Product Details

• Actors: Vernon Chatman, John Lee, Alyson Levy, Jim Tozzi, Evan Seligman
• Writers: Vernon Chatman, John Lee
• Producers: Amy Teuteberg, Campbell Smith, Dave Rath, Jesse Ignjatovic, Kara Welker
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Language: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo)
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 2
• Rating: Unrated
• Studio: Paramount / MTV
• DVD Release Date: March 28, 2006
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000CSUNMK
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #15,005 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

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  Movies & TV > Television > MTV > Wonder Showzen

• For more information about "Wonder Showzen - Season 1" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

• This is item 1 in The Wonder Showzen Series.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Every episode of the delightfully subversive kids' show parody, Wonder Showzen begins with a garish warning banner that reads in part, "If you allow a child to view this, you are a bad parent or guardian." They're not kidding. The sentiment is bolstered when the words to the theme song ends with the lyric, "change the channel for kids." That said, this may be the most bizarrely hilarious kids show an adult has ever watched. Patterned after the Sesame Street model of puppet characters interacting with real kids, it's rude, offensive, terribly distasteful, and savagely funny. MTV2 bravely aired this first season in 2005, and even ordered up more for at least one more season. The main puppet, Chauncey, has his hands full with the precocious children who berate and sometimes just plain beat him for the fun of it. Other crudely made (and crudely voiced) puppets include a recently out of re-hab Letter N, a disgusting worm, and a multi-eyed newscaster who frequently breaks in with shocking news bulletins. One episode features a Jewish J and Arabic 8, whose forbidden love is shown in all its pornographic puppet glory. The show is also interspersed with old archival footage, some of it funny, some of it repulsive, usually in a segment called "Funny, Not Funny" in which kids call out their personal judgment of images such as happy clowns juxtaposed with documentary footage from a '50s-era slaughterhouse. Another distressingly humorous segment is "Beat Kids!", in which real kids are sent out on the streets of New York to ask wildly age-inappropriate questions of passersby (one cute little girl on Wall Street coyly inquires, "Who did you exploit today?"). But remember, this show is not for kids, only adults who have a lot of childhood repression to exhume through tears of gross-out laughter.--Ted Fry

Product Description

Variety show that spoofs childrens' programs using puppets, animation, and children.
Genre: Television
Rating: NR
Release Date: 28-MAR-2006
Media Type: DVD

See all Editorial Reviews

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Unfortunately, this set has been edited., April 29, 2006

By	Movie Fan - See all my reviews

In a culture where everything is ironic and everyone is trying to be shocking, it's difficult to find anything in entertainment that actually feels new and original. Wonder Showzen is one of those rare programs that has managed to push it's way past everything else and demand to be seen. The humor is refreshing and nothing is sacred or off limits. Some people may find some of the storylines and shorts to be highly offensive, but that is simply because they're not thinking about what the creators are really trying to say, and yes, the show is funny and entertaining, but there is some very deep social commentary being made in each episode.
Unfortunately, someone at Paramount Pictures (the company that is distributing the DVD) decided that some of the social commentary needed to be silenced for this DVD release. During the "Ocean" episode, there's a great animated short called "H.O.B.O. Opps". The short is about how America always fails to take care of their war veterans. And even though the veterans in the short are from the Vietnam war, their situation can be applied to how many of our current veterans from Iraq are coming home wounded and unable to pay their bills and medical bills thanks to our inadequette health care system. Two parts of this short have been cut from the DVD. First, the audio of one of the hobos urinating in public was removed, in the hopes that now the viewer wont be able to tell what this character is doing. And second, the end of the short was cut altogether. If you catch the rerun on MTV2, it ends with a young boy asking his mother "who that man was talking to" and she tells him to ignore the man. The camera then zooms in on a tear rolling down the boy's face that has a reflection of the American flag in it and the flag bursts into flames. This was the perfect way to end the short and it really drives the artist's message home, but it's gone from the DVD release, which is a shame. It amazes me how conservative people in this country who claim to be so patriotic, are always the first to try to censor or ban opinions, speech and art that differs with their beliefs.

