I watched a couple of them when the first came out and decided that it was clever, but not for me. It did mean I was aware enough of it though to be somewhat startled when I overheard my 12yo daughter talking about it with a friend and raving about how cool it was.

I then tried to describe it to Marsy and went with "Sesame Street directed by early David Lynch" (not too far off from your "Brazil" comparison).