Creator: Scott Aukerman
Stars: Scott Aukerman, Reggie Watts, Neil Campbell
The Show
You know I had no expectations for this. I was having a perfectly good day when I decided to pop this in and give it a chance, hell, it was my idea to pick it up to be done. And now look what I’ve done.
So, Comedy Bang! Bang! is a show on IFC that apparently has been able to be greenlit for three seasons. What is this show? I don’t even know. I know it’s a sketch “comedy” show where they sometimes bring on celebrity guests. Unfortunately for the viewer, one must sit through watching good comedians say horrible, unfunny dialogue that not only makes me cringe, but seriously consider the legitimacy of these guests.
To say I hated pretty much every minute of this show doesn’t really put into words my true feelings for this. I despise this show. While I was sitting and staring into the void of my TV, I kept wondering to myself: you know these guys would be great in like a podcast form where they could really write this stuff and think about it. To my surprise I did some research on them and found out that they actually were a podcast before they started the show. Oh, the irony.
Don’t get me wrong, I love sketch comedy if done right. I think comedy groups like Monty Python and The Whitest Kids You Know are absolutely, gut bustlingly hilarious and I revisit to constantly. All of the sketch comedy in this starts out as a simple idea that just gets repeated at nausum. There’s nothing funny here about saying something awkward and then looking at someone while no sound is played for five seconds. What kind of joke is that?!?
Honestly id like to speak and have a discussion with someone who likes this show, cause every single person I have asked has not seen this which makes me question again, where is the audience for this show? Then again, I’m a guy who still likes My Little Pony, so what the hell do I know about good comedy?
1/10
The Video
The video, presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, is all accounts fine to the eye. Colors are solid and pixilation is kept to a minimum due to not much movement going on. I will say the opening animation sequence looks fantastic in quality and really gives hope for the rest to be as good of quality. Details are ok, but could be better. Not much else to say other than it gets the job done.
7/10
The Audio
Presented in a Dolby digital 5.1 mix, the first thought that came to my mind was, why is this in 5.1? Upon listening to the mix, it became clear that it was never intended to be in 5.1. Clearly a 2.0 or even a 3.1 mix would have been more than acceptable for what the show has. I say this is because the center speaker is in constant use but the sides and rear speakers only come to life for brief moments when music starts to play. This leaves the question of why even bother? Aside from the useless speaker activity the dialogue comes through clean and clear. No real issues here, just uselessness. Also as a side note, I’d like to address the censors. Guys, it’s a dvd you don’t have to censor the language. Ironically IFC is “always uncut” so I wonder if it was for comedy’s sake, or if it was legitimate censoring.
6/10
Packaging and Bonus Features
The dvd comes in a 2 disc package with the two hosts on the cover. Unfortunately it comes in the stupid “eco friendly” packaging that I personally hate, but I don’t take that off the score. Bonus features on this are decent, yet are still able to piss me off.
Special features include:
• Audio commentaries featuring characters from the show: while listing to these I wondered if they were serious about certain topics. There’s one part where they admit to not really thinking of writing jokes and just went with whatever they thought up. Not sure if trolling or insultingly cheap.
• Deleted Scenes
• Full Length Alternate Celebrity Interviews.
• Insult Supercut from “The Assassin”
• Ultimate Teaser Trailer
• Alternate Title Sequence
• Supercut of Reggie Watts’ Commercial Intros/Outros
• Director Ben Berman’s Test Shoots for Special Effects
• IFC Promos
Overall the special features were decent in regards to quantity and length. I was a bit disappointed there was no interviews of the behind the scenes to show what these guys are really like without the cameras rolling.
6/10
Overall
As stated above, I hated this show more than I hate the Doctor Who fandom, which in itself, is no small task. Personally there’s nothing fun to be had on this dvd and I would only recommend it to the people who already watch the show and are somehow able to enjoy it. AVOID.
3/10