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Comedy Central's Home Grown
R1 - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (22nd June 2008). |
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The Show
 Comedy Central has created a drug themed double-dip release for the shows they produced, and a couple they cancelled, aptly titled “Comedy Central’s Home Grown.” This single disc collection features five episodes of a few of Comedy Central’s better known shows, called 'Buds' on the disc, a collection of sketches from other shows that Comedy Central owns, dubbed 'Stems' on the disc, and a handful of shorts that have nothing to do with Comedy Central shows, called 'Seeds' on the disc. The constant drug references in the menus and even the blurbs on the disc get a little annoying, for the most part simply because of the over use of quotation marks. The designers of the disc are trying far too hard to be funny. The fact that this is simply a slapped together with drug references and a handful of episodes without any special features, it just feels like an advertisement that they’re trying to trick people into paying for. Overall I’m a little insulted by this disc trying to be clever or funny, and it just turns into a big cash scheme. While some of the material is worth watching, you’re better off watching the same material on Comedy Central’s website, rather than this essentially featureless disc as it doesn’t have any bonus features to it. Either that or just go ahead and check out the actual season sets of the TV shows instead rather than wasting time with this disc. The “Strangers with Candy” (1999-2000) episode is great, but I’m tired of “Reno 911!” (2003-Present) and “The Root of All Evil” (2008) isn’t worth watching. Oddly enough the Episodes are able to be played all together but the sketches can’t be. If anything, there’s the two short “Viva Variety” (1997-1999) sketches that, as far as I know, aren’t available on DVD, and if you’re a diehard Michael Ian Black fan who needs to own everything he has ever touched, the disc may be worth checking out. The shorts on the other hand are just things that could be found on youtube, though I’m a little impressed that they put an entire episode of “The Joy of Painting” (1983-1995) on the disc. Here’s a rundown of the Episodes, Sketches and Shorts featured. There are 5 full episodes of Comedy Central programs: - “The Sarah Silverman Program” – Face Wars runs for 21 minutes and 34 seconds. Sarah decides to be black for a day, which to her means wearing blackface makeup, and gets into a battle with the law. Meanwhile her friends Steve and Brian spend the day while high on medical marijuana. - “Comedy Central’s TV Funhouse” – Christmas Day runs for 19 minutes and 10 seconds. Christmas spirit abounds in the funhouse, Doug gets the Christmas spirit drained from his spine, the Anipals powder it and snort it. - “Lewis Black’s Root of All Evil” – Weed vs. Beer runs for 21 minutes and 33 seconds, Andrew Daly argues that Beer is the downfall of society and Paul F. Tompkins contends that weed is the root of all evil in Black’s comedy courtroom. - “Reno 911!” – Burning Man Festival runs for 21 minutes and 25 seconds, the Reno police department does a failed prostitution sting, one of the officers tries to do a drug sting on a head shop, and a few try, and fail, to go and do an undercover bust of the Burning Man Festival. - “Strangers with Candy” – Old Habits, New Beginnings runs for 21 minutes and 59 seconds. Jerri tries to hold a party at her house and gives the popular girl a taste of a drug Jerri made called “glint” to try and get her to come to the party. There are 10 sketches from various programs: - “Chappelle’s Show” – Dave Meets Showbiz runs for 7 minutes and 57 seconds. A sketch from the 3rd season that Chappelle walked away from and this sketch almost explains why, as Chappelle sees all the concessions he would have to make to be big in showbusiness. - “The Sarah Silverman Program” – Steve and Brian’s Adventure runs for 2 minutes and 39 seconds. This animated sketch from “The Sarah Silverman Program” shows Brian and Steve trying not to get into adventures and winding up in an adventure once they get swallowed by a T-rex. - “The Sarah Silverman