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Blue Collar Comedy Tour: One For The Road
R1 - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Noor Razzak and Steve Wrigley (11th July 2006). |
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The Show
 One for the Road is the third DVD of stand up comedy from Jeff Foxworthy, Larry the Cable Guy, Bill Engvall and Ron White also known as the 'Blue Collar Boys'. I assume it's suppose to be 108 minutes of jokes and comedy for the working stiff, It's 108 minutes of wife jokes, poo jokes, dog jokes and a rant about how all terrorists should get the death penalty. The opening sequence tries to play these boys off as a kind of middle class rat pack in tuxedos and ties, what comes out onto the stage is an assault of sexist stupidity that had me cursing the day I agreed to review this DVD. Bill Engvall is first on stage, using his story telling southern style he began quite innocently with self effacing humorous stories of the stupid things he's done as a boy. He was slowly charming me although there wasn't much to laugh at. It could be that I was drawn in by how much he looks like Mandy Patinkin or that half my mind was on my bag of popcorn. Still, it wasn't long till he started up with how dogs are funny and men and women don't understand each other. He was charming, but wholly unoriginal and it drew the first of many yawns out of me. Ron White, this is where it all fell apart, and so early in the game. I could excuse Engvall for being an innocent and charming misguided middle class white male, but White had me seething in my seat. He began with crowd (and I mean the bunch of red necks in the audience) pleasing subject matter. Drinking is awesome (Big cheer) diets suck (Bigger cheer) and finished with... Oh god I wish I was kidding... the death penalty is great (Huger cheer still) and that he would love to be the one to throw the switch on a certain terrorist an hour early to deprive him of his final hour of life (Ovation). Now, I think terrorism is wrong, but at this point, I felt less like I was watching a blue collar comedy tour, and more like I was sitting in on a white hooded cross burning. Jeff Foxworthy. I remember listening to this guy’s 'Here's your sign' gag years ago and chuckling to myself. It was the only five minute segment of his I had heard till watching this DVD. He has a joke (Not on this DVD but in his 'Stupid People' bit I just mentioned) about how shampoo bottles say 'rinse, lather, repeat', and there must still be some idiot in the shower, The same can be said for Foxworthy. All this guy seems to do is make lists of stuff. His comedy is repetitive and wholly unfunny. He manages to list about twenty red neck fashion faux pas one after the other finishing each one with the same line 'You better pay attention!'. Foxworthy’s comedy is rinse, lather, repeat and I feel bad that so many idiots are still stuck in the shower with him. Still, I guess if people find you funny somewhere, you’re a comedian, and somebody out there must have bought copies of his book 'The Red Neck Dictionary' that he spent the first half of his set plugging. Larry the Cable Guy, I should point out to people who don't know it yet that this guy is HUGE in the U.S.A. You may all have heard him as the voice of Mater in the Pixar movie Cars (2006). As a stand up I just wasn't getting it. I had sat through an hour and a half of comedy and laughed twice. Was something wrong with me? Do I have a genetic disposition toward Wal-mart jokes and Sexism? I paused the DVD and drank twelve beers in a row then ate half a pig, tore the sleeves off my shirt and smashed my head against a wall till I was pretty sure I had but one lone brain cell dribbling around inside my noodle and un-paused the DVD. I found it hilarious from that point on and couldn't get enough of Larry the Cable Guy‘s very original 'This is my holding in a poo face' jokes. Oh I was sick with laughter. Could he say 'Get 'r' Done' again please, please, because lord that's a good catch phrase. The show climaxes... finishes... with all four comics roasting old photos of each other blah, blah, blah... and telling their favorite ‘joke’ jokes of all time. How sad that the only jokes I actually laughed at through the whole thing weren't even theirs. In truth, I laughed out loud a few times watching this DVD, but only at to the random cuts to the largely unattractive audience wobbling with laughter. There is much better stand up out there on DVD. This is outdated comedy for an audience that refuses to evolve.
Video
Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, the image is quite nice. Overall sharpness is excellent and colors are rich and vibrant. Skin tones are spot on, however blacks aren’t as bold as they should be and shadow detail is minimal, considering this is a well lit stage this doesn’t really make any difference. It’s a fairly good representation and won’t really disappoint.
Audio
Two audio tracks are included on this disc, both of which are in English, one in Dolby Digital 5.1 and the other in Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround. For the purposes of this review I chose to view this film with its 5.1 track. As far as a surround track goes it’s very basic, audio is clear and distortion free and the surround channels are usually related to audience laughter and response to give the viewer a sense of ‘being there’ but that’s about it really. Optional subtitles are included in English only.
Extras
The first featurette is entitled Yankee Doodle Dandy which runs for 3 minutes 33 seconds and is essentially a short comedy film which features the four members of the Blue Collar Tour as they visit Washington D.C. and play a prank on the president, by setting a bag of dog poo on fire and leave it on his doorstep to put out, that’s right folks, the last time I found something like this funny was when I was about 7 years-old. Next up is Molding the Minds of Young Americans, a featurette which runs for 12 minutes 53 seconds, the four comics visit George Washington University and hold a Q&A where they answer questions about their backgrounds, comedy and how the tour got started, if you’re a big enough fan of these four then this is probably worth a look, otherwise it’s clips like this that are the reason why fast-forward buttons were invented. Blue Collar Fans is up next, this featurette runs for 3 minutes 10 seconds and interviews fans that attended the show at the Warner Theater, they tells us why they love these guys and their jokes, the rednecks all come out of the woodwork in this clip as they basically re-tell the so-called best moments of the show for anyone that may have fallen asleep or stopped paying attention (mind you it’s fairly one-sided, I’d like to have heard from the people that didn’t like the show). The interviewer also asks the fans a series of relatively stupid questions covering topics no one really cares about. Behind-the-Scenes of One For The Road is the final featurette and runs for 11 minutes 7 seconds, this takes us on a behind-the-scenes look at the four at a photography session for the opening titles sequence as well as a look at the filming of the Yankee Doodle Dandy clip seen previously on this DVD. A photo gallery includes a series of 44 images, some are pictures that are seen in the roast at the end of the show, as well as some other pictures of the guys. Rounding out the extras are a series of 2 bonus trailers that include: - The Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again which runs for 16 seconds. - Reno 911: Season 3 on DVD which runs for 58 seconds. As far as extras go on this steaming turd in digital form, there is a lot of them all pissing around backstage and on tour. You might find this amusing. You also might need a lobotomy, or already have had one.
Overall
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