Get A Life Vol. 2

Get A Life Vol. 2
by David Steinberg, Tony Dow, David Mirkin, Dean Parisot, John Fortenberry

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Category: DVD
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DVD Reviews of Get A Life Vol. 2

DVD Review: "different" -- not for every taste...
Summary: 4 Stars

How do you write comedy when the protagonist is so cut-off from the conventions of normal thought and behavior that the other characters reactions are little more than exasperated confusion? The answer is, with great difficulty. Its like trying to assemble a wooden structure without nails. Its hard to get laughs through character interaction when the main character doesnt interact in any normal way with the other characters.

About all you can do is mine Chris Elliots innate weirdness. So not only is Get a Life weird -- it's weird merely for the sake of being weird. The writers arent worried whether the stories make sense, either practically or psychologically, because Chris Peterson neither worries nor makes sense. What other sitcom has ever shown a dummy of the main character being repeatedly run over by cars?

Clearly, Get a Life is a show about style, not content. In trying to be different from other sitcoms, the producers painted themselves into a corner thats hard to maneuver in.

The reaction of some reviewers -- that Get a Life isnt as funny as they remembered  isnt surprising. The shock and novelty of a pointless show about someone incapable of mundane social interactions has worn off.

Nevertheless, Get a Life is generally funny, and has a few really good episodes. Neptune 2000 remains my favorite, if only because it gives Bob Eliot the most on-screen time and the largest number of put-downs. Its a model of how this sort of humor should be done, and is arguably a classic of TV comedy.

For me, the shows greatest pleasure is Bob Eliots deadpan-sarcastic putdowns. I grew up listening to Bob & Ray, two of the great comic geniuses of the last century, who virtually invented pointless humor.

Amazon wants reviewers to focus on the content, but I cant resist taking a pot shot at Rhino. Is there any other record company that delivers so little for the consumers hard-earned buck? There are only four episodes on each disk, where Red Green delivers eight. And Get a Life has a sufficiently large cult following that a multi-disk set with all the episodes would have made sense.