Too Many Cooks

Too Many Cooks is a surreal black comedy short that originally aired as a special during Adult Swim's "infomercials" block on October 28, 2014, at 4:00 am Eastern Time. It was created, written, and directed by Casper Kelly, and produced by Williams Street. After its original airing, the piece became a viral video online and was repeated each night at midnight Eastern Time during the week of November 11, 2014. Premise The short begins as a parody of opening credits sequences of 1970s, 80s, and 90s American sitcoms, listing the actors in the fictional series "Too Many Cooks". The credits introduce dozens of actors as the genre of the show gradually segues from sitcom into crime drama, prime time soap opera, Saturday morning cartoon, superhero live-action series, slasher film, and science fiction. Particular focus is put on a slasher film villain (played by William Tokarsky), who is hidden in the background of several early shots but eventually starts killing the other characters with a machete. The opening credits sequence ends after about ten minutes and transitions into the "episode", with all the characters from the opening standing in the one house; the short ends roughly ten seconds later, cutting to closing credits before a full line of dialogue ("Honey, I'm ho-") can be spoken. Development and production According to Kelly, he conveyed the concept of the short to his Squidbillies writer-producer friend Jim Fortier, who in turn described it to Adult Swim executive Mike Lazzo, who loved the idea. The footage was filmed over a period of three days in October 2013 with a cast completely composed of extras from the Atlanta area. Post-production took a year, with Kelly recruiting friends and co-workers to help with the process. While the video depicts the opening credits of a fictional television show, most of the cast members' real names were used. According to Katie Adkins, actors were not presented with a clearly explained script, but rather coached on the go, in a somewhat nonchalant manner.