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MSRP $29.98
RATED Not Rated
STUDIO HBO Studios
RUNNING TIME 300 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES
• Nothing! —
The Pitch
—Little bit of Funny, whole lot of Die.—
The Humans—
Steve Tom, Rob Huebel, Rob Riggle, Tim Heidecker, Eric Wareheim, Fred Willard—
The Nutshell
— Comedy masterminds Will Ferrell, Adam McKay, and Chris Henchy are at it again with a brand new season of the HBO hit sketch comedy series. Funny or Die Presents features today’s hottest comedians, actors, and writers in an outrageous 30-minute comedy smorgasbord, complete with scripted pieces, animated vignettes, music videos, faux commercials, and more. Hosted by your white-haired, self-assued, and foul-mouthed host, Ed Halligan, Funny or Die Presents: The Complete Second Season takes comedy to a whole new level.—
“Can you remember why I wanted to go outside?”
The Lowdown
—Author’s Note: Since it’s hard to make funny captions for pictures that are intended to be funny already I will be using punch-lines from Family Circus strips out of context.
For those who aren’t aware, Funny or Die is a website created by Will Ferrell and Adam McKay that uses famous comedians and other celebrities for short viral comedy sketches. Also, welcome to the internet, enjoy the cat picture and don’t give your bank account info to that Nigerian prince, he is not a real prince.
“If Daddy has a baby, I hope it’s a girl.”
I was not aware that Funny or Die had actually branched out to doing a TV show, but since the viral videos are the kind of thing that started with sketch comedy shows and a lot of the people involved have TV and movie backgrounds it’s not that far fetched for Funny or Die to make a good half-hour TV show, right?
For those wanting a quick answer to whether or not this show is for them I have one tidbit of information. Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim are not only in this show, they’re writers for it, and a lot of the sketches on display reflect their unique sense of humor. Personally, I kind of like Tim and Eric (though I acknowledge they’re extremely hit or miss and definitely not for everyone) but I know for a lot of you this will be a deciding factor.
“Come in! Mommy’s right here in the bathtub!”
Most of the sketches either try too hard (like the recurring lesbian romantic thriller Lady Refs) or don’t try at all (Like the children’s show segment Welcome to My Study or the Cheaters-esque Burn Unit) every once in a while you’ll find a hidden gem but they’re mostly just overcooked or crap. Many sketches are extremely awkward and some don’t even have punch-lines. It’s like a show made up entirely of the last sketch of an episode of Saturday Night Live. This gets worse as the show progresses, escalating until the last episode with the near 20-minute sketch “Terrys” starring (who else?) Tim and Eric. It is a soul crushing test of your endurance to watch and it’s a swift kick in the balls following a rather awkward and unfunny season.
The one major shining star is a recurring sketch starring Rob Huebel called “Do You Want to See a Dead Body?” where he takes a celebrity (the best one is guru Deepak Chopra) to see a dead body. They’re always just the right blend of dark, funny, and weird to make me laugh. To be honest, pretty much any skit that involves Huebel is at least mildly amusing.
Bottom Line, Funny or Die is more miss than hit and the few good sketches don’t make up for all the terrible ones. If you enjoy Tim and Eric’s Awesome Show or some of Will Ferrell and Adam McKay’s weaker movies then you might like this, but it’s a turd and I wouldn’t pay money for this when I can just watch much funnier videos on Funny or Die’s website for free.
“That was a bored yawn, not a sleepy yawn.”
—
The Package
—There is literally nothing else on the disc. It has subtitles but that’s about it; just two discs with five episodes each and a little piece of paper on the inside listing the skits in each episode.—
“Get your ‘God Bless yous’ ready, my nose wants me to sneeze.”
Rating: 
Out of a Possible 5 Stars
3 comments
No matter how bad a tv show is, describing it as, “It is a soul crushing test of your endurance to watch and it’s a swift kick in the balls following a rather awkward and unfunny season,” doesn’t offer any insight and comes off as ranting.
I’ve seen stuff where this description is accurate, yet resorting to just kind of ridiculing it cheapens what I have to say and would show a weakness on my part, like I just couldn’t handle it. I would come off as just up tight and crochety.
And personally, I found The Terrys mind blowingly funny.
Are you actually disappointed in the quality of my review or are you annoyed because I said mean things about something you like? To be fair, that comment is specifically targeted at Terrys and only Terrys which was about as painful as the first time I watched Freddie Got Fingered, but I think awkward and unnfunny is a good description of how I felt the season was. I mostly just found this show to be trying too hard. I think I gave accolades to what I felt was the strongest sketch and didn’t say much about the rest which I mostly just felt neutral on. But yeah, I’ve got a lot of room for improvement as a reviewer and I’m torn between being in depth or just kind of doing an overview of it as a whole. I’m still working on developing an ideal style but I’m getting there, I’m starting to actually not hate what I write so that can’t be a horrible sign. Regardless, thanks for the criticism, passive aggressive though it may be.
It wasn’t passive aggressive. I said exactly what I found problematic with your single sentence or so dismissal of The Terrys and I didn’t take any swipes at you. I don’t have a problem with negatively reviewing it. It’s being dismissive that’s problematic. And I explained that in almost my entire comment. I even went through the trouble of putting myself in your position of saying how I would describe a show that I have similar feelings about, saying that I wouldn’t resort to just scoffing at any tv show or movie, no matter how ugly. It’s beneath what a review should be and conveys nothing about what the show is actually like. I had no idea what The Terrys was like based on your dismissal of it. I’ve hated watching a few movies, but a review doesn’t deserve to go to the depth of being a mere whine of how much the movie bothered me before I move on. I’d want to explain what was problematic and why it didn’t work for me.
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