Product Details

• Actors: Christopher Guest, Robert Smigel
• Directors: Christopher Guest, Robert Smigel, Robert Altman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Albert Brooks
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Vidmark / Trimark
• VHS Release Date: April 25, 2000
• Run Time: 90 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 1573628530
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #219,550 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This thematic video, featuring the best game-show parodies presented by Saturday Night Live, concentrates mostly on the later years, with regulars Mike Myers, Dana Carvey, Phil Hartman, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Julia Sweeny, and Chris Farley dominating the proceedings. And though some of the skits have their moments, such as when guest host Joe Pesci menaces seriously out-of-place contestant Chris Rock on "Bensonhurst Dating Game," an inevitable feeling of sameness can creep in. Perhaps that's mostly forgivable, as the individual sketches were not written or acted to be seen one after another. Besides regular cast members, guest hosts were regularly put to work in game-show skits, with varying degrees of comedic success--Garth Brooks (in drag in a misbegotten parody titled "Old French Whore"), Jerry Seinfeld, Tom Hanks, and Quentin Tarantino. Gilda Radner and Bill Murray appear all too briefly in a snippet of a sketch from the early years, but seeing Steve Martin, Dan Aykroyd, Laraine Newman, and Chevy Chase in "Jeopardy 1999" from the show's first season is a treat. For a fan of 1990s vintage Saturday Night Live, this tape does have its winning moments, but it may be best watched in small doses. --Robert J. McNamara

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Where's the Jeopardy?!!!!!, March 28, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Saturday Night Live - Game Show Parodies [VHS] (VHS Tape)

All right, I have always loved SNL, and especially the Celebrity Jeopardy's. There was only a single CJ episode at the end of the tape! I feel that with the exception of the guess the word game, the tape should be wiped clean of the waste on it now and filled with stuff that...gasp!...people actually want to see! My ideal: I must agree with another [person] when I say a tape full of Celebrity Jeopardy. Do not waste your money on this, simply tape skits off the air if it means that much to you.

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars I'll take Boredom for $100, April 28, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Saturday Night Live - Game Show Parodies [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Well, as a long time SNL fan, and especially LOVING these new "Celebrity Jeopardy" sketches, I pre-ordered this IMMEDIATLY! There are a few of these great sketches(Sean Connery always mangling titles...) scattered around, but I assumed this would collect them all, and add a few classics. I was wrong.

My first indication was the box. If you ever saw the sketch "The Bensonhurst Dating Game" you'll know it is somewhat lame...but it is the flagship of this video.

Classics?

Remember a few seasons ago when Phil Hartman was on a quiz show as God and had all of the answers? Not here!

Oh..and those Jeopardy sketches? Only ONE..at the end. What happened? I sat through this tape, and as it approached the hour mark, began to sweat... No Jeopardy...just horridly unfunny game shows and even NON game show sketches including a Dysfunctional Family Christmas Album, and a TV show about a gangsta from the ghetto moving in with a white family. The whole sketch seemed to be based on the bleeped out cursing. Really funny.

So, as I waited, and the tape neared the 73 minute end mark..my only hope was a montage of the Jeopardy skits..weak, but it would have been right.

Instead, we get just one, at the end. And it isn't even one of the funny ones.

I have read the first review, and wonder if the reviewer got a special tape...I didn't see Regis doing "Who Wants to Eat?"... Only two jeopardy sketches, the 70's "Jeopardy 1999" and the aforementioned...

This tape has a feel to it..like someone just stitched it together..without paying attention to content or logic. If a tape is called 'Game Show Parodies', then don't throw in other sketches not themed..especially when there are gems that needed to be on the tape.

My only guess is that they are going to do a "Best of Jeopardy" tape. I hope.

Most SNL Best Of's are hit and miss...but I can live with them...

This is the one I just am going to literally hide behind other tapes, just in case somebody asks to watch it.

Sad, but true.

This being said, I want my Jeopardy tape.

And I'll take "The Rapists" for $200

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars It's not the prime time special, December 14, 2000

By 

Vincent R. Corvaia "yourpalvince" (Maine, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saturday Night Live - Game Show Parodies [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I was disappointed to find that this tape doesn't contain the one-hour prime time special that (unless I'm mistaken) aired shortly before the tape was released. I was looking forward to owning a copy of "Who Wants to Eat?" and the particular edition of "Celebrity Jeopardy" that was on the special. If the special had never been aired, I'd feel better about the tape, except that about 3/4ths of the way through, one skit is suddenly cut off and we start getting a mix of full-length skits and excerpts. It seemed like a lazy way to compile the material, as if they ran out of room or imagination.

My ideal: One tape with nothing on it but every "Celebrity Jeopardy" SNL has done, from before Ferrell and Hammond right through to the present.