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‘Tim and Eric’ in Bloomberg Businessweek

Max Abelson takes a close look at the history of the Tim and Eric empire, all the way back to Heidecker and Wareheim’s college days at Temple University, and their time as event videographers in Philly:

Before graduating, they drove a van to Los Angeles and got Hollywood internships. Things didn’t go well. They lived in a Burbank building filled with child actors who’d moved out West to make it big. “It was us and these kids … ,” Wareheim says, sounding spooked. They moved back East. While Heidecker lived in New York, Wareheim shot wedding and bar mitzvah videos in Philadelphia. The bad part was bumping into people he knew from school while wearing a silky tuxedo shirt; the good part was being allowed behind the scenes with high-strung families feeling pressured to look their best while seething behind tight smiles. On days off, the two tapped that deep discomfort for the videos they made together.

Now, their production company, Abso Lutely, is making successful low-budget comedy in the midst of a TV bubble. How?

Tim and Eric are figuring out a new method of comedy production. Depending on which subreddit stream you’re reading, they’re either geniuses or pointlessly nihilistic and digressive. But their ability to pump out content — from their Super Bowl advertisement for Loctite superglue to 15-minute segments of Check It Out! — while enticing household comedy names to make cameos is allowing their fiefdom to grow.

Read the whole thing.