So, I love Wonder Showzen and highly recommend it to everyone who loves cutting edge comedy laced with truth and social commentary. However, be aware that this set is edited so be sure to watch the show on MTV2 to get the full experience.

Easter Egg Instructions:
If you would rather hunt for these easter eggs on your own then STOP reading now, otherwise...

Press enter on your DVD remote at the following times...

Disc 1:
The THIRD Nobody Needs Me text in Birth
VERY beginning of first Tyler Time in Ocean
VERY beginning of second Tyler Time in Ocean
Beat Kids logo at the end of Beat Kids Song in Diversity
Beginning of Breaking News of Nature episode

Disc 2:
Beginning of Breaking News of Health episode
50 years later text on screen during first half of Patience
Kramdar text on screen during backwards portion of Patience

182 of 219 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Show is Too Awesome for Most to Understand!!!, March 29, 2006

By	Sunshine the Werewolf (Canada) - See all my reviews

WONDER SHOWZEN - Season 1.
-
This show is Genius... absolute genius! Wonder Showzen takes a dark, satirical look at what we are really teaching our children (?)
During the average episode it will have puppets interacting with children in sesame street style antics and of course going out on the street to ask people questions (The Clarence skit about Patience is priceless!), funny little cartoons (`Bible Brew... What would Jesus Brew?') , strange voice-overs old educational footage (Like the chicken dinner factory...) and my favorite segments with the children doing interviews... titled BEAT-KIDS (`Kids on the Street, Kids on the beat, Beat-Kids! Beat-Kids')

All in all, this is a priceless disc like nothing you have ever seen or could imagine trying to describe it is damn near impossible...
I lies somewhere between the witty satire of `The Daily Show' mixed with the raunch of `South-Park' and presented by kids that are too cool for Sesame Street. Just Freakin Awesome!!!

-If you like dark, twisted comedy and you don't check this out, you are less of a person.

IF YOU LIKED, AGREED OR APPRECIATED THIS. PLEASE CLICK YES FOR:
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This show BREAKS EVERY SINGLE RULE THERE IS, April 25, 2006

By	Zash Manson "Zash" (New York City, USA) - See all my reviews

First episode I saw, I thought the show was racist, INCREDIBLY TASTELESS, offensive, overall insulting and completelly disrespectfull towards every single moral value of our society. I thought also the show as it was should be banned and maybe taken off the air. Then, a week later when I saw another episode I was laughing so hard I could barelly breathe.
This show simply has no limits in itself about taboo subjects, it's very political and very raw/blunt/limitless. The people that make this show besides obviously being on drugs while writting it, they also just don't care about ANYTHING whatsoever, meaning that they won't give a damn if anyone gets insulted by anything they are saying or potraying. For a little example, almost every single show has a sex scene between puppets.
This show breaks every single moral rule and yeah, it will get you pissed, it will make you angry, it will ofend you, mostly you will be saying time after time " I cannot believe they said that" or "did that". That's why this show is so entertaining.

If you haven't seen this show, just imagine the TOM GREEN SHOW, JACKASS, ANDY MILONAKIS, SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE, MAD TV, CHAPPELLE SHOW and SESAME STREET, all mixed up, times a MILLION and WAY MORE EXTREME than any of these shows together.
Yes, it's that good.
Also, I forgot to mention that the show has a very fast pacing, everything happens so fast that you will miss 99% of the punchlines 'cause some of them are so ahead of it's time that you will have to give it a minute. Also, VERY SUBLIMINAL. Very fast images, hidden content ( like pictures flashing at 1 frame per second ) reversed talk, reversed audio messages.
THIS SHOW IS NUTS.
BUY IT, BUY IT, BUY IT, BUY IT.
This is the BEST SHOW EVER DONE.