I Want My Dvds

Beetle Uncensored

www.jollydwarf.com

At first glance this appears to be another piece of

Bumfights

bullshit, where a bunch of evil jocks drag around some poor bastard and make him do tricks. Beetlejuice is a black pinhead who is not exactly a rocket scientist, and this DVD features everything from him dressed up as a pimp to him getting the living shit scared out of him in a graveyard.

However (get this) by the time you're done watching this, you will have tears of joy streaming down your face. These guys aren't exploiting him, you asshole. They are doing a far less complex act called "hanging out."

Beetlejuice grew up incredibly poor and had nothing but death and pain and people making fun of him. Then he got a job sweeping up at a local bar where a bunch of blue-collar drunks took a liking to his funny jokes. They started hanging out a lot and inviting Beet over to do funny shit like answer the door in the nude when the Chinese delivery guy comes. Then Sean Rooney, one of the drunkest of the gang, decided to start managing Beet and even invited him to move in. Now, instead of

Bumfights

, you have a gang of hilarious dudes who get to do great gags because one of them is a freak (well, two of them, actually—another dude is a tough-talking midget who sounds like he's in the Cro-Mags). Sure, Beet gets dressed up in Superman costumes and makes a fool of himself, but what about the part where he wakes up Drunk Jamie by pissing all over his face? Ha ha ha ha. When the guy wakes up dry-heaving, Beet just laughs and mumbles, "How'd you like your golden shower there, pal?" Can you beat that? Beet is one of the gang.

This is what life is all about. Telling people to stick politics up their ass, going to the edge, and moving in. Not sitting in an ivory tower of academic what ifs and never doing anything for fear it might be improper. What are we, monarchs? If you don't laugh at this DVD, you are boring. If you are offended by it, you are worse than boring. You are stupid boring.

BILLY McGEE

The Damn! Show

www.DamnShow.com

Here we have a crystalclear illustration of our oft-quoted adage: If you throw enough shit against a wall, some of it will stick. The Damn! Show is something that is probably only possible in a post-Jackass world. Otherwise, these little segments of a bunch of friends doing street interviews and half-assed parodies wouldn't be much more than funny video-shit that they watched at their own parties.

Thanks to iBooks with DVD burners and the license to go nuts that Knoxville and his ilk have given us, we get things like this. Mixed blessings, indeed.

The best stuff on this DVD takes place on the street. These dudes are from Athens, Georgia, and it seems that their little burg has the funniest and craziest bums on earth. They are so fucked up, they almost redeem Athens for vomiting R.E.M. unto us. There's Jimmy Gibberish, who can barely speak and who sings the national anthem thus: "Oh say can you see/by the dawn's early me." Then there's the guy who looks just like him who compulsively spits out the phrase "rack ball," downs a fifth of vodka in two swallows, and talks about his brother getting gang-raped in prison (and makes it funny).

The real star, though, is Yucko the Clown. Though cantankerous drunk clowns are, as David Cross put it, "A 40 year-old joke," these segments are genuinely piss-your-pants funny. He's an alcoholic slob in clown paint and huge pants who hits the streets and mercilessly abuses anyone who stops to talk to him. He tells a couple of chubby girls that his name is "I Hate Fat Ugly Chicks." He tells an old woman that her teeth look like "the gate around a haunted house," and tells another, who admits to being a fan of George W. Bush, that he bets her bush "goes up to her fucking navel." Maybe it's better to see it, so go to their website. There are clips of Yucko there. Tell me that shit isn't amazing.

So, here's my advice if you care, Damn! Show guys: Stop making scripted skits. Go outside and let the dregs of humanity do your work for you. I am eagerly awaiting Volume 2.

DINKY GUTTERS

Aqua Teen Hunger Force, Volume Two

Warner Home Video

Like

Strangers With Candy

,

Mr. Show

, and

The Office

,

ATHF

is a litmus test for who you can be friends with and who you must avoid as if they were penis cancer. Put this DVD on. Is the test subject laughing his/her ass off? Congratulations, you have a new buddy. Feel free to make jokes. Your new friend will understand them because he/she understands the Aqua Teens.

And don't tell me you don't know about this show already. Jesus! Not having cable is bad enough, but you'd think you would have invested in a DVD player by now. They cost fucking $100 or something, and Volume One of

Aqua Teen

has been out for months now.

OK, OK, here's the brief: the Aqua Teens are a meatball, a milkshake, and a thing of French fries. They are ostensibly a crime-fighting team, but all they really do is get into surreal "hi-jinx" in and around their South Jersey tract home. There's stuff like leprechauns, moon people that look like Space Invaders, and huge talking blobs of mold. People like Todd Barry and Jon Benjamin do voices for this show, and if that doesn't convince you that you need this and Volume 1 in your house right now, I don't know what fucking will!

JERRY MCPHEERSON