Product Description

Studio: A&e Home Video Release Date: 05/26/2009

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1723 in DVD
• Brand: A&E HOME ENT.
• Released on: 2009-05-26
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 8
• Running time: 1150 minutes

Features

• The Complete Comic Adventures of Britain's Original Odd Couple, starring superstars Hugh Laurie (House) and Stephen Fry (Gosford Park).Join Jeeves & Wooster for an enchanting romp through the drawing rooms and diversions of Britain's tweedy elite. Bertie Wooster is theic young British man of means, blessed with a touch too generous a heart and a slight deficit in the noggin department. Jeev

Amazon.com
Fans of Hugh Laurie's prickly, sardonic House character may not realize that Laurie started as a slapstick comedian of the most British type: Veddy, veddy silly. And nowhere has Laurie been sillier, or more divine, than as Bertie Wooster in Jeeves & Wooster, the British TV series based on the famed P.G. Wodehouse characters. Playing off Laurie is the equally splendid Stephen Fry (a longtime Laurie pal and co-star) as the arch and supremely competent valet Jeeves. The two create a winning, hilarious pair of tour guides into the rarified world of early-20th-century upper-crust England. Bertie is kind-hearted and a soft touch, and, well, not exactly street smart. When Bertie's Aunt Agatha ("the nephew-crusher") decides he must be groomed to be a proper prospective husband for a proper well-off young lady, Bertie snaps, "I don't want to be molded, I'm not a jelly!" Auntie: "That's a matter of opinion. Dear." Happily, Jeeves is there to anticipate the worst of Bertie's mishaps (usually involving alcohol) and to find creative ways to bail him out. Fry is deadpan and delightful playing Jeeves, and Laurie is a revelation to any comedy fan who's only experienced him as House. The Wodehouse dialogue is preserved in all its exquisite tossed-away glory. Bertie's short chat with a barkeep doing renovations contains this small gem, from the musing pubman: "Well, they can't abide mooses, the committee can't." It's all about softening that stiff upper lip--and in this, Jeeves & Wooster succeeds brilliantly.--A.T. Hurley

Customer Reviews

A Puzzling New/Old Release
The eight discs that clock in at a hefty 1150 minutes of wry British wit that stars Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry is a puzzling (re)release on a pair of critical areas: there is nothing new from the complete series that was issued in 2002 and the transfer to disc remains "iffy," which plagued its initial appearance in the marketplace.

Laurie portrays Bertram Wilberforce "Bertie" Wooster - the bumbling, dimwitted aristocrat - and Fry is the witty valet, Reginald Jeeves, in the series that is based on Sir P.G. Wodehouse's "Jeeves and Wooster" stories. The 23 episodes appeared on the ITV network from April 1990 to June 1993 and feature bossy aunts, romantic scrapes and a number of friends who just can't stay out of mischief.

Hopefully there are plans for a definitive set and this repackaging of a prior release is a bridge to that end. Though the shows were outstanding, there needs to be a serious production makeover to make for a solid collectible for fans of all ages.

Very good, sir
P.G. Wodehouse wrote funny stories. Obscenely hilarious comedy stories about dim young aristocrats, overbearing aunts and very clever servants.

And of all his creations, the most memorable is the ill-fated and blue-blooded Bertie Wooster and his megabrained valet Jeeves, immortalized by Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry. "The Complete Jeeves & Wooster" brings together all their madcap, bizarre little adventures in England's upper echelongs, with many a disastrous engagement and stint in prison.

Bertie Wooster (Laurie) is in need of a valet, and after a wild night out, the low-key, brainy manservant Jeeves (Fry) is sent by an agency to deal with Bertie's everyday needs.

But Jeeves doesn't just fold Bertie's hankies and give him hangover tonics -- he keeps Bertie out of all kinds of trouble. Predatory young beauties, ditzy idiot pals of Bertie's, and domineering aunts trying to marry him off, Bertie is always in hot water -- and Jeeves always is on hand, with a plot cooking in his impressive brain, to haul his hapless employer out.

Among the many problems they have to tackle: a stolen cow creamer, a little book of insults directed at an amateur Hitler, a starvation tactic that ends in disaster, American millionaires, a flirtation with fatherhood, scandalous memoirs, Bingo Little's countless infatuations, the havoc wreaked by mustaches, pearl necklaces going missing, and many compromising situations that begin -- or end -- unwanted engagements.

"The Complete Jeeves and Wooster" is quite faithful to Wodehouse's original stories -- some stories are combined and others are separated, but they draw heavily on his kooky, bizarro prose. Not to mention a sort of alternate between-wars England full of glamour and a merry-go-round of oft-broken engagements, with Jeeves as the calm in the storm's eye.

The only problem is that the stories set in New York just don't have that delicious British flavour that the rest of the series does, although they're still quite funny. That, and the cast changes continuously.

But those small flaws don't keep the series from being hilarious, from start to finish. Every episode is a hopeless tangle of infatuations, overbearing aunts, mixups, blackmail, newts, meddling aunts and young women ranging from devious to airy-fairy -- often all of the above. And yet somehow Jeeves manages to untangle it by the end. And Wodehouse's dialogue is handled in a brilliant manner ("Because he is a butterfly, who toys with women's hearts and throws them away like soiled gloves!" "Do butterflies do that?").

Hugh Laurie and Stephen Fry are perfectly cast as the endearing bumbler Bertie Woosterand the dryly witty Jeeves. Though Bertie's lack of clothing sense (and a trombone) often annoys Jeeves, the brainy valet clearly does have affection for Bertie, and Bertie appreciates Jeeves' ability to save him from fates worse than death (such as marriage to the horribly hearty Honoria or the wispy, fairy-loving dimbulb Madeleine).

"The Complete Jeeves and Wooster" is a simply brilliant stretch of what-ho-what-ho comedy ("You can't be a successful dictator AND design women's underclothing") and deliciously twisting storylines. Not to be missed. Ever.

Hiliarious show, classic Hugh Laurie
This show hits you with its unique brand of humor from the first second and just keeps running. Hugh Laurie is perfect as Bertie Wooster, a young man of the idle rich, who's sole occupation seems to be entangling his own social life. To this enters Stephen Fry as Mr. Wooster's "Gentleman's personal gentleman" Jeeves; acting the part of the quintessential valet to a tee. Jeeves uses his encyclopedic knowledge on nearly every subject to pull off the most complicated and convoluted plans possible to extricated Bertie from his jams; including Bertie's annoying habit of accidentally getting himself engaged. All the while Jeeves manages to to set Bertie right in his sly and subtle way when he makes his most aggrievance mistakes, such as buying a white hat or monogrammed handkerchiefs. This series is one of the best shows I've seen in years and stands up favorably to any others I can think of.