Ahoy, squirts! Quint here with a double whammy from MTV2. The first is one of my favorite new shows, WONDER SHOWZEN, and the second is a little less consistent THE ANDY MILONAKIS SHOW.
WONDER SHOWZEN
Kiiiiidddsss show.... kids show. Oh, Good Lord it's the kids show. Kids show, kids show... the show that's just... for... for kids.
If you haven't seen this show and your comedy tastes tend to go a bit towards the weird, vulgar and almost certifiably insane type stuff, then you need to run, don't walk, to get this DVD. Don't read anything about it. Just pop it in and bathe in it's absurd bizarre-ocity.
Think a mix of Seseme Street, Meet the Feebles, Chappelle's Show, Kids Say the Darndest Things, Mr. Show and Pee-Wee's Playhouse. The show is populated with muppet type creatures and young children who say just fuckin' off the wall weird stuff. Not South Park stuff, but stuff like, "You know what sport I'd like to see? If you breed a stallion with a raccoon and then you can see if their freak spawn could kill a monkey. That'd be fun."
This show is wrong in all the right ways.
The DVD is a two-discer with 8 episodes total. 4 of those episodes have commentary. The special features include Outtakes and Auditions, Beat Kids Outtakes, Clarence Outtakes, Promos, P.F.F.R. Music Video, a sneak peak at the 2nd season and Story Time with Flava Flav.
The commentary tracks have absolutely nothing to do with the episodes, really. The commentators don't refer to the episodes at all, just do their thing. My favorite is...
Screamin' Steven Hawkins "Space"
Yes, it's a whole 20-odd minute commentary in the Steve Hawkins mechanical voice. And it's almost solidly the machine talking through the whole time, going from tangent to tangent and joke to joke. Like a stand-up act... but in the emotionless machine voice. Here's a taste. Keep in mind every time the machine voice says "animal" it sounds like "Aah-Nee-Moll."
"I can not abide crime. I believe that if you commit even one crime you are no better than an animal and you ought to be slaughtered like an animal. And then cooked by an animal and then fed to an animal by an animal. Then you ought to be shat out by that animal onto another, unsuspecting, animal. But this show is not for a dumb animal. The comedy on this show spreads in your brain like cancer. Wonder Showzen is America's humor tumor and, lordy, it's not benign. Bingo. Get it? Bingo..."
The other commentaries are:
Pffr "Diversity"
Kinda lame. Kind of this music stuff over the episode. Not a fan of this one.
Dick Gregory (Mr. Sun) "Nature"
This is the second best commentary track, with the old black dude who plays Mr. Sun in a couple of the episodes. For those who don't know the show, it's just a bit part, but think of that baby face in the sun from Teletubbies, except picture an old black dude with a bit of white facial hair. The commentary track is essentially just him talking about life and his thoughts on life. He's very anti-establishment and spouts some nutty theories, but with an undeniable wisdom. It's really interesting and really damn funny.
Gordon Lish "Patience"
I have no idea who the hell Gordon Lish is, but this commentary track is done over my favorite episode. People fucking hate this episode, think it's the most annoying thing in the world... Spoiler alert, but this one has Clarence, the blue hand puppet go out into New York asking people about patience. Of course, he cuts them off and talks over them and is as annoying as he can be, trying their own patience... But this episode is structured brilliantly. The first half has some odd things that are said backwards and drawn weirdly, then we get to a point in the middle of the episode where Clarence and an Asian kid are just saying the word "Patience" over and over again to each other. Then they flash on Clarence with an old Asian dude doing the same thing. The show is stopped half-way through and played backwards... In its entirety, with some of the hidden visuals and audio clues becoming apparent. God, I love this episode.
Anyway, Lish's commentary is alright... bizarre and not really funny, but oddly listenable.
Give this show a chance. I fucking love it, but then again I like some stupid shit. Beat Kids is the best. "Kids on the beat! Kids on the street! Beat Kids! Beat Kids!" All the stuff they do with the children saying weird things is classic and still makes me laugh on the 5th and 6th viewings.
Oh, and for those Wonder Showzen fans... The sneak peak at Season 2 is an animated bit called S.O.S. (Special Owesome Squad) about a group of Special Olympics superheroes that repeat their love of hot dogs to each other. The wheelchair guy is named Sparkle Horse, the dude wearing nothing but a soft, padded helmet is called Brian Damage, Simple Simon "with the power of simple", etc. They go to solve crimes and run to the "Dignity Van" but have to wait for the wheelchair lift to bring Sparkle Horse onboard.
I can't wait for season 2! Starts next week, I think. But you can get the DVDs tomorrow.
THE ANDY MILONAKIS SHOW
Moriarty put this DVD set in his weekly column and said that Milonakis is good in small doses, but becomes grating with prolonged viewing. I'd agree with that.
When he's on, Milonakis has me rolling. He has a bit at the very beginning of the first episode that makes me crack up each time I see it... It involves a chicken nugget Pez dispenser and an insulting plastic rooster. Most of the time Milonakis is just plain silly. Very much like WONDER SHOWZEN, he'll parade the streets of New York City doing really weird and random shit to strangers, thanking an old man for the fish soup, etc. WONDER SHOWZEN is a bit better at editing those down to the funniest bits.
All in all, I like Milonakis as a personality. He's always experimenting and when you have someone doing that you're going to see them crash and burn a lot, but when he succeeds, he really makes it worth it.
The DVD is a two-discer as well with 8 episodes. There are commentaries by Andy Milonakis and the strange beings that inhabit his world.
The only commentary I can suggest watching is a really funny one on the first season done by New York Daily News Critic Richard Huff. The funny part is that Huff was one of the first people to review Milonakis' show and he hated it. Real bad. So, it'd be like me recording a commentary for a Uwe Boll movie. He's just trashing it left and right. You get the feeling that he's somewhat pulling his punches, but he's still unrestrained enough to keep the commentary entertaining for us. Even if I don't agree with him half the time, I think it was really funny to include that in the bonus features.
When Milonakis and his friend, Ralphie, do a commentary... Let's just say that I stopped listening shortly after I heard one episode's commentary... probably 3 or 4 episodes in... where Andy and Ralphie are just free-stylin' it through the commentary... for the whole episode. That might be funny or cool if they were both really good at it. Andy is pretty good at it, but Ralphie has a lot of trouble, so you're hearing him stammer for 20 minutes trying to find rhymes. I survived that commentary to hear the next episode where Ralphie tries to do it again and again and again and it really just bugged the hell out of me.
The other special features include unaired sketches. These are pretty typical of Milonakis' show. Some of 'em are really funny (Andy throwing a dart at a neighbor's picture and getting a scream out of the old man), some are Andy singing to a squishy basketball or empty pumpkin trick or treat basket for 2 minutes.
There's also extended skits, interviews with the cast and a really funny separate skit about Andy getting too Hollywood and his band of characters visit LA to bring him back.
The best extra feature, in my opinion, is the Ralphie Outtakes. This guy flubs the same line for what seems like 20 minutes (in reality it's under 4 minutes). The line is "Ahahah. That was funny how mad you got!" What we get is: "Ah, see how laughing... Ahaha how funny you are when you get mad... that was right, right?" "Ahaha... that was funny you got mad at me! Ahahaha." A million variations. It's really forkin' funny.
So, there you go. Everybody go out and buy WONDER SHOWZEN tomorrow and while I wouldn't recommend The Andy Milonakis Show to everybody, fans of the strange and unusual might want to give Milonakis a shot.
That's two releases for tomorrow covered. I have another release to bring up, but in the form of an interview with the title character. That'll be up shortly! 'Til then...
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
