'Check it Out! with Dr. Steve Brule': Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim on John C. Reilly's 'Awesome Show' spin-off. For your health!

My favorite TV doctor is not to be found on House or Grey’s Anatomy, but the far more demented environs of Adult Swim’s Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! I refer, of course, to Dr. Steve Brule, a nervy, idiotic, and possibly insane health worker, played by John C. Reilly, whose ill-conceived advice about such problems as body stench and being on fire redefines the concept of “hilariously hopeless.”

Well, now the folks at Adult Swim have given the not-so-good doctor his own show, Check it Out! with Dr. Steve Brule, which premieres Sunday, May 16 at 12.30 am. After the break, Awesome Show stars and creators Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim give us a taste of the madness to come.

For your health!

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: What can Awesome Show fans expect from Check it Out!?

ERIC WAREHEIM: Well, this is his own news program that Dr. Steve Brule and his buddy Denny put together. It’s like an expanded version of the Dr. Steve Brule segments from the show. You’re going to see a lot of interviews. You go into his character a lot more. You figure out what he’s afraid of, what he likes. You find all this information out through interviews with different people

Is he interviewing “real” people?

TIM HEIDECKER: He’s interviewing real people. But the comedy is not necessarily about fooling these people. It’s more the character of Steve Brule being completely clueless and a really strange guy. It’s a show that genuinely feels like this guy made it himself. It’s as if it’s 4:30 in the morning he had snuck into the studio to make this show without getting permission. It’s bare bones. Lots of technical problems. Just a mess. The whole thing is a big mess. A big beautiful mess.

Would you care to offer a comment on the comedy genius of John C. Reilly?

EW: This show is equally about him as it is “Tim and Eric.” He improvises a huge part of it. He just goes deep into his character. If you watch the Awesome Show, at the very beginning, he’s a normal, nervous, man, and over the seasons he becomes really f—ed up. And on Check It Out! he’s at a level of insanity that’s really funny to watch. He really brought it for this character.

I interviewed him a couple of years ago and when I raised the subject of Steve Brule he said, “Yeah, that’s one crazy doctor!” as if the character was someone he knew, rather than one he played.

TH: Yeah. Those glasses are funny because he can’t really see with them on. So he does kind of zone out, and there’s a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde kind of thing where he really gets into that character. It’s amazing. He does think of that guy as another person.