Product Description

Movie DVD

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #10455 in DVD
• Brand: UNI DIST CORP. (MCA)
• Released on: 2006-10-24
• Rating: Unrated
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .25 pounds
• Running time: 90 minutes

Amazon.com
The envelope-pushing cartoons created by Robert Smigel for "Saturday TV Funhouse" on Saturday Night Live are tasteless, crass, borderline offensive, and almost universally hilarious. This disc collects two dozen of the best, and viewing them together makes for a deliciously warped vision of Smigel and a relentlessly silly prism through which to view American pop culture. Case in point: The action-adventure heroes Ace and Gary, "The Ambiguously Gay Duo" (voiced, with deadpan earnestness, by Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert), are actually pretty unambiguous, but the joke is played just straight enough--while fighting to save the earth, they always allocate time to accessorize--and to pat one another on the bum for a job well done. In "Bambi 2002," Disney is roasted for its policy of pulling choice children's titles from the marketplace and releasing instead direct-to-video sequels that may not be up to the level of the original. In the "sequel," Bambi's mom is OK ("it was just a head wound, son"), and Bambi and his forest posse are hip-hop kids fighting terrorists in their spare time. "Remember, kids," the TV announcer intones, "it's all the Bambi you'll get for 10 years." Other highlights include the cartoon beauty contest "Are You Hot?" (in which Strawberry Shortcake beats out Betty Boop for sex appeal), and the black-and-white industrial training film "Sexual Harassment and You," which advises employees on the three rules for trysting with a co-worker while avoiding a sexual harassment lawsuit: 1. Be Handsome. 2. Be Attractive. and 3. Don't be unattractive. Elsewhere, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush are skewered by their own words, and Michael Jackson reappears as a Hanna-Barbera creation--and still manages to be creepy. Extras include commentaries by Smigel, Carell, Colbert, Al Franken, James Carville, and others, as well as extra cartoon snippets and original art and storyboards. --A.T. Hurley

Customer Reviews

Better Than Your Average SNL Special.
The comedy at Saturday Night Live comes and goes in spurts and currently (Jan. 2007) it is rare for an episode, let alone an entire season, to be all that funny. However, for over a decade there is one portion of the show that has remained consistently funny and that is when one of Robert Smigel's Saturday TV Funhouse cartoons air. The Saturday TV Funhouse cartoon first began showing up on SNL in the mid-1990s. The cartoons have always been a welcome break in the usual format of the show and when first seen brought a new dimension of comedy to the famed sketch-comedy series, the type of witty satire that first made SNL a staple of American culture.

THE BEST OF SATURDAY TV FUNHOUSE was a special that aired on SNL in spring of 2006. The special was a collection of some of the best Saturday TV Funhouse cartoons ever. From the Award-winning (I think it was even nominated for an Emmy) "Saddam and Osama" to the Ambiguously Gay Due and X-Presidents cartoon, THE BEST OF SATURDAY TV FUNHOUSE DVD is filled with hilarious, short snippets of satirical animation that both critique and comment on our society and culture. Some of the cartoons are nothing more than teasing nostalgia, such as the "Globetrotters Christmas" episode (found on the special features) or "The New Adventures of Mr. T." Others are clearly aimed at ridiculing powerful corporations in attempt to awaken public awareness, such as the many Disney parodies found on the disc--"Inside the Disney Vault" and "Titey" are the best of these--and the Schoolhouse Rock spoof, "Conspiracy Theory Rock" that shows the corruption of powerful media companies such as NBC. Other gems on the disc include "Smurfette" and "The Narrator That Ruined Christmas" and the delightful "Santa and the States" found on the special features.

There are many, many, many funny cartoons found on this disc. It's something that anyone whom is a fan of good SNL or satirical animation, e.g. THE SIMPSONS, SOUTH PARK, or ROBOT CHICKEN, will probably enjoy. I enjoyed almost all of the cartoons on the disc. However, I only purchased the disc because of one cartoon that is contained: "Fun With Real Audio Christmas". As Robert Smigel points out on the commentary, this is the most popular Saturday TV Funhouse cartoon of them all. The cartoon involves Jesus and the Peanuts, but its message is universal and isn't just limited to Christians are Charles Schultz fans. I remember watching the cartoon the first time it aired. Watching SNL was a rare occurrence for me then, but for whatever reason I saw the "Fun With Real Audio Christmas" and it stuck to me. Like the images from certain television specials, lines from popular movies, are snippets of overplayed songs, the cartoon has always remained with me. This DVD is worth owning for that one little cartoon alone and everything else is just bonus.

The DVD includes over an hour of extra cartoons, some of which are even better than the ones in the main feature. The entire main feature has a commentary mostly with Smigel and his chief animators. However, other guests, such as Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert, also comment at parts. Surprisingly, most of the extra cartoons also include commentary.

Really, the best of SNL over the past few years
Robert Smigel was one of the new writers brought on board when SNL was retaken-over by Lorne Michaels in the mid-80s. Even though he left for Conan a few years afterward, he continued to write cartoons for the show, and in recent years, these cartoons have often been the funniest part of the show. This disc is definitely worth buying since it contains a pretty good sampling of the various cartoons Smigel created: the X-Presidents has the four former presidents as wisecracking superheroes; Mr. T is back, and he's looking for work; Fun with Real Audio takes shots at not-so-beloved celebrities; and, of course, there's the Ambiguously Gay Duo (voiced by Daily Show alums Steve Carrell and Stephen Colbert), who fight crime while spreading innuendo as regards the nature of their real relationship. All in all, if The Best of Jimmy Fallon isn't up your alley, it's worth checking out.

Mostly hilarious and a great value
While Saturday Night Live certainly seems to have its periods of peaks and lows, a segment that is always a highlight when it is included on the program is the Saturday TV Funhouse cartoon shorts written by Robert Smigel. Short and subversive, every cartoon is guaranteed at least one laugh (and often many more).

This disc features a "Best Of" special that aired on television last season that runs for about an hour and a half, as well as about another hour of "bonus" cartoons. Highlights include the Ambiguously Gay Duo, X-Presidents, and Fun with Real Audio shorts as a whole, as well as the "Saddam and Osama" and "Inside the Disney Vault" segments. Also of note is the commentary by Smigel who is accompanied by guests pertaining to which short is being aired, ranging from Steve Carell and Stephen Colbert (the Ambiguously Gay Duo) to Al Franken and Mr. T. This runs throughout the entire feature segment and--to my surprise and delight--many of the "bonus" cartoons are also accompanied by commentary.

Some shorts are funnier than others, and some of the "extra" cartoons were better than ones included in the featured program, but all in all you are paying $15 for over two and a half hours of hilarious content PLUS a good two hours of commentary. I wish a little more had been included regarding the production process of the cartoons themselves, but I'm a film buff and that kind of thing interests me.

Not a perfect set by any means, but apart from buying a full season of the better television comedies (South Park, Arrested Development, Seinfeld, The Simpsons) you're not likely to find more laughs or variety of jokes in a single purchase. For the price of the latest lame "rom-com" that's been dumped on the public this year, you can have a truly worthwhile collection of comedy.

Very highly recommended.