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DVD Mr. Show - The Complete First and Second Seasons
Hey, everybody, it's Bob and David on DVD! In 1995 comics Bob Odenkirk and David Cross were simply "two people you've never seen before." Since then, each has insidiously entered the mainstream with appearances on TV (Just Shoot Me, The Drew Carey Show) and movies (Scary Movie 2, Dr. Dolittle 2, Men in Black 2). But to quote Odenkirk's bio (which is included on the first disc), Mr. Show is the thing you should see if you want to check them out. Like the late, lamented The Ben Stiller Show, on which both toiled, and Monty Python before that, this midnight-hour HBO series gave a subversive twist to the traditional sketch comedy series. Classic characters include Cross's white-trash poster boy Ronnie Dobbs, the superstar arrestee on a "Cops"-like TV show. Totally out of left field is an infomercial for an instructional video series by "Van Hammersly, Champion Billiard Player," who at one point re-creates the 1974 Kentucky Derby with billiard balls (one of the equines is named "If Mandy Patinkin Was a Horse"). Punch lines? Mr. Show doesn't need no stinking punch lines, as one sketch flows into another.
Bob and David are ably supported by, among others, Second City veteran Jill Talley, Tom Kenny (the voice of Spongebob Squarepants!), Brian Posehn (the creepy guy on Just Shoot Me), Mary-Lynn Rajskub (from The Larry Sanders Show), Sarah Silverman ("Greg the Bunny"), and a pre-Saturday Night Live Jerry Minor, who enlivens one episode commentary with an impeccable Billy Dee Williams imitation. As with the Velvet Underground’s following, Mr. Show fans make up with fervor what they lack in numbers. According to Mr. Show’s own Web site, "non-fans outnumber our fans by the cajillions," but this essential set should change that. --Donald Liebenson
Review(s): DVD Mr. Show - The Complete First and Second Seasons
I take it personal, and i make it personal
Mr. Show, simply put, funniest, most intelligent skit show OF ALL TIME. David Cross has performed stand up in more than 109,251 comedy clubs, entertaining more that 70,000 people across the world. Bod Odenkieriertkko#^eik is SNL's grammy winning writer; nuff said. A++ =>
"My Shoes Hurt Too, Dad"
It could be argued that the brilliant and equally bizarre Mr Show, had a very limited, niche appeal...although I'm unsure as to why exactly. Well, that's not entirely true, as I have a pretty good idea of why that is...or was.
Maybe the explanation lies within the inherent properties of average TV audiences being... well, why even delve into it, eh?
Allow me to slather on high praise: I miss Bob and Dave.
Bob was recently doing some late-Friday-night-oddball-flick-hosty thing on Sundance Channel. In fact, it was there that I saw the movie he directed, "Melvin Goes To Dinner," which I enjoyed. But I digress...
Mr Show was original, intelligent, hysterical. Thank your lucky stars that the goodness of Mr Show's hijinks have been preserved in this format for you to enjoy whenever the mood strikes you.
Break this DVD out at a party and silently muse over the obtuse, slack-jawed faces. Y'all are truly brutalizin' me.
Sad songs are nature's onions.
This is the fourth time I have watched this first and second season of Mr. Show, and I must admit, it is one of those rare programs that continues to get funnier and funnier each time that you watch it. Literally, you catch something new and fresh each time it is placed inside of your DVD player. What makes this series work better than most other television comedies out there is the chemistry of the cast. Bob Odenkirk and David Cross are perfectly matched while also being completely random choices for the hosts of the show. I had not heard about either of them before watching this series (which I bought due to a recommendation from a friend), now I have watched Melvin Goes to Dinner several times and listened to David Cross' stand-up comedy whenever I need a very social pick-me-up! Needless to say, I have full submersed myself into their world after watching this groundbreaking series.
What continues to work with this program is that the jokes are not your typical slapstick humor that the average "Joe" can get from watching reruns of Friends on NBC. Mr. Show is hard hitting, in your face, political, yet not so political, social satire about the world around us. While you may just see this as just another comedy show, I see it as so much more. The cohesiveness of the skits and the underlying message throughout each show seem to represent the voices that we hear coming from our local papers on a daily basis. They are not afraid to take a delicate issue and twist it into a hysterical moment. The brutal honesty of David Cross makes this show thoroughly enjoyable while the approachable Bob Odenkirk brings it to our level. Also, the interweaving of comic geniuses throughout the show keeps you wanting more. Jack Black is a regular on the program (and really proves why he is funny), and there are appearances by Dave Foley, Sarah Silverman, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Patton Oswalt, Julia Sweeney, Janeane Garofalo, Ben Stiller, Conan O'Brien, and Andy Richter. This is not a show for everyone, but it does showcase the beauty of HBO and the ability that they have to see, and go forward, with avant-garde comedy.
