DVD Release Date: October 19, 2004 (20th Century FOX)
Color
MSRP: $26.98
Number of Discs: 2
Number of Episodes: 13
Running time: Approx. 299 Minutes
Total Duration of Special Features: 228 Minutes (Not
Including Easter Eggs)
Audio Tracks: English Stereo, English w/ Commentary
Subtitles: English, Spanish
Closed Captioned
Special Features Include:
• Multiple Easter Eggs
• Deleted & Extended Scenes
• Wrap Reel
• 200+ Still Images (Publicity, Episode Shots, Concept
Art, etc)
• iFC Greg the Bunny interstitial
• FOX Greg the Bunny promos
• Puppet Auditions
• The Humans Behind the Fabricated Americans - Behind
the Scenes feature.
Introduction:
"We can sing and dance, and we don't wear pants...see,
we're just like you." The first line of the theme
song probably says best the overall feel of the
series. In the world of Greg the Bunny, humans and
puppets (They preferred to be called Fabricated
Americans) live alongside each other. Greg dreams of
living the high-life, and it just so happens that his
best friend Jimmy (Seth Green)'s father (played by
Eugene Levy) is the producer of Greg's favorite
show...Sweetknuckle Junction. Life at Sweetknuckle
Junction could probably best be described as Sesame
Street meets Mr. Rogers, with a little Muppet Show and
booze thrown in for good measure. Mixed into the
goings-on of the show are the various people working
on Sweetknuckle Junction, with human co-stars Junction
Jack (Bob Gunton) and Dottie Sunshine (Dina Waters),
as well as Fabricated Americans Count Blah (voiced by
Drew Massey), Warren "The Ape" Demontague (Dan
Milano). Also running around backstage are puppets
Tardy Turtle (Victor Yerrid), who happens to be a
little bit slow in more than one way, Susan the
Monster, and network executive and the person Jimmy
has a crush on, Alison (Sarah Silverman). Nutty
place, huh?
Memorable Episodes / Notable Guest Stars:
It's kind of hard to pinpoint a few key memorable
episodes in the series, partially because there are
only 13 episodes in the entire run. Also, most
episodes are on an equal footing, quality wise, so
it's hard to choose. There are really five notable
guest stars in the 13 episode run of the series...In
the series premiere is David Spade as himself.
Episode 8, Father & Son Reunion finds us with an
appearance by Charles Rocket. For those of you who
may not recognize the name, he's the SNL Weekend
Update who was fired in the early 80s for saying the
f-word on-air, one of only a handful to ever do so.
(He's also had various guest spots since then).
Episode 10, Blah Bawls has guest voice work by Marilu
Henner, while the final episode, Jimmy Drives Gil
Crazy has a guest spot by Corey Feldman.
Packaging:
Packaging is a two-disc keep case. Front cover has
Seth Green and Greg in the front of the shot, with
Eugene Levy standing in the back and to the right. On
the bottom there is a little label saying "TV Wasn't
Ready for Him, Are You". On the back cover is Seth
coming through a large door, with Greg coming through
a built-in smaller door, with 3 still-images from the
show (Sarah Silverman, Greg & Seth using the urinal,
Poker Night). Disc 1 features Greg holding clapboard,
while Disc 2 has Alison (Sarah Silverman), Count Blah,
and [whoever the fuck the 3rd character is].
Menu Design and Navigation:
The menus are rather nice. They start with the
curtain down. The main theme kicks in, the curtain
opens, and the menus start. Main theme plays over the
menu, while a character (Greg on Disc 1, Warren
Demontague) talks over. The menu narration, present on
both menus, and the main options menus, is funny, and
shows more agitation the longer you wait to choose an
option.
Video and Audio Quality:
Episodes are 1.33:1 Aspect Ratio, Dolby Surround
sound. Video Compression artifacts are minimal, but
they are there. FOX, thank goodness, spread the
episodes *and* special features* evenly over both
Discs, preventing a situation where there was so much
stuff on one disc the compression would be horrible.
