Mill Creek Entertainment // 2005 // 215 Minutes // Not Rated
Reviewed by Judge David Johnson // March 6th, 2010
Bananas I tell you! Bananas!!!
Ben Stein hosts this TV series, which features a selection of game show moments that -- dare I say it? Yes, I dare! -- have gone bananas! What constitutes a bananas game show moment? Well, anything really, as long as it gets a portion of the Ben Stein's animatronic live audience chortling. These include flubs from Family Feud, Password, Hollywood Squares, Beat the Clock, Distraction, and of course the greatest game show ever devised, Match Game.
Scattered among the clips are some in-studio games where Ben Stein blends audience participation with, well, more clips. Which are bananas. Rounding out these bits (hey, more filler!) are segments featuring C-list celebrities reeling off top-five moments. How C-list? Two words, friends: Kato. Kaelin.
That's pretty much your feature presentation, clips, Stein, clips, Stein, clips, clips, clips, stupid game, C-lister, clips, clips, Stein, clips, Stein for 215 minutes. I have to admit, I am a sucker for these types of game show outtake anthologies and had a good enough time with the antics. Most of the stuff was pretty funny (and familiar; I have lost count of the number of times I've seen the clip where Gene Rayburn compliments a female contestant on her nipples) and taken from a decent array of shows, though Family Feud, Match Game, and Distraction had disproportionate representation. Which is fine, because those are where the funniest bits reside.
The killer in this show is everything else. Stein's jokes are astoundingly lame, the studio audience participation is awful and the celebrities ruin the genuinely funny clips they introduce in their segments. If you can suffer through all of that, there are funny things to see. Most of them are likely on YouTube, but whatever. They probably don't have "bananas" in the title.
Mill Creek's DVD is simple: full frame, 2.0 stereo, no extras.
Not Guilty because I was entertained. There was a fair amount of forward scanning, though.
Review content copyright © 2010 David Johnson; Site layout and review format copyright © 1998 - 2012 HipClick Designs LLC
Scales of Justice
Judgment: 75
Perp Profile
Studio: Mill Creek Entertainment
Video Formats:
* Full Frame
Audio Formats:
* Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo (English)
Subtitles:
* None
Running Time: 215 Minutes
Release Year: 2005
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Distinguishing Marks
* None
Accomplices
* IMDb
http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0462104/combined