In recent years, you may have seen many comments online joking, “Where are all the bodies, Garth?” This strange trolling is linked to Garth Brooks and has become quite common. The origin of this joke is comedian Tom Segura, who started it on his podcast, Your Mom’s House.
Tom Segura often makes fun of Garth Brooks and his exaggerated public image. This has been a running theme for Segura since 2018. However, the joke has been used so much that it has become stale. To push the joke further, Segura created a character similar to Garth Brooks in his short Netflix comedy series called Bad Thoughts, which premiered on May 13.
The series has six episodes where Segura plays different dark and unusual characters caught in bizarre situations. One character is a “global country music superstar” who kidnaps his fans. He forces them to live with little food in an old Western-style town to inspire new songs. This character, named Rex Henley, is clearly modeled after Garth Brooks.
Fans of country music, comedy, or even Garth Brooks might have hoped for some good laughs. Unfortunately, Bad Thoughts does not deliver. Beyond the brief connection to country music and Garth Brooks, the six episodes, each about 20 minutes long, offer little consistent humor.
Rex Henley only appears in the first few episodes. Despite the strange storyline, these episodes are actually some of the mildest. Later episodes focus heavily on crude jokes involving human waste, bad sex humor, and other shock tactics. The series fails to offer any meaningful social commentary, which is often a strength of good comedy.
Bad Thoughts feels like an idea that sounded better on paper. With comedy being popular now, platforms like Netflix are quick to approve projects from big comedians. However, the humor here is weak to outright poor.
On Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds a 54% rating, which may be generous. If you are a Tom Segura fan and understand his style, you might enjoy it more. But if you are a country music fan who likes joking about Garth Brooks, it is better to skip this series. In fact, Garth Brooks unintentionally provides more comedy than this show does.
