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Released by: Fox
Released on: 5/12/2009
Director: Seth MacFarlane
Cast: Seth MacFarlane, Seth Green
Year: 2009
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The Movie:
So what the Hell is Seth MacFarlane's Cavalcade Of Cartoon Comedy? It's an hours worth of irreverent animated sketches from the mind behind Family Guy and American Dad. If you're familiar with those two shows you know what you're in for, though this collection has more in common with Family Guy than American Dad in that it works on the same 'random absurdity is funny' factor.
The list of cartoon titles gives you a pretty good idea of what you're in for:
The Frog Prince / The Scotsman / Patient Zero / Cat Staff Meeting / Mountain Climber / The Bartender Says... / Name That Animal Penis / Die, Sweet Roadrunner, Die / Sex With Part 1 / A Fat Guy Working Out / The Gay Knight / A Douchebag Unicorn PSA / Fred Flintstone Takes a Shit / A Dog On The $25,000 Pyramid /Super Mario Rescues The Princess / Adopted / Stuck In A Life Raft With Matthew McConaughey / Two Persian Guys Try To Get Ladies Into Their Sports Car /He Who Lives In A Glass House... / Sex With Part 2 / Tarantino Performs A Circumcision /Fred And Barney Try To Get Into A Night Club / The Wizard Of Oz Adjusted For Reality / Monkeys Talk About Religion / Marital Troubles / Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road / Sex With Part 3 / Backstage With Bob Dylan / Barry Gibb Rides A Roller Coaster / Mad Cow Disease / The Scotsman Part 2 / Dirty Vaudville / Beavers: Assholes Of The Forest / A Trip To The Psychiatrist / Fat Jesus / Dracula Meets Magic Johnson / The Sneeze Throw-up / The Settlers' First Attempt To Buy Manhattan / Why Bob Marley Shouldn't Have Acted As His Own Attorney / Jesus And Vishnu On Christmas Eve / Ted Nugent Is Visited By The Ghost Of Christmas Past /Four Years Of Entourage In 10 Seconds / Tara Reid Is Not Looking So Good Lately / Things You Never Hear / Small Talk With Aunt Helen / Two Ducks Watch Meet The Parents / Jeff Goldblum Wafers / Marie Antoinette's Notepad /Sheep Shearing / What Happens If You Feed A Dog Chocolate While He Wears A Tin Foil Hat In The Microwave
So how does it all shape up? It's a pretty uneven batch of humor. There is a fair bit of stuff here that works, but there are just as many bits that don't. As the title implies, the material is all presented completely uncensored so expect nudity and foul language galore. MacFarlane definitely goes further here than he can on network television and his sense of humor does lend itself to the more obscene bits here. The 'Sex With' parts, in which someone has sex with a random participants such as Optimus Prime are pretty funny though the repetition of the recurring 'The Scotsman' bits gets tired quickly. Periodically a bit will pop up that's brief but particularly funny just by the sheer 'huh?' factor of it all. These quirky bits are the ones that stand out, a good example being 'Barry Gibb Rides A Roller Coaster' which is exactly what it sounds like. Bee Gee's fans will know where it's going immediately but it's still good for a laugh.
Despite the fact that a fair bit of this is predictable - take one guess what happens when Dracula meets Magic Johnson or why Bob Marley should not have acted as his own attorney, it's not at all difficult to figure out - there is some very funny stuff here, there's just not enough of it to make you need to run out and get it now. It's an amusing way to kill an hour or so but MacFarlane's humor seems to work better in the slightly more structured environments of semi-plot based animated series' like Family Guy.
Video/Audio/Extras:
The 1080p 1.33.1 fullframe image really doesn't look much different than a standard definition DVD release of, say, Family Guy or American Dad. The animation style is identical and while the Blu-ray is nicer in that it doesn't suffer from any compression artifacts, there isn't much in the way of extra detail to be brought out here. The colors all look fine and there's nothing to complain about here in terms of authoring nor are there any real problems, it's just that the material itself looks fairly primitive and so that's carried over to the video quality.
The Blu-ray features an English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio track with optional subtitles in English SDH, Spansih and French. Again, the audio quality is fine but this won't blow you away. There isn't a ton of surround activity and the sound mixes are fairly basic. That said, you won't have any problem understanding any of the dialogue, the levels are all properly mixed and things sound alright.
The extras are pretty disappointing, limited to a five minute piece that documents the 'Red Carpet Premiere' which is very little more than a bunch of people talking about how funny the cartoons are, and a trio of still galleries showing off different character models. Menus and cartoon selection are also included.
The Final Word:
All in all, this is a pretty mediocre release. For ever skit that works, there's one that doesn't which results in a pretty uneven viewing experience. MacFarlane's fans will appreciate the rude absurdity of it all, but the Blu-ray disc isn't particularly impressive even if some of the content is worth seeing.
