The Kids In The Hall Megaset DVD Credits:

Region: 1

The Kids In The Hall Megaset DVD Release Date: 31st October 2006

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The Kids In The Hall Megaset DVD Review:

Kids in the Hall falls more in the sketch-comedy tradition of Monty Python rather than Saturday Night Live. The humor has a dry yet goofy style in many of the sketches and men dressed as women is just a common occurrence in Kids in the Hall, and it remains as funny as it ever was. What makes the humor especially funny is how convincing the men can be as women. Each of the main players take their turn in drag, even marrying each other repeatedly in season three. The Kids in the Hall: The Complete Series Megaset contains almost 800 sketches on twenty discs containing all five seasons of the show.

What makes Kids in the Hall unique from other sketch comedy shows is the lack of reliance on characters. Although each of the sketches obviously require characters, much of the humor comes from the situations, where other sketch comedy shows don’t usually work this way. Most sketch comedy has all of the emphasis on the characters, who upon success become reoccurring characters on the show. In Living Color had Fire Marshal Bill, Mad TV had Stuart and Saturday Night Live had dozens who each eventually had their own movie, but Kids in the Hall doesn’t go for huge costumes (except to dress men as women) and extreme characters. They are a modern Monty Python troupe for American youth. There are occasional characters that re-appear, including The Head Crusher, but the absurd and the random always seems to dominate The Kids in the Hall.

Season one has twenty episodes on three discs and a bonus disc for special features. Disc one also has cast biographies. Season one has The Head Crusher, The Legend of Skoora and a group of girls talking about the cutest guy on death row. The special features include “An Oral History”, which has forty-five minutes of interviews with the cast and Lorne Michaels talking about the show. There are also a couple of compilations of the best sketches from a rare pilot episode and thirty minutes of a performance at the Rivoli Theater.

Season two brings back Cabbage Head and Head Crusher but there are some great original moments as well. The Head Crusher may be the most popular character to come out of the show and this season he is given some competition with a face pincher. The battle is absurd and hilarious. A lot of the sketches are starting to come into full form in season two, many starting to parody a lot more than season one. The second part of “An Oral History” is on the bonus disc, which has been downgraded to just fifteen minutes with the Kids, Paul Bellini and Lorne Michaels. There is also an audio commentary by the Kids and a two-part episode of fan favorite sketches. Thirty more minutes of the performance at Rivoli Theater is placed on this bonus disc as well, and there is a poster gallery.

Season three doesn’t pack the same laughs as season two, but there are a lot more random sketches. The humor is starting to come from obscurity and oddities. The sketches don’t have the same impact that they did in the previous seasons and it shows by how many of the fan favorite episodes are from the season opening episodes. They put all of the effort into that first episode and didn’t get much luck out of the rest of the season. There are a few good moments, but the great ones are sparse. The fourth disc contains the usual two-part fan-favorite sketch compilation episodes and yet another thirty minutes of the Rivoli Theater performance and commentary by the Kids. There is also a slide show and trailers.

Season four is starting to get even more brutal and shocking in the humor, but occasionally it works really well. In fan-favorite sketch, “Things To Do”, an old woman is knocked down and then a bank robber shoots his accomplice to show the customers what will happen if they don’t cooperate. These unexpected turns and downright cruelty to elderly women is nothing new of the show, but season four has more of it than the previous seasons. Some of the sketches like “Steps” seem like they should be much funnier than they actually are, maybe because the increase in politics in the show. The bonus features include audio commentaries by the Kids on the usual two-part fan-favorite compilation episode. There is also archival footage, a slide show and trailers.

Season five was to be the last season and it grew much more outlandish. Sketches are absurdly strange and often somewhat high-brow as well. There is also an increase in the risqué humor, as there has been each season from the beginning. The Chicken Lady openly masturbates in public and two hicks accidentally kill their friend by having a cow kick him in the head. Episode twenty-one in season five is the series finale which is on the fourth disc with a fan-favorites episode.

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The Kids In The Hall Megaset DVD review written by: Ryan Izay