Luckily, that's far from the case here. The
Episodes are arranged on-disc based on original
production order. Episodes one through six are on
Disc one, and seven through thirteen are on Disc Two.
Special Features:
As for special features...oh Boy...lets start with
Easter Eggs. I'm not going to tell what they are, or
where they are. Just keep an eye out for them.
Obviously, then, the total special features time will
be off. FOX did something rather nice that most sets
don't do, in that they've split the extras across both
discs. There is a commentary track on five of the
episodes. Nice stuff. Not only that...the deleted
scenes even have commentary tracks.
As for the rest...Starting with Disc 1's special
features, you have a total of a whopping 158 minutes
of Special Features on Disc 1 NOT counting Easter
Eggs. The 158 minutes consists of the following:
Deleted Scenes from EACH episode. Overall, the
deleted scenes on disc one total, 15:45 in duration,
and it is double that if you want to go back through
and re-watch with commentary. Next is a feature
called "The Humans Behind the Fabricated Americans"
which is a behind-the-scenes feature with the (human)
crew of Greg the Bunny. It runs 32:06! Next is the
Puppet Auditions, essentially video of the initial
run-through of each puppet that would be used on the
show. It runs 6:22. Finally on Disc 1 are 21 pages
of Conceptual Artwork for the show. Various things
like character drawings and scene sketches. You
simply can browse these at your own pace, no running
time. And of course, there's the commentary...And is
there commentary or WHAT? Each of the episodes has
it. That's 22 Minutes Per Episode, and 6 Episodes on
the Disc. 88 minutes of show commentary!
But wait, there's more! Disc two has MORE special
features and extras. Easter Eggs aside there is
another 70 minutes of material, in addition to the
dozens of still images. Again, there are commentary
tracks, but this time only on two episodes. That's
still 44 minutes more though. There are also more
deleted and extended scenes - again with optional
commentary track. However, there's only 1:05 in
deleted scenes, 2:10 after 2nd playing with
Commentary. Next is a real treat, one of the iFC Greg
episodes, "Reality". Although it would have been
better if they'd included them all, to even have one
of the old interstitial spots on DVD is great. It
runs just over six minutes. Next is a little show
based on the Tardy Turtle character, Tardy Delivery,
is has a run time of eight minutes. It comes with a
commentary track, for ANOTHER eight minutes of
material.
There are 22 Behind the Scenes still photos. Again,
like the concept sketches, you browse these at your
own pace. After that is a third
browse-at-your-own-pace Gallery containing director
Peter Lauer's original storyboards for Gil Drives
Jimmy Crazy with 83 images. Then there's the
publicity. First is a 4:44 interview with Jimmy
(Seth Green) and Greg. After that the set has every
last promo FOX used in the brief lifespan of the show.
Yes, all 6 of them. Total just over 2 minutes.
There's also 30 Publicity Stills. Finally there is
the wrap reel. It is some hilarious stuff and runs
6:43. There is a grand total of 228 minutes of special
features. That's just 71 minutes short of the total
running time of the entire series, to give you an
indication of the content.
Final Comments:
What I think of the set can best be summed up in one
word: Wow. I'm absolutely amazed that they came up
with 228 minutes of content for a show that only aired
a total of 299 minutes. And the features are actually
NICE. There's a couple hundred still images, plus
commentary on five episodes AND some special features,
deleted scenes, and one of the original iFC
interstitials. This is how ALL sets should be done.
Since this is a complete series set, there can't be
any wishes for future releases, but, that's ok,
because this set really is good enough on its own. I
admit I'd love to see all the iFC interstitials
released, but this is still quite good.
I'd forgotten how good the actual show itself is.
Quite funny on multiple levels, and I'd recommend the
show to ANY fan of comedy.
Final Numbers (out of 5 stars):
Video Quality: 4/5
Audio Quality: 5/5
Special Features: 5/5
Menu Design/Navigation: 4.5/5
Overall: 4.5/5
--Reviewed by Seth Thrasher on 10/24/04
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