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Comedy Central's TV Funhouse
R1 - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: James Teitelbaum (7th August 2008). |
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The Show
 This Comedy Central series from 2000 is a parody of Saturday morning children's television from the 1970's. A dimwitted host in a series of ill-fitting outfits (cowboy, bandito, hula man) performs skits with a bunch of animal puppets in between cartoons. The difference between authentic Saturday morning television and this particular series, is that "Comedy Central's TV Funhouse" is full of raunchy humor, drugs, violence, sex, and other wholesome topics. One of the cartoons is a parody of the old 1960's "Superman" cartoon, but in this case the hero spends most of is time trying to get his Clark Kent-like alter ego laid. Another cartoon is sort of a Warner Brothers/MGM spoof, with a tom cat getting in to all sorts of trouble every time the lady of the house leaves him alone. A third cartoon imagines Margot Kidder, Robert Downey Jr., and Anne Heche as private investigators. The show also features send-ups of the classic 1940's-1950's "Coronet" school films, or social hygiene films. For example, a "Coronet" film about restraining from masturbation is transformed into a film about not allowing yourself to take a dump. There is more, but this representative sample ought to give you an idea of the tone of the series. The problem here is that the vast majority of the material is supremely unfunny. This is perhaps the reason why it took eight years to get "Comedy Central's TV Funhouse" on to DVD - I am sure that Comedy Central had more pressing concerns in their DVD release schedule. The puppet skits (known as The Anipals) take up most of the running time, and they are by far the weaker half of the material (with the parody cartoons and school films being rather funnier, but still not funny enough). For what it is worth, this series appears to have introduced the character of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. If you're into insult comedy, go back to Groucho Marx, a true master of the form. Triumph, or at least his puppeteers, have absolutely no sense of wit, and fall flat at every opportunity. It is far to obvious to suggest renaiming him Failure. Someone please tell me why this character remains popular? This set includes all eight episodes of the series on two discs, these episodes include: - "Western Day" - "Hawaiian Day" - "Christmas Day" - "Mexican Day" - "Caveman Day" - "Safari Day" - "Astronaut Day" - "Chinese New Year's Day" So, the entire eight-episode run of this series came and went in two months. I am so glad it did not last longer, lest I would have had to wade through further discs of this crap.
Video
All episodes are presented in the original television aspect ratio of 4:3. Video quality is fine for what it is: a lo-fi cheapo comedy show. I saw a few compression issues, but no big deal - if you're 17 and stoned you're going to like this show, and if that is the case you're not worried about the video quality anyway. Running time of disc one is 1:25:29, and disc two is 1:28:20.
Audio
"Comedy Central's TV Funhouse" is presented in English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo only, with no subtitles. There isn't much to say about the audio, but what do you want: it is people doing silly voices with puppets.
Extras
Paramount has released this series with a series of audio commentaries, a video commentary, outtakes, three featurettes, a lost sketch, a series of bonus trailers and Comedy Central quickies. Below is a closer look at these supplements broken down per disc. DISC ONE: Disc one contains audio commentary on all episodes by creators Robert Smigel and Dino Stomatopoulos, in which they don't really say much of interest at all. Next is a video commentary with the puppets, Anipals Chickie, Jason, Xabu, and Dave. In this second commentary (not a full episode, only 6 minutes 46 seconds in length) the creators and some of the puppets are seen in the studio goofing off as an episode plays on a video monitor in the background. Sometimes they pause the video and rewind it to point out something theoretically interesting. Outtakes from Anipals and Doug runs for 7 minutes 45 seconds, is just what the name implies - puppetland goofs and screw-ups. "Behind the Scenes: Killing Bob Hope / Horse Cock" featurette runs for 4 minutes 43 seconds and is behind the scenes footage form the making of these two skits. There are bonus trailers for: - "Drawn Together: Season 2" which runs for 1 minute 25 seconds. - "Lil' Bush" which runs for 1 minute 13 seconds. - "Upright Citizens Brigade" which runs for 1 minute 22 seconds. DISC TWO: Disc two contains audio commentary on all episodes by creators Robert Smigel and Dino Stomatopoulos, in which they don't really say much of interest at all... except for one part where they joke about getting bad reviews from DVD web sites. Sorry guys, you weren't so kidding after all. I am not going to rag on the video quality (as was joked about on the commentary), just the lame content of the program itself. Next are two "Triumph appearances" featurettes: "The Rob Reiner Roast" runs for 8 minutes 15 seconds and "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart which runs for 5 minutes 16 seconds. A lost sketch is net and runs for 2 minutes 40 seconds and is called "What Do We Know Part 2 with Bob Odenkirk." Closing out the extra are a few Comedy Central quickies for: - "The Colbert Report: Breasts" which runs for 1 minute 27 seconds. - "The Sarah Silverman Program: Date with God" which runs for 2 minutes 38 seconds. - "South Park: Leprechaun" which runs for 2 minutes 34 seconds.
Overall
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