Comedy Central Home Video presents

The Man Show: Season Two (2000-2001)

Jimmy: The crowd is particularly intoxicated tonight.
Adam: Serving them beer is a double-edged sword, Jimmy.
Jimmy: But I tell you what—it always makes the jokes funnier.- Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla

Stars: Jimmy Kimmel, Adam Carolla
Other Stars: Bill Fox, Vanessa Kay, Chanie Costello, Julie Costello, Angelique Gorges, Paula Harrison, Bonnie Jill Laflin, Dani Lee, Nicole Rodriquez, Suzanne Talhouk, Danni Ashe, Dick Van Patten, Ron Jeremy, Kobe Tai, Natasha Henstridge, Dawn Wells, Korn
Director: various

MPAA Rating: Not Rated for (mature humor, nudity, language)
Run Time: 09h:10m:00s
Release Date: 2004-06-15
Genre: television

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

 

DVD Review

Proving that low-brow comedy and sexy women in bikinis is secretly what men want to see, this second season set (26 episodes spread across six discs) of Comedy Central's The Man Show delivers what it promises to the nth degree. Hosted with a guy-from-down-the-block casualness by show creators Jimmy Kimmel and Adam Carolla, The Man Show was 30 minutes (well, 21 on DVD) ripe with blatantly sexual humor and visuals that often pushed the tenuous edges of standard cable limitations: one of its standards was the "girls jumping on trampolines" slow-motion segment that closed each episode.

But to be honest, this wasn't simply crass or non-PC for the sake of being over-the-top, the stuff was largely funny, thanks to Kimmel and Carolla, who are genuinely funny guys who play off each other extremely well. I don't know what it says about me, but The Man Show makes me laugh out loud, which doesn't happen too often for me when watching television these days. Even when the gags fell flat (it has a reliance on a series of unfunny Karl Malone bits), the show is never far away from a dumb sex joke or long, slow pans of some beautiful woman in a tiny bikini.

There is a noticeable loss from the first season, which is Bill Fox, the wide-mouthed, bawdy piano player who was known as the "world's fastest beer drinker", and who sat in the audience each episode, singing songs and leading the crowd into the trademark "ziggy socky, ziggy socky, oy, oy, oy" chant before slamming two beers. Fox passed away from prostate cancer just prior to the start of the second season, and he does get a small tribute at the end of the first episode on this set. The show carries on without him, but like any of the standard segments, his absence is evident, and casts a slight pall over things.

The show is fairly formulaic, and features plenty of leering shots of scantily-clad dancers The Juggies, who are adorned in an array of tiny outfits loosely connected to the theme of the particular episode (devils, angels, Catholic school girls, girl scouts, baseball, superheroes). With the passing of Bill Fox, the Juggies are used even more as the "go to" during transitions—a pair of blonde twins are also new for Season Two—so what that means is that this second season seems to rely even more undulating bosoms and thong-clad bottoms to fill in between sketches. All I can say is the more Vanessa Kay, the better. Whoa!

Most of the episodes plow through the usual stock Man Show bits (wacky inventions, question and answer, Get To Know The Juggies), but a new recurring character is introduced midway through the season, an 11-year-old boy known as Aaron, The Man Show Boy. This chubby little kid is the star of some "boy-on-the-street" segments, and typically features him mercilessly haranguing men and women, hurling sexual insults and innuendos at people. It seems very, very wrong, but it is also very, very funny, though he is used somewhat sparingly during the course of 26 episodes.

The editing on this set is a tad confusing, because some episodes feature (barely) pixelated nudity, and others show it all, as during the "Adult Film Fantasy Camp" sketch where Kimmel gets an eyeful or the woman with watermelon-sized breasts who crushes beer cans with a single boob. Likewise with language, with Kimmel dropping a non-bleeped F-bomb a couple of times, along with other assorted words that were likely clipped during original broadcasts. The flow of the edits takes a step forward, then one or two back, so you're never sure if a bit of unexposed skin is going to slip by.