Program” – Cookie Party runs for 3 minutes and 44 seconds. This bizarre short is a live action and animated sketch of the fictional TV show that Sarah Silverman likes to watch in “The Sarah Silverman Program.” - “The Sarah Silverman Program” – More Cookie Party runs for 4 minutes and 27 seconds. Another segment from Cookie party, the cookies become alcoholics. - “Drawn Together” – Karaoke / Sing-Along is a couple of songs from “Drawn Together” that have Karaoke mode where they play without vocals and have words on the screen, while sing-along is played with words on the screen. The first song, God is Watching Everything You Do, runs for 53 seconds while the second song, Sunshine, runs for 40 seconds. - “Crank Yankers” – I want to Go to Hawaii runs for 1 minute and 17 seconds, a comedian prank calls a travel agency for a trip of Hawaii and it’s re-enacted with puppets. - “Crank Yankers” – Badonkadonk runs for 4 minutes and 2 seconds, Tracy Morgan prank calls the Village Voice with a fake personal ad and it gets re-enacted with puppets. - “Crank Yankers” – Hold Please runs for 5 minutes and 12 seconds, Jimmy Kimmel places a fake ad for a job and makes the caller hold multiple times for extended periods of time, and is re-enacted with puppets. - “Viva Variety” – Marijuana Uses runs for 2 minutes and 10 seconds, the Viva Variety hosts discuss marijuana use. - “Viva Variety” – Baby That Tastes Like Soup runs for 1 minute and 36 seconds, Johnny Bluejeans hosts an infomercial for a toy baby that tastes like soup. Finally there are 3 short films that include: - “Spiders on Drugs” runs for 1 minute and 56 seconds, fake nature documentary about spiders on drugs. - “From the Archive: Weed” runs for 6 minutes and 51 seconds, an old informational video from the 60’s about marijuana and its history. - “The Joy of Painting” runs for 25 minutes and 29 seconds, a full episode of the Bob Ross TV show, Ross paints a sunset over an island. There’s also 3 segments from "The Animation Show" (2005-2007) included under the shorts section: - “Rabbit” runs for 8 minutes and 37 seconds, a see-jane-run styled story about two kids who find an idol that creates jewels. - “Abigail” runs for 6 minutes and 17 seconds, a plane is crashing and one man can’t forget about the woman he loved. - “Psychotown” runs for 1 minute and 38 seconds, 3 Australian roommates decide to throw a coup.
Video
Everything is presented in TV quality full screen 1.33:1 format, there’s nothing special otherwise about the video. It’s the same as it looked on TV, the menus on the disc are designed to be trippy or bizarre in their own way, but some of the menu screens didn’t get fully rendered and the cg they used to put it together gets pixilated and indicates how relatively little went into the production of the disc.
Audio
Presented in English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo sound, it sounds as it would viewed on TV without a surround sound system. The fact that their menus utilize stereotypical stoner music would be better enhanced with a surround sound feature to increase the ambiance of the noises. There’s no subtitles or any other audio options available on the disc.
Extras
You could consider the disc all extras as it’s a collection of episodes, sketches and shorts, but these seem more to be the feature, so all that’s left are three startup bonus trailers and a section called Comedy Central Quickies which are just sketches, but placed in a different section. The Comedy Central Quickies are: - “South Park” – Leprechaun runs for 2 minutes and 34 seconds, Cartman tries to capture a leprechaun. - “Lil’ Bush” – Kim Jeong Il runs for 2 minutes and 38 seconds, Kim Jeong Il is the new kid, Lil’ Bush think he looks like a cat. - “The Sarah Silverman Program” – Date with God runs for 2 minutes and 38 seconds, Sarah and God make up after their breakup. - “Reno 911!” – Policetek 2000 runs for 1 minute and 27 seconds, a fake public service announcement/advertisement for an anti-rape device. And the bonus trailers are: - “Drawn together: Season 3” runs for 1 minute and 36 seconds. - “Comedy Central’s TV Funhouse” runs for 1 minute and 34 seconds. - “The Animation Show: Volume 3” runs for 52 seconds.
Overall
Unset
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