My favorite episodes were the News Report featured in the extras, Operation Hell on Earth, and If You're Going to Write a Comedy Scene, You're Going to Have Some Rat Feces in There, and the infamous milk machine joke song with Jack Black! Utterly hysterical. (no pun intended)
This DVD set of the first and second seasons is packaged very well. With every season uncensored (were they ever with HBO), you get Mr. Show as it should be and will always be remembered. It also is chalked full of extras that will quench every drop of Mr. Show that resides in you. The news report that they do in the extras portion of this DVD is worth buying alone. Again, it shows the creativity and originality of a program that knew no boundaries. I cannot wait to get my hands on the other seasons and fully explore the world in which I live ... which is the world showcased continually on Mr. Show. The absurdity of our culture is redefined with this program.
Grade: ***** out of *****
Related DVD's Mr. Show - The Complete First and Second Seasons
Who knew that the "Ratings Man," repository of all records concerning television viewership, is actually Santa Claus? Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, stars of the frequently inspired sketch-comedy program Mr. Show, did, and they've got an absurdist skit to prove it on this DVD collection.
Culled from Bob and David's 1997 appearances on HBO, The Complete Third Season includes the wonderful "Hail Satan Network" (a "Praise the Lord" for devil-worshippers), bogus movie-of-the-week "The Bob Lamonta Story" (about an athlete with retarded parents), a Beatles parody ("The Fad 3"), and the hilarious "Hunger Strike" (in which a starving, Gandhi-esque leader wishes to be buried in mashed potatoes). Cross proves a superior performer who salvages several underdeveloped bits, while... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): David Cross (II) - Bob Odenkirk Director(s): Stacy Peralta - Keith Truesdell - John Moffitt - Jonathan Dayton - Peyton Reed DVD Release Date: Released the 26 August 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Season 4 of HBO's Mr. Show is particularly strong, with a number of original ideas and exceptionally funny sketches scattered over all 10 episodes. Stars Bob Odenkirk and David Cross are in good form from the season premiere's opening bit about medical marijuana--specifically, Cross's prescription to help him with the anxiety of working with Odenkirk. The duo also work a comic rivalry theme in a dueling bloopers sketch that includes "embarrassing" footage of Odenkirk as a male prostitute and Cross as a wannabe rock star.
But the best material is positively surreal, such as a Jerry Springer-like talk show taking place on a life raft, and a variation on The Paper Chase in which a curmudgeonly law professor (Michael McKean), suddenly called away from class after a... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): David Cross (II) - Bob Odenkirk Director(s): Stacy Peralta - Keith Truesdell - John Moffitt - Jonathan Dayton - Peyton Reed DVD Release Date: Released the 21 September 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
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For its brief and shining moment--12 aired episodes, to be exact--The Ben Stiller Show, which aired on Fox in 1992, recaptured the anarchic spirit and subversively funny voice of first-season Saturday Night Live and SCTV. More too-hip-for-the-room than ahead of its time, the show suffered dismal ratings and was unceremoniously cancelled. It then went on to win an Emmy for best writing and attract a fervent following, enhanced by the fact that the series has seldom been syndicated. This long-awaited DVD release fills not a void, but an abyss. To watch Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick, and a pre-Mr. Show Bob Odenkirk at the dawn of their mostly unconventional careers, romp in the show's opening is akin to watching the Beatles frolic on that football field in... More Info about this DVD Director(s): John Fortenberry - Troy Miller DVD Release Date: Released the 02 December 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Let America Laugh is an intermittently entertaining, fly-on-the-wall DVD sidebar to David Cross's live comedy CD from Sub Pop, Shut Up, You F**king Baby! Shot on a low-tech, digital camcorder, Let America Laugh captures the ups and downs (mostly downs) of Cross's 2002 tour of North American clubs. Notable sequences find the Mr. Show star jerking around a rude and uncooperative Nashville club owner, attending a wee-hours party at a Memphis video store (it looks exactly as one might imagine), surviving a double booking in Vancouver, and shooting fireworks from a Minneapolis playground. Much of this looks like concert-tour hell, but there are highlights, too: A stop at Experience Music Project in Seattle, a funny encounter with Cross's comic partner, Bob Odenkirk,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Lance Bangs DVD Release Date: Released the 04 November 2003 Usually ships in 24 hours
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