Eric Wareheim

With his partner Tim Heidecker, multihyphenate Eric Wareheim oversaw some of the most offbeat and challenging television comedy programming of the new millennium, including "Tom Goes to the Mayor" (Adult Swim, 2006), "Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!" (Adult Swim, 2007-2010) and "Tim & Eric's Bedtime Stories" (Adult Swim, 2014). The Pennsylvania natives teamed in 1994 while students at Temple University, and quickly established themselves in alternative comedy circles with their unique perspective on entertainment and popular culture. As the main writers, directors and stars in their series, Wareheim and Heidecker celebrated the most uncomfortable and occasionally unpleasant elements of amateur productions, public access television, late-night commercials and vanity projects; their comedy style hewed somewhere between the free-form absurdity of "Mr. Show" (HBO, 1995-98) and the disquieting awkwardness of confrontational surrealists like David Lynch or Werner Herzog. Their popularity led to solo and joint efforts for the comedy team, though Wareheim mostly focused his second career on the music industry, writing and performing with various groups and directing videos for Maroon 5, Ben Folds and MGMT. But it was his work as half of Tim & Eric that attracted the most attention, and if mainstream audiences didn't wholly embrace their creations, the best of their work remained some of the most adventurous, cutting-edge comedy programming on television.