Product Description: Includes Cartoons in Their Original "Un-Cut" Theatrical Versions with Footage Not Shown on TV!Hosted by the Voices of Red-Hot Talent STEPHEN COLBERT & STEVE CARELLFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 025193207128 Manufacturer No: 32071
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
Funny Cartoons but missing some favorites Wished they had the first Michael Jackson cartoon in particular - "Ixnay on the erversionpay, ixnay on the erversionpay"
Hopefully when Robert creates enough new ones or stops creating new cartoons altogether, some of the uncollected old ones will be included on a volume 2.
Saturday TV Funhouse Rocks! I always ejoyed these clips on Saturday Night Live. There's more to Smigel than The Ambiguously Gay Duo, particularly the Ex-Presidents and those cartoon parodies that look so real, but have very adult themes.
I bust a gut over Shazang's sadism.
This DVD is loaded with extras, clips that didn't make it on to the 2 hour feature.
It's great for home viewing, but make sure your guests don't require a lot of political correctness before showing it to them.
TV Dud House Possibly the biggest let down yet. Now I know why they kept the discription so vague. The phraseing to watch out for here is "best of" and not complete. I expected a copulation dvd and got a small sampling of what I thought would be on the disk. Why even bother to rip off what few people may even be interested in this, did they think they where going to get enough customers for a box set? Don't waste your money on this limited poor showing, it will only leave you wanting the episodes you thought should be on the DVD. I bought this as a gift too, made me look bad.
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.
Outrageous 'A fine collection of cartoon humor as Robert Smigel attempts to offend everyone possible. Some of this is almost cruelly funny. I had seen most of these over the years and now enjoy holding them on one collection. The SNL "Best of Commercial Parodies," is a comparable bookend collection. Enjoy.
Anything Goes Trivia
Trevor
Megaton Man
