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In addition to the cast's uncanny impersonations (Stiller's Bono, Tom Cruise, Bruce Springsteen, Daniel Day-Lewis, and Bruce Willis, and Garofalo's Juliette Lewis), The Ben Stiller Show was home to a gallery of recurring characters--agent Michael Pheret, the No, No, No Guy--who, thankfully, SNL producer Lorne Michaels was not around to parlay into godawful films. The topical humor can't help but date some of the material (the show is a veritable Trivial Pursuit of pop culture references, from The Partridge Family to Beverly Hills 90210, but the brilliance of the writing and sheer abandon of the performances are still a joy to behold. --Donald Liebenson
| CATEGORY: | DVD |
| DIRECTOR: | Ben Stiller, John Fortenberry, Troy Miller |
| THEATRICAL RELEASE DATE: | 27 September, 1992 |
| MANUFACTURER: | Warner Home Video |
| MPAA RATING: | NR (Not Rated) |
| FEATURES: | Color, Closed-captioned |
| TYPE: | Television |
| MEDIA: | DVD |
| # OF MEDIA: | 2 |
| UPC: | 085392425723 |
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Customer Reviews of The Ben Stiller Show
Sketch Comedy At Its Very Best The Ben Stiller Show aired for 12 episodes on FOX during the 1992-1993 season. Critics praised the show even though it routinely came DEAD LAST in the nielson ratings...which is probably why you've never heard of the show. They stuck it up against 60 Minutes at one point. Don't be fooled, though. This is brilliant sketch comedy from a group of talented comedians that have all gone on to bigger and better things. Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick, and Bob Odenkirk spend most of the show creating dead-on hilarious parodies of television, movies, actors, and anything else that reeks of Hollywood. A 13th "Lost Episode" was uncovered when Comedy Central aired The Ben Stiller Show a few years back, and it is included in the DVD as well. The only drawback is that, yes, some of the material is a bit dated. Still, don't let that keep you from enjoying one of the best sketch comedy shows to grace the airwaves. Fans of Bob Odenkirk's "Mr. Show" should enjoy seeing some of his earlier work as well. It's a shame FOX didn't give this show the support it deserved.
Ben Stiller Show Still Funny After All These Years
The Ben Stiller Show was a very humorous program back in 1992 when Fox canceled it. The show still went on to win an Emmy Award, which is very ironic becasue of its cancellation. The show was a vehicle for its stars Ben Stiller, Janeane Garofalo, Andy Dick, and Bob Odenkirk. The DVD includes all of the 12 episodes that made it on to the Fox Network including an unaired 13th episode.
The show had guest stars like Danny Bonaduce (The Partridge Family), David Cassidy (The Partridge Family), Dave Madden (Mr. Kincaid, The Partridge Family), Gary Shandling, Tom and Roseanne Arnold (still married back in 1992), Sarah Jessica Parker, Dennis Miller (who prophesized the shows cancellation on one of the episodes) and many more.
On the infomercial, parody to promote the release of the DVD, which aired Dec. 2, 2003 on Comedy Central Janeane Garofalo, said jokingly "Some of it holds up." Well a lot of it does hold up such as Skank, The Bruce Springsteen sketches, Tom Cruise: Dress Casual, Oliver Stoneland, Scotty Fantasy, The B-Minus Time Traveler, Manson and many more.
There are several skits, which are dated. Those particular skits were funny back then but aren't as funny now especially if you were too young to recall any of that pop culture. Information 411 parody of Rescue 911 with William Shatner, Blue and White Shampoo parody of annoying Head and Shoulders commercials, Amish Studs parody of the Fox dating game show Studs, The Grungies parody of the Monkees (outdated if you have never seen the the Monkees at all) and Rob Morrow from the TV show Northern Exposure as a guest star (younger family member had no clue who he was).
Now if you are a big fan of the commentaries that many DVDs have you must be alerted that not all of the Ben Stiller Show episodes have commentaries and many of the ones that do have them do not contain the entire cast, which is a bummer.
I would guess that it probably took this long to release the Ben Stiller Show because Warner Bros thought Ben Stiller was a big enough star now that people other than the few who actually saw the show would buy the DVD set.
Overall, it's still a very humorous show. The quality of the images are far better then the recent worn out looking ones that I viewed on Comedy Central. It doesn't have any kind of social or political messages that you might hear from one of its stars now. The show is just funny comedy to watch.
Funny, Talented Cast with Some Great Sketches
The Ben Stiller Show had a number of excellent sketches as others have noted. I think the most memorable is the dark, hilarious Manson-as-Lassie Show; Bob Odenkirk is stellar. The cast members are very strong with Ben being perhaps the weakest straight-up comedian of the bunch. Andy D. seems under-utilized at times and Odenkirk's quirks should have been explored further. The downside for some people will be Ben's penchant for the obvious. Many sketches take the easy way out and too many rely on simple pop culture gags for their laughs. A talented cast doesn't need to hit softballs off of a tee. However many of the spoofs do make you laugh and that's the main purpose I suppose. I guess it depends on your idea of genius: do you prefer the topical-based humor of SNL or the highly inventive off-the-wall style of Kids in the Hall... much more creative but not always interested in the easy laugh. Bottom line is that this DVD is worth owning for fans of sketch-based comedy. Not a best of the genre but high quality for certain.