Eclectic DVD presents

High Times Presents Watermelon's Baked & Baking (2002)

"I liked to get baked before I bake. I find it very therapeutic."- Watermelon

Stars: Watermelon
Other Stars: Christine "Tiny" Taylor, Lola Lush, Sandra Sanders, Lucas T. Chadwick, Irwin Barker, The Tall Brothers, Watermelon's mom
Director: Marcus Rogers

MPAA Rating: Not Rated for (lots of pot and sloppy cooking)
Run Time: 01h:02m:54s
Release Date: 2003-03-18
Genre: cult

Style Grade	Substance Grade	Image Transfer Grade	Audio Transfer Grade	Extras Grade
B	B-	C	C+	D+

 

DVD Review

Cooking with pot seems like a lot more trouble than it's worth—an inefficient high in food that doesn't taste very good. But that's no reason not spend a stupid hour with Watermelon, a self-described "nudist comic drug dealer," in this sloppy, stoned but thoroughly good-natured cooking show.

Imagine Emeril, kicking it up a notch and stoned out of his gourd, pouring out of a corset like a Playboy bunny circa 1959, and you've got an idea of what you're in store for with Watermelon, who is sort of a Vancouver Martha Stewart with a really well-connected dealer. She's here to help, to show us how to cook with cannabis, if you've simply tired of your bong and rolling papers. It's a pretty low-rent affair—she's backed by The Tall Brothers, a jazz trio, and accompanied by various comics and friends, including a demure young thing who fires up her joint off of the cigarette lighter appended to her pasty. That, my friends, is class.

The crucial ingredient here is shake—that is, marijuana leaves that aren't of sufficiently high quality for smoking, but that still have enough chemical content to give a kick to some ginger snaps. (The shake is in a great heaping Pyrex bowl, and I half expected narcs to bust onto the set at any moment.) First Watermelon pulverizes the leaves in a blender, then purees them in a coffee grinder. (I can't imagine that she's getting a Starbucks endorsement deal any time soon.) She and her pals make things like weed caramel apples, marijuana martinis (shake, and stirred), and popcorn with pot-infused butter. Watermelon's mom shows up, too, to help her daughter make little pot gingerbread cookies, perfect for the holidays. It's both heartwarming and a little unsettling, watching Mom placidly sipping on a pot-laced cocktail as she supervises her daughter, apron over the corset, making holiday treats packed with a little extra ho ho ho.

Of course there are plenty of joints lit up during all of this, and frequently the participants really couldn't care less about the recipes—and watching people on TV get stoned isn't really my idea of a good time. We get such helpful, drug-induced facts as this one: "Raisins are dried grapes, for those of you who don't know." Especially funny is one of the guests who has come with his own stash, which, as he suggests, "is like bringing sand to the beach." There's also the problem of the vicious cycle: eating pot-laced food, getting the munchies, leading to eating still more pot-laced food, and more munchies, and so on.

The recipes are intercut with little comic bits, which aren't especially funny, and the disc concludes with a couple of songs by the Tall Brothers on the virtues of getting stoned, and a brief Watermelon plug for a Vancouver bed and breakfast.

Rating for Style: B
Rating for Substance: B-

 

Image Transfer

	One
Aspect Ratio	1.33:1 - Full Frame
Original Aspect Ratio	yes
Anamorphic	no

Image Transfer Review: This is obviously a straight-to-video production, and great care wasn't taken with the technical elements—low resolution and fuzzy colors. But it also looks like somebody took a few tokes and got to the editing bay, because there are silly slo-mo shots and dissolves peppered in throughout the hour.

Image Transfer Grade: C
 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
DS 2.0	English	no

Audio Transfer Review: Audio quality is similarly low grade, but there's not a lot of crackle or hiss, which is a bonus.

Audio Transfer Grade: C+ 

Disc Extras

Static menu
Scene Access with 6 cues and remote access
Packaging: generic plastic keepcase
Picture Disc
1 Disc
1-Sided disc(s)
Layers: single

Extra Extras:

1. recipes

Extras Review: The full slate of typo-laden recipes are available on the main menu. Otherwise, just chapter stops.

Extras Grade: D+
 

Final Comments

The appeal of this disc seems to be less for the lovely Watermelon's culinary expertise, and more for the manner in which she fills out her skimpy little costume. It's probably something you'll enjoy more if you're under the influence, because those are clearly the circumstances under which it was made, but even then, it's more liable to give you a couple of smiles than an unquenchable craving for pot-infused caramel candy apples.

Jon Danziger 2003-03-17