THE DANA CARVEY SHOW - PLAGUE TOWN

THE DANA CARVEY SHOW: Premiering in 1996 with Carvey as President Clinton suckling cats and dogs from his man boobs, this rather raunchy tribute to old-school variety shows was not necessarily the kind of thing people expected at 8:30 right after Home Improvement. The formula didn’t stray far from Carvey’s SNL origins, with an opening monologue (set against the most atrocious ‘80s stand-up comedian background EVER), live sketches and pre-recorded bits filling up each half-hour episode. And while much of the humor is dated (politics never age well...neither does a Church Lady top-ten focusing on Princess Diana’s “slutty” behavior), the prime-time players Carvey recruited make him look like a genius. Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert and Robert Smigel appear frequently, and Smigel’s Ambiguously Gay Duo – later a regular feature on SNL – makes its premiere. Carvey seems to be having a great time and some of the sketches are stronger than anything on Saturday night. In Germans Who Say Nice Things, Carvey and Carell trade lines like “It was a pleasure babysitting Kevin” in their best “Heil Hitler” voice. And watching Smigel do his Bob Dole impression, later used to better effect on Conan O’Brien, still inspires a chuckle. Ultimately, The Dana Carvey Show wasn’t so much ahead of its time as just in the wrong time slot. Shout Factory’s two-disc set collects all 7 of the shows that aired and one that didn’t plus deleted scenes and a great sit-down interview with Carvey and Smigel who go over the cast, writers and favorite sketches. PLAGUE TOWN: David Gregory has excellent taste in movies. In fact, he’s made a career out of passing along that passion for obscure cinema by producing some of the best DVD supplements in the business for titles like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre...not to mention every film Jess Franco ever made. For that alone the man has earned some street cred. So for those of us in the critical community, anticipation was quite high when word hit that Gregory was producing his own feature film, Plague Town, a Grindhouse-inspired killer kids flick set in Ireland. Shooting on film (a rarity anymore in the industry) to achieve the atmosphere and elegance of his influences, Gregory stretches the limits of his budget, but doesn’t exactly stretch the genre in any new directions. Visually, there’s plenty to enjoy. Plague Town looks like it was shot sometime between the first Massacre movie and Evil Dead 1 with a comforting sheen of grain that scratches that nostalgic celluloid itch (and it looks even more delicious on Blu-ray, Dark Sky’s first release in the format). But Gregory’s dysfunctional family of actors are dysfunctional onscreen as well, bickering unconvincingly and failing to generate enough sympathy for themselves - or revulsion at their deformed captors – to convince us to follow his trail of bread crumbs. Extras include featurettes on the sound design and production itself, a commentary (Gregory’s first as a filmmaker rather than moderator) and Scathed, his 40-minute student film exclusive to the Blu-ray edition.