid.

Season 2 has the chance to be great if the focus shifts more to Jeanie. I’m not holding my breath for such a radical change (since the biggest thing that’ll make this show better is a stronger writers room), but this thread has the strongest potential.

Anyway, I’ve only given a smattering of examples to show why 2011 Birchum was so much better. And we can go all day saying why this joke worked and that one didn’t.

But I think there’s a core structural difference that explains everything.

2011 Birchum works is because Birchum is able to be wrong.

Let me explain, since I used the big font for that. 2024 Birchum exists as an angry power fantasy. When a student acts dumb, he tells them they’re dumb. When he’s confronted with the workplace DEI officer, he gets belligerent and yells. And so on.

2011 Birchum is still an enormous asshole boomer. But he’s able to admit when he’s wrong (And more subtly, but just as important, 2011 Birchum is also able to show politeness to his enemies and keep some of his opinions to himself).

Some examples of 2011 Birchum showing humility include:

During mandated workplace DEI counseling, the counselor asks if Birchum has ever been insensitive. He lies to the counselor and says he’s never been insensitive. The audience is treated to a series of cutaway jokes of Birchum openly expressing a variety of xenophobic beliefs.
Birchum shows a good deal of eye-rolling towards one of his students, who’s a typical slacker who’s always on his phone. When Birchum erroneously claims that George Washington Carver invented peanut butter, the slacker student uses his phone to look up this fun fact and correct Birchum. He’s surprised he was mistaken, but doesn’t take it personally (I’ve had plenty of teachers dig their heels in when corrected, so this scene was a good way to give Birchum some legitimate cool points)
Birchum is able to admit when his son is doing pretty alright

Let me explain that last one a little more.

Both Birchums harbor a disproportionate amount of frustration with their son, Eddie. In the pilot, Eddie’s only scene begins with his dad telling him how he’s a screwup and a failure. This is interrupted when a girl in a tube top emerges from Eddie’s bedroom to give him a kiss.

Birchum stares in amazement, before saying “Damn, it’s working.”

Now he’s not going to apologize to his son or take back what he said - he immediately changes the subject and grabs a beer. But these little moments of weakness make all the difference.

Any moments of humility flat out do not happen with 2024 Birchum. 2024 Birchum is never confronted with anything that would make him challenge his worldview, since everyone opposing him is a big blubbering idiot and the narrative is content to leave it at that. Without any pushback, all we get is a man who’s angry at the world. The final product is less of a satire, and more of an incredibly sad wish fulfillment.

So I’ve made my point but there’s some more obscure Bircham lore I wanted to share before we call it a day.

keyword is Obscure, so no need to bring up the Candace Owens cancellation

1: There’s a third Birchum cartoon

Mr. Birchum has been a character Adam Carolla has been workshopping across mediums for decades. And besides the 2011 pilot, there’s also a TV movie he directed titled “The Birchums.” IMDb has this one still image, and the characters listed are comparable to the other versions of Mr. Birchum.

Right now, it’s lost media.

2: The funniest joke was in the credits

There’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it Easter egg in the credits of Mr. Birchum 2024.

Mr. Birchum was animated by Wise Blue Studios, located in Spain.

The Daily Wire, with all their “America First” bluster, outsourced all of their animation jobs to Europeans!

Hopefully Pappa Shapiro’s still around for a diapee changee, cuz I just pissed myself laughing

I don’t want to hear how outsourcing is standard animation practice. Spare me the details of the production process. They are hypocrites, and that is the punchline. I guess all of the Birchum budget went to employing Rosanne Barr, so poor little Adam Carolla had no choice but to venture overseas for his toonboom rigging.

and slorp up those sweet, sweet international tax incentives

There’s been a lot of grumblings over this cartoon’s “wokeness” (mixed families, protagonist having a gay friend, etc etc). I honestly do not see the big deal.

Despite Mr. Birchum’s long history, the 2024 show doesn’t seem like it’s had a lot of focus testing or intervention from S&P. The final product shows Carolla’s worldview, warts and all. I won’t say “that fool should’ve focus-tested this with conservative viewers and adjusted the gay characters”. Absolutely not. I love manga specifically because it’s an art form that isn’t focus-tested to death. Even if 2024 Birchum is weaker than the 2011 version, I can’t in good consciousness advocate for more hands on a script.

But he’s definitely wasting his writers room by not employing more comedic voices to bounce off of. This is the advantage of the sitcom writer’s room: plots and jokes are made stronger with this collaboration. Yes: just one person, alone, can write a funny script. But the jury is out, and this show isn’t funny. Something different needs to be done.

Anyway, about the show’s diverse cast. It’s not the most cromulent thinking but the show’s opinions on “minorities” all feels so room-temperature normal. I’m not saying it’s okay, but I just, really, honestly don’t care if Adam Carolla is writing his self-insert OC to have a Black best friend co-sign on all of his boomerisms. This isn’t the dunk we should be rallying behind. The bigger dunk is in this show’s production— and it has direct, real-world consequences. Handing jobs over to foreigners and lapping up international tax incentives is a way bigger act of hypocrisy than anything he’s written in the script. And to further contradict this message of “trad” values: This cartoon is ugly.

