The Best Of Crank Yankers DVD Review

When I popped in the DVD for this relatively successful Comedy Central show I was ambivalent. On the one hand, I really wanted to see if it could be as funny as shows like South Park and Drawn Together. On the other hand, having caught glimpses of the bit on late night t.v., I had my doubts that it could. After viewing, I’m still ambivalent.

The Best of Crank Yankers Uncensored is two hours of low brow humor, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. And I will admit that I did laugh quite a bit. On the other hand, I spent a lot of time glancing at the timer on the DVD player and wondering when it was going to be over. There is definitely nothing sacred to these guys when it comes to comedy, and they run the gamut from crap in a car to a girl getting crabs from a bikini wax, all of this presented by comedians crank calling unsuspecting businesses. Which are usually populated by people have difficulty being anything more than boring. Except for a couple of blue collar guys working at a tow shop who are willing to play along with one of the gags to a certain extent, which makes the joke that much funnier.

The basic premise of Crank Yankers, for those of you that just crawled out from under a rock, is that a bunch of people get together and make crank calls. They then proceed to make a little puppet show to act out those calls. They have several recurring characters including “Special Ed” a mentally handicapped character who just keeps repeating the same thing over and over. I can’t tell you how unfunny it was to hear “I’m going to Hawaii, Yeah! Yeah!” twenty times in a row. Then of course there’s Gladys, the puppet representation of a comedienne who’s made her mark as the queen of attitude. I vacillated between amused and annoyed at most of her antics.

Overall, the premise sounds like it has a lot of potential. Unfortunately, most of the calls tend to be a little flat. Usually those being cranked are businesses and they tend to do a lot of uh-huhing and can-I-help-youing that really isn’t all that funny. It really ends up being the puppet show that gets the laughs. Particularly when it’s puppets representing a guy calling a phone sex site for his deaf friend and typing the conversation into the computer so his friend can beat off. Or, if it’s a chick who’s working herself out to the sound of a computer repair guy’s technical babble. Unfortunately, they had no trouble showing the male puppet’s plumbing, but when it came to the girl, they were unwilling to take it to that “Team America” level that I think would have been absolutely hilarious.

Of course being this mediocre they couldn’t have a stellar feature set, could they? It would ruin the two star rating this DVD is bound to get if they did include it. The upshot is they didn’t list the aspect ratio or the menu as a special feature like some budget titles do. Since when is full frame a special feature anyway? Or menus for that matter? In the end

In the end, The Best of Crank Yankers uncensored is best caught on you tube because you won’t want to sit through twenty minutes of duds at a time to get to a couple of funny bits. And frankly, the few good gags don’t merit the purchase of the DVD in this reviewer’s opinion. So, unless you’re a huge fan of the show, don’t get yanked into buying this DVD.