|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| National Lampoon Proves Reality Television Can Be Fun | ||||||
| Reality television seems to be the "in" thing right now, and whenever we turn on the boob tube we are inundated with these shows that claim to be "real" and "unscripted." Luckily for you, what you?re reading isn't about a reality show, but rather, a DVD poking fun at reality shows. That's right, National Lampoon has done it again, and with "Lost Reality 2" we see just how funny reality television could be if the censors weren't so busy, well, censoring. | ||||||
| The premise of "Lost Reality 2" is simple: it is a collection of short "pilots" of reality shows that didn't make it onto network television, and much like its predecessor, "Lost Reality 2" provides laugh after laugh. The pilots contained on the disc are clearly jokes and were never actually intended to be on television, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that if reality television was like this, the Nielsen ratings would go through the roof! | ||||||
| One segment that was a winner in the first edition of "Lost Reality" and still remains a knee-slapper now is "The Amazing Racist," where comedian Ari Shaffir goes around offending people of various religions and nationalities. In the first episode, we find him dressed as a character from the stylized Japanese Kabuki theatre, and we follow him on his travels to various Asian restaurants and nail salons. At one restaurant, when asked if he wants chopsticks, Shaffir removes two from his hair and says, "No thanks, I've got my own. I don't want to get SARS." Not missing a beat, when trying to decide what to eat, he innocently inquires the following: "I see fish and chicken, where's the dog section?" After a while he is kicked out of the restaurant, but the fun has only just begun, and Shaffir makes several more stops along his racist voyage in two segments on the DVD. | ||||||
| After that we have the brilliantly conceived "Project Redlight," a spoof of the budding-film writer/producer/director series, "Project Greenlight." To quote from the introduction to the clip, "It's all about these guys who think they're going to be doing a Fellini-style film but end up doing porn instead." Another comedy gem, "Project Redlight" is what makes National Lampoon one of the top spoof/parody/satire genres. | ||||||
| In "Scare Me," a spoof of "Jackass," a group of guys go around to various places, well, scaring people. Take the bowling alley, for instance, where we find a few bowling studs getting ready to play America's pastime. Right as one of these fine athletes is about to let the ball glide down the lane, one of the pranksters yells, "Oh s***!" and fakes a spill, causing the bowler to fall and subsequently screw up his shot. By the way, did I mention the scene where they attempt to scare people at everyone's favorite fun-zone, a graveyard? "Scare Me" is pure comedy gold and would have "Jackass" running for its money. | ||||||
| Other funny bits include "Dumpster Dinners," which is described by the introducer as being "just low, I mean it's low, then there's really low, then there's like really low, then there's the 'Joe Schmo Show,' and then there's 'Dumpster Dinners'," and "Foreign Family Affair," a show that places a Pakistani foreign exchange student in a sexually liberated household where he is forced to do a number of titillating acts (in one scene, while giving the attractive and topless daughter a back massage, he says, "I don't know if this is such a good idea," to which she responds, "No, it's fine, it's America!"). | ||||||
| For more information on "National Lampoon's Lost Reality 2" go to www.nationallampoon.com or www.venturadistribution.com. | ||||||
| Copyright Gerry Wachovsky, 2005, and Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved. | ||||||
| Back | ||||||