If Birchum insists that the world’s gone cuh-razy and things were better back in the day, it’s certainly pretty fucking rich that you’re going to tell me this via hideous puppet rigging. It’s an art style that’s reflective of the worst-of-the-worst in modern animation. And even funnier that you couldn’t go down to Trader Joes, find an underemployed cashier with an art degree, and pay him a few grand to grind out your Toonboom slop next time he has the weekend off.

I’m going to bring up Family Guy, yet again. But remember the 2009 episode “Road to the Multiverse” ? It was an ambitious episode where Stewie and Brian use a magic remote to travel to a series of parallel universes. One of which was the Disney universe.

The sequence was animated entirely in Los Angeles, instead of the typical production pipeline where South Korea handles the gruntwork. They needed the audience to really feel that classic Disney magic, so the animators went all-out. And I remember the reaction to this (if you couldn’t tell, I was really into the world of American animated sitcoms as a kid). The fandom was thrilled by its mere existence. Deemed by many to be the most “epic” moment in all of Family Guy, nay, television history.

But there was a bittersweet feeling under the surface. Sure, this sequence looked unbelievably cool. But why is the best looking American animation happening because Family Guy felt like doing a bit? 3D animation had established its dominance in theatrical releases, with 2D already classified as an endangered species. Family Guy being the best of the best, even momentarily, felt like a death knell.

3 months after this episode aired, we’d see a brief return to form with Disney’s “The Princess and the Frog”. 2 years later, Disney treated us with the (less-hyped) hand-drawn “Winnie The Pooh” movie. And since then, crickets. Disney has abandoned what made them great. And that most definitely sucks.

Today, 3D is king. And puppet rigged animation is no longer an indication that a show is laughably low-budget. Instead, it’s just how 2D cartoons look nowadays. If you want hand-drawn, you have to either dust off your Disney VHS tapes or turn to anime.

There’s really no hop-

Wait.

What’s that in the distance?

Do I hear… a legally distinct Kesha soundalike?

My god. So American 2D animation isn’t dead! Vivziepop is here to save us all with her beautifully rendered sparkledogs and cuddly imp yaoi.

And I’m not going to buy into the bootstrap theory or suck Vivziepop’s dick too hard. But she had to bust serious ass to make her cartoons real, and her fanbase shows there’s an audience hungry for carefully rendered 2D animation.

Now let me bring the focus back to Birchum.

It’s absolutely hilarious that Adam Carolla, an established millionaire, a definitive Hollywood celebrity, finally making his “passion project” made a worse cartoon than a bisexual art student who’s half his age. This is funny. I am laughing. Because it didn’t have to be bad. Because, unlike Vivziepop, he has the clout and the resources to make a good cartoon.

And I’m not even here to reiterate what I said about the 2011 pilot (which, by the way, used hand-drawn animation instead of the puppet rigging bullshit. Once again, ironically proving its own point that things were better in the past).

But let’s look at the heart of the 2024 series: a whole lot of angry yelling at sniveling strawmen. If that is truly in his heart what he wanted to make, so be it. Because there’s another cartoon that could be described as “a whole lot of yelling at idiots”: Ren and Stimpy.

John Kricfalusi’s entire body of work can be summed up as “The author’s thinly-disguised daddy issues.” And even a barrage of pedophile accusations hasn’t budged this cartoon from the cannon of western sakuga. It wasn’t just of the mindset that you don’t need a good script for a cartoon - it was actively anti-writer, pro-animator.

Plenty of people (not me) have this as their favorite cartoon, ever (hope you guys enjoy the Comedy Central revival, btw). And if we zoom out, you could summarize Ren and Stimpy exactly the same as Mr. Birchum. So with the right art style, a cartoon that’s full of vitriol with zero nuance can clearly still “work”.

So Adam Carolla’s confused the writers room for a therapist’s office? Fine! Then hand your one-sided strawman script off to someone (preferably American) who can fucking draw. Let him go ham on the animation. Yes it will be more expensive. Yes it will be harder to recoup the loss. But I thought this was your pet project, man. I thought you had been trying to get this off the ground since 2011. And finally, you’ve been gifted a platform and a 9 PM timeslot. And you’re going to have it look like that?! This fucking pansy-ass rigged animation??? Fuck you, man. I know you, of all people, could just dump a couple wheelbarrows of cash into this and have it look way better. Take the financial loss for the greater “culture war” that the Daily Wire is constantly handwringing over. You really wanna make The Libs seethe, then make a cartoon that looks better than anything they’ve ever seen or could possibly hope to make. Show the world that traditional art is alive and well and your team is doing laps around the other guys.

Instead, you’ve presented the world with this ugly fucking yawn of a show with zero jokes. If you’ve accomplished anything, it’s that I now empathize with your boomer protagonist. Because I’m pretty pissed at this flagrant laziness.

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