Product Description

The complete first and second seasons of HBO's groundbreaking late-night sketch comedy series MR. SHOW. From Emmy(R) winning comedy writers Bob Odenkirk and David Cross, and featuring guest appearances by Jack Black, David Foley, Ben Stiller, Julia Sweeney and Jeanne Tripplehorn. Ten half-hours of comedy critics called "a twisted and often brilliant stream of comic consciousness ... fast, furious and funny stuff." - Rolling Stone.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4962 in DVD
• Brand: HBO HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 2002-06-04
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 288 minutes

Amazon.com
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

L.A. Times
Some of television's smartest and darkest comedy

Rolling Stone Magazine
A twisted and often brilliant stream of comic consciousness ... fast, furious and funny stuff

Customer Reviews

Words Cannot Describe This
I accidently came accross Mr. Show in its 3d season on HBO during an insomniatic traverse over the entire cable TV dial. Two minutes into the "Titanica" sketch I was hooked and did whatever I could to catch every episode from that point on. I say a little prayer every day that HBO releases seasons 3 and 4 soon.

Everything you've heard about this show is true. People describe it as part Monty Python, part SCTV, part Kids in the Hall and that's all accurate to a point, but there really is no way to truly describe this show to anyone who has not seen it. This is one of the funniest TV shows I have ever seen - - you just have to watch it for yourself to find out why.

Warning . . . if you think Carrot Top is funny and think Jay Leno is cutting edge humor you will NOT like this. This is offbeat, sometimes in your face, sometimes dark, occassionally VERY dark, often weird comedy. If you're easily offended by "blue" language (i.e. the "f" word and its cousins) this might not be your cup of tea. On the other hand, if you're bored out of your mind by most of what passes for comedy on TV this is the tonic you've been waiting for. It can be intelligent and incredibly silly at the same time. Again, it's really hard to explain - - just watch the f'in' show okay.

Bob Odenkirk worked for years as a comedy writer for Saturday Night Live (where Lorne Michaels rarely aired his sketches - - too edgy), Conan O'Brien (they met at SNL) and was a main stage cast member at Second City (he originated Chris Farley's popular "Motivational Speaker" character at Second City before SNL overkilled it). David Cross was a standup comic and writer in Boston for years before becoming part of the alternative comedy scene in L.A. Cross and Odenkirk met as writers on Ben Stiller's short lived show and began working together as a team before HBO started to notice their act.

The show has a fiercely devoted cult following. The show's cast and writers attribute the show's critical success and cult audience devotion to the fact that HBO pretty much left them alone and let them do whatever they wanted.

These are very funny people working in a very unrestrained environment and they produced something extremely funny in the process. If you "get it" you'll wet your pants laughing.

Comedy almost too hip for the room
Do whatever you have to do to get this DVD: borrow the money, work overtime, rob your piggy bank, sell your N*SYNC CD's (heck, you should do that anyway), sell your blood,... whatever it takes. This comedy series ranks up there with the movie "Waiting For Guffman" as the funniest thing to come along in years. No small coincidence that both of the stars and creative geniuses behind Mr. Show (David Cross and Bob Odenkirk) appeared in "Guffman". Cross is easy to spot, but blink and you'll miss Odenkirk.
This HBO series' humor soars miles above the heads of some viewers, and too bad for them. Offbeat, strange, twisted, and always extremely clever, "Mr. Show" reaffirms your faith in sketch comedy. The sketches defy description, but my favorite is the one where Odenkirk enters a convenience store to ask for change for a dollar. Sounds flat, huh? But employee Cross has to go through several links of the chain of command (4 other roles all played by Cross and Odenkirk), all the way up to the President of the United States, just to get clearance. Just guess what the answer ends up being... Cross and Odenkirk are the principal writers of this series, and their ingenious use of pre-taped segments cleverly intermixed with "live" segments demonstrates not only their mastery of the medium, but their effortlessness at thumbing their noses at standard sitcom & sketch conventions.

EXTRAS & COMMENTARY!
The product details here for some reason do not include all the extras included on the discs (at least, as of this date), so here they are:

-Commentaries on all 10 episodes
-"Fuzz" the Musical Starring Ronnie Dobbs
-"Before it Was a TV Show" (short video clip of their stage show)
-The Best of Mr. Show: "The Incredible, Fantastical News Report"
-Original TV spots