Product Details

• Actors: Bill Murray, Harvey Atkin, Kate Lynch, Russ Banham, Kristine DeBell
• Directors: Ivan Reitman
• Writers: Daniel Goldberg, Harold Ramis, Janis Allen, Len Blum
• Producers: André Link, Daniel Goldberg, John Dunning
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Original recording reissued, NTSC
• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Hbo Home Video
• VHS Release Date: January 7, 1997
• Run Time: 99 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6304316216
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #170,533 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Bill Murray plays a hip camp counselor at a summer facility for geeky kids and assorted losers. Murray's brand of ironic comedy feels grafted onto this banal and sentimental 1979 celebration of misfits. The comedian's frequent director, Ivan Reitman (Ghostbusters), was still finding his sea legs with this one, and he nearly convinced everyone at the time that Murray's film career was never going to happen. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars INFORMATION ABOUT THE 2007 SPECIAL EDITION, May 31, 2007

By 

Marcus H. Smilfer "mercer-" (Chicagoland, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Meatballs (Special Edition) (DVD)

Update: Just received mine last week (6/14/07) and it is ONE disc, not two. Picture quality is BEAUTIFUL! The night scenes are actually not one big black blob!

Just an update on the 2007 2-disc Special Edition of Meatballs, since Amazon is not providing any information and all the reviews on this page deal with the less than stellar previous dvd release. The 2007 Special Edition is digitally remastered in Widescreen 1.85:1 Color (Anamorphic). It is in 5.1 Dolby Digital Stereo [CC] and it features subtitles in English, Spanish and French.

DVD Features:
- Commentary with Director Ivan Reitman
- "Summer Camp: The Making of Meatballs" Featurette

Amazingly, no theatrical trailer is included. Also available in Blu-Ray.

Technical Specs:
- Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 - Digitally Re-mastered
- Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1

55 of 61 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hey, You Have a Good Summer, Too, February 21, 2000

By 

C. Fletcher (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Meatballs (DVD)

This is one of my favorite movies from childhood, and I still love it (I'm now 27).

Bill Murray is terrific as head counselor Tripper Harrison in this warm and funny feel-great movie. All of the players in the ensemble cast are good, and the music is also really effective. If you like summer, good times, goofy humor, if you were born in the seventies (or even if you weren't) check out "Meatballs". It's a great way to spend a Friday evening--make something strange for a midnight snack and put on "Meatballs".

As for the DVD transfer, here are a couple of comments:

1. It does include the trailer. 2. It's a "matted" widescreen version, which means you actually see less than you do on the full-screen VHS version, because they simply lay black bars across the top and bottom of the full-screen image (I compared the two versions scene-to-scene). 3. For some reason, some of the music has been changed in the DVD version. I found this unfortunate, because the music is one of my favorite parts of the movie. Whenever the song "Meatballs" plays, for instance, an alternate version is played. Also, the "Makin' It" song at the "big social" scene is cut differently.

Aside from these few complaints, I'll still give the disc five stars, because I love the movie so much.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Summer Camp Movie Ever, April 28, 2003

By 

Steven D Agee (Hinkley Cold Storage, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Meatballs (DVD)

As a person who spent many of my summers at camp I found this movie to be excellent. It also doesn't hurt that this movie stars Bill Murray...one of my favorites. I've owned this movie on VHS for many years now and have watched it numerous times. I just bought the DVD and noticed that the actual song titled "Meatballs" (originally written and performed by Rick Dees) is different than it is on the VHS version. The DVD version is actually sung (or more like halfway spoken/rapped) by Bill Murray himself. There is also about ten seconds of footage added at the end of the cafeteria scene that isn't on the VHS. Not much, but to a fan of the movie it's kind of cool. I wish the DVD had more features on it (like deleted scenes), but none the less this is still probably the best camp movie you could ask for.