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30 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Very funny, but are these really the "best" sketches?, March 29, 2000
One of the difficulties of the "Best of" series is that someone else is deciding what's best. This is no easy task with a performer who was on SNL as long as Mike Myers. Distilling six years of performance to a mere 16 sketches (20 if you get the DVD version) inevitably leaves the serious fan unsatisfied. To be sure, this effort gives us Myers' principle characters, but they're not necessarily in their funniest sketches. The "Coffee Talk" on the tape is definitely not the funniest one he ever did, though it is the one with the biggest stars in guest roles. Likewise, there are funnier "Sprockets" and "Simon" sketches-but the ones included have serious star power. "Best" in this case seems more often than not to mean "the one where (insert famous person's name here) was on the show". None of this to say that this isn't a funny compilation. It is. The Wayne's World sketches *are* probably the best efforts, and the others aren't dull by any means. It just would be nice if Broadway Video did serious fans a favor and used the storage capacity of the DVD format to create performer anthologies. I would rather have *all* the sketches of a particular performer and be able to decide for myself which were the funniest. At the very least it would be nice to have the first of each major character's appearances. It would been even better to have some commentary by Mike Myers and maybe the writing staff on how the characters came into being. Now that the show has reached the mature age of 25, maybe Lorne Michaels will produce a more behind-the-scenes, documentarized compilation series in the future. Until then, the "Best of" series is a good enough substitute. On balance, however, this may be one of the few video products that might be best bought on VHS instead of DVD. Other than the few additional sketches, many of which are drawn from Myers' return hosting of the show and not his stint as featured player, there are no special features on the DVD. The extra sketches ARE funny, and the Judge Ito Apology sketch marks the closest thing to an appearance of Austin Powers SNL has witnessed. But the question is whether these sketches alone warrant the extra price, or whether you can own the VHS but rent the DVD for one-time viewing.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointed Fan, June 23, 2000
Along with some of the other reviews, I agree that this is not the BEST compilation of Mike Myers sketches of SNL. I am an avid Mike Myers fan and I love anything and everything he does, but these sketches have been extremely overplayed and overrated on the syndicate version of SNL on Comedy Central. Perhaps Mike Myers fans (who will buy this tape) would like to see some of his funny moments not available in the syndicated version of SNL on Saturday Night Live. For example, I remember one sketch where Glenn Close was hosting a Christmas special and Mike played an effeminate Tiny Tim. I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever seen. But the sketch is cut out of the Comedy Central version. I do enjoy some of the rather off-the-wall sketches that are included in this collection. To name a few: Phillip the hyper-hypo sketch, Theatre Stories with Cucumber Jones, and the Weekend Update with Mick Jagger (Myers) and Keith Richards (Jagger). Coming from a Mike fan, this is just so-so.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not as good as the other SNL disks, November 13, 2001
I remember Mike Myers being in a lot of funny sketches, but they didn't seem to include many on this disk. I really enjoyed the Wayne's World sketches, and Sprockets (although I would have like to see the one with Phil Hartman dressed as Heidi). Theatre Stories was OK, and the Tokyo Game Show was on the Chris Farley DVD. Most of the other sketches were pretty blah and I found myself reaching for the fast forward several times. Philip (where he plays a hyperactive child) was surprisingly boring. Middle Aged Man and Lothar were also pretty [bad]. I remember liking these on the show, but maybe my tastes have changed? Maybe they just picked some of the [bad] sketches? Make sure you check out the extras -- there was a very funny Scottish Soccer fan sketch in there. Oh, I found that the menus on this disk were poorly done and took forever to navigate, at least on my DVD player.
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