DVD Review: Comedy Central's TV Funhouse - Page 2

I'm probably in the minority on this, but the cartoon parodies aren't what has always drawn me to this series — they're not why I have longed to own this series on DVD and have never forgotten it in the seven or eight years since its initial airing. What's always made me laugh like a drain has been the Anipals. There's just something so consistently... WRONG about them. Everything they say and do is a fundamental violation of something — logic, decency, reality. They even eat at a restaurant that serves them cooked versions of themselves — the cows eat hamburgers, the pigs eat ribs, and the chickens eat fried chicken.

Hell, just let that mere concept roll around in your head for a minute... a wacky realistic puppet duck eating Peking duck in a restaurant modeled after a smoky booth-packed Sardi's for animals. Messed up? Absolutely. But hilarious all the same.

TV Funhouse works because it shatters standards; it is unflinching in pissing on the shoes of just about every conceivable institution and tradition of television and entertainment. Believe it or not, our culture sorta NEEDS that, and it doesn't really get enough of it. There are people like Smigel and Howard Stern, maybe Sarah Silverman and Zach Galifianakis, who see where we are most vulnerable and aim their jokes straight at those spots. The self-importance and satisfaction of the entertainment industry makes it and its products both easy targets, but that doesn't mean they're not still worthy targets. TV Funhouse is in many ways a giant nuclear bomb aimed at the heart of Hollywood culture and the sickening sycophancy it's engendered from both the media and the general populace. Just by virtue of its no-holds-barred tone and punchlines, it flies in the face of everything manufactured and staged that is passed off as "entertainment" these days.

Or maybe I'm smoking crack. At the end of the day, it's just comedy. The kittens crawl out of the fake puppet cat vagina, and you either laugh or you don't. If that sounds like your cup of cyanide-laced tea, then you must see TV Funhouse.

Article Author: Matt Springer

Matt Springer should probably trim his toenails more often. Instead, he spends far too much time thinking and writing about pop culture ephemera, at Alert Nerd (for geek stuff) and Pop Geek (for everything else). …

Visit Matt Springer's author page — Matt Springer's Blog