In this episode:
- the upcoming The Adventures of Young Indiana Jones DVD boxed sets,
- Halloween (2007) starring Malcolm McDowell,
- The Invasion (2007) starring Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig,
- Cindy Crawford,
- movie commercials,
- Michael Jackson,
- Louie Anderson’s DVD commentary,
- SpaghettiOs,
- Campbell’s microwavable soups,
- director Andrew Davis,
- a white Sammy Davis, Jr.,
- Alan Alda,
- and Michael Douglas.
Download this episode:
24 minute MP3 file – 11 MB (right-click to save)
Listen to this episode:
I have never suffered so much as the time I listened to the Barry Manilow commentary track on one of his live DVDs.
You own a Barry Manilow DVD? What is the commentary like?
It’s horrible. He drones on about minutiae like the earpiece falling out of his ear and how good or bad he thought his voice was that night. Once in a while he’ll do a really in depth interesting talk about the song he’s singing and where he got his inspiration for writing it but that’s rare. Then when there’s a song I’d be really interested in knowing about, he’s totally silent all the way through. That’s when I figure the song is probably about his boyfriend.
In my experience, the best commentary is usually done by the director, writers, and producers of the show. That is because these are the people who created and developed the material. Usually the actors only add funny stories or things like that, although sometimes they are good. Tru Calling DVD had a great commentary for season 1, featuring the series creator, the Dush, comedian Zach Galifanakis (who is hillarious) and even Jason Priestley. To date my most informative commentary was on the Cannonball Run (featuring director Hal Needham and producer Al Ruddy), and funniest is The Goonies (featuring director Richard Donner and the entire “child cast” 20 years later almost).
I thought Weird Al’s commentary for UHF would be funny and interesting, but it was mainly just a list of dry technical facts like addresses of filming locations.
i’d love to sit and re-watch ‘the adventures of young indiana jones’. shame about those dvds releases, then!