The episode lineup and their corresponding original air dates for this set are:

Disc One:
More Juggies!
Original Air Date: 06/18/00

Powerful Women
Original Air Date: 07/09/00

The Man Show Boy
Original Air Date: 06/25/00

Husbandly Duties
Original Air Date: 07/02/00

Disc Two:
We Donate to Charity
Original Air Date: 08/13/00

TV Shows
Original Air Date: 07/30/00

Work Place Behavior
Original Air Date: 01/21/01

For Women: How to Get a Man
Original Air Date: 08/06/00

Disc Three:
Teaching Women About the Work Place
Original Air Date: 02/18/01

Will You Buy Me a Beer?
Original Air Date: 07/16/00

Election Smear Campaigns
Original Air Date: 09/03/00

International Customs About Sex
Original Air Date: 03/11/01

Disc Four:
Hef's House
Original Air Date: 09/10/00

Myths and Facts About College
Original Air Date: 08/27/00

Introducing Karl Malone
Original Air Date: 07/23/00

Benny Hill
Original Air Date: 12/10/00

Disc Five:
Juggy Training
Original Air Date: 12/03/00

Credit Cards
Original Air Date: 02/04/01

Girl Scouts
Original Air Date: 01/07/01

Car Show
Original Air Date: 01/14/01

Disc Six:
Holiday Show
Original Air Date: 12/17/00

Sex Show
Original Air Date: 02/11/01

Sports Show
Original Air Date: 08/20/00

Laziness
Original Air Date: 03/04/01

Phone Sex
Original Air Date: 02/25/01

Jamaica
Original Air Date: 03/25/01

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: All 26 episodes are presented in 1.33:1, and the image quality is quite good, especially considering this is a relatively low-budget cable comedy show. Colors are rich and vibrant, with fleshtones (courtesy of The Juggies) looking natural and rendered accurately. The presentation is a marked improvement over the hit-or-miss quality of most cable signals.

Nice.

Image Transfer Grade: B+
 

Audio Transfer

	Language	Remote Access
DS 2.0	English	no

Audio Transfer Review: Audio is available in 2.0 surround, and while not as active as the season one set, the presentation is clean, with a hint of audience sound cues coming from the rear speakers. Dialogue is clean and distortion-free, and certain segments (particularly the music bed during girls jumping on trampolines bit) sound deeper and fuller than some of the sketches.

Audio Transfer Grade: B 

Disc Extras

Full Motion menu with music
Scene Access with 208 cues and remote access
11 Featurette(s)
Packaging: Box Set
Picture Disc
6 Discs
6-Sided disc(s)
Layers: dual

Extras Review: The packaging for this set is similar to the Aliens: Quadrilogy collection, in that it is a rather unwieldy fold-out that eventually reveals all six discs. Also, the episode listings by disc on the packaging is incorrect, and though the sequence is correct, it begins with too many listed on Disc 1, which subsequently throws everything off for remaining discs.

All of the extras for this set are found on Disc 6, and the quality is spotty, at best. We get three mercifully short and unfunny Karl Malone bits, with Kimmel in black face, entitled On Reading (:54s), On Ghosts (:48s), On Superheroes (:60s). The Malone stuff just flops big time, and thankfully it is easy enough to bypass here.

Man Show Miracles are quick clips, designed as some type of inspirational moment, citing such unbelievable feats as a woman tagging up during a softball game or actually losing weight after marriage. These are short, but they're rather funny. The segments featured are:
Tagged Up (:40s)
Lost Weight After Marriage (:30s)
Packed Efficiently (:32s)
Leftovers (:40s)


Adam Carolla provides a couple of man on the street bits, including What's Up with the Attitude (02m:53s), which is the better of the two. He hassles people he thinks are exhibiting "attitude," and he throws out some strong one liners during this segment. Tobias Cats (03m:21s) has Carolla adopting the character of some hippy-dippy beatnik type who does "readings" of random women, with the help of a couple of cats. This one has a few chuckles, but I like Carolla better when he is just himself, and not a character.

The Juggbournes (01m:09s) is an Osbournes parody, and is just an excuse for The Juggies to be paraded about in various stages of undress, including a shower scene and a pillow fight.

The highlight of the supplements, if you're a guy, is even more Girls Jumping on Trampolines (05m:18s). This segment gets a bit more naughty than the clips that close each show, and I know I shouldn't admit this, but I could watch an hour of this easily.

The Play All option is available on each disc, with each episode is cut into eight chapters, and no available subtitles.

Extras Grade: B-
 

Final Comments

If you're a guy, you might not want to brag about or even admit to liking The Man Show, but it has all of the components necessary for easy, carefree viewing: incessant sex jokes and girls jumping on trampolines.

Funny stuff.

Rich Rosell 2004-06-14