Starring Jon Lovitz, Nancy Cartwright, Christine Cavanaugh, Charles Napier, Maurice LaMarche, Judith Ivey, Doris Grau, Gerrit Graham, Nick Jameson
Written By: Tom Brady, Nell Scovell, Jeffrey Ventimilia, Patric Verrone
Directed By:
Studio: Columbia/ Tri Star
Buy on Amazon.com

Another doomed TV show makes it way onto DVD, and I’m sure fans will be picking this one up. I actually don’t think I saw the first season when it was on ABC, but I saw the 2nd season on FOX. I always felt that the best thing about the show was the movie parodies.

The Critic is about a cynical, depressed film critic Jay Sherman (Voiced By Jon Lovitz). Gee, film critics are cynical? Jay has a cable TV show called Coming Attractions and isn’t a well-liked man. Probably because he bashes every movie he sees and says “it stinks.” He lives in NY and his only friend is an Australian actor, Jeremy Hawke (voiced by Maurice LaMarche). He has a hard nose Boss, crazy adoptive parents and a chubby little 11 year old son named Marty. Plus the makeup lady for the show is real cranky who despises Jay.

I think the show was a hit or miss with me. I think the jokes tend to be too obscure or too inside. I got most of them but sometimes I was left scratching my head. I was more interested in the movie parodies, and his show then what happened in Jay’s personal life. Though I guess it’s good to show why he was like the way he was. I always cracked up at his adoptive Father and how OUT there he is. “I’m not wearing any pants” haha. It’s little things like that make this show fun to watch. Jon Lovitz was born to play this character. It just fits him well and the style of humor he brings. I was surprised to see that Maurice LaMarche was the voice of Jeremy Hawke and a trillion other celebrity voices. He’s BIGTIME in the voice over acting industry (I discovered this from Comic Book: The Movie) and he does a dead-on Orsen Welles impression that you see in the cartoon. While the show has it moments and will make you laugh, I also felt like some of the episodes were kind of boring. That’s just me though because my friends love the show and have no complaints. It all depends on what kind of style of humor you enjoy really.

The quality for this DVD is poor. It feels like your watching VHS copies of the show, there’s really no cleanup of the cartoon at all. It’s still fine to watch because I’m use to that quality, but it would have been nice to see the cartoons transferred better. There’s a few extras on this set that were pretty cool to watch and listen to. There’s Selected Audio Commentary on 8 episodes with the creators, writers, producers and actors of the show but no Jon Lovitz because he must have been busy with another project. Though I did hear he might be doing commentary for the Simpsons DVD when Jay Sherman appears in that season. I listen to a few of the commentaries when there was a lull in the episodes. They were okay. There’s a making of featurette where the writers and other people talk about the show, and what they thought of it. That could have been more in-depth.

There’s Clip compilations from all the movie parodies and clips from Coming Attractions. Before those featurettes, there’s fun facts, movie trivia which was hilarious because it’s just like the stuff they show before the movies. Except the ones on the Critic are funny. I was cracking up at all the Trailer parodies and it’s nice to see them all together. I think the best part of the Extras were the web episodes. It’s a continuation with the story, and a little more updated with parodies of The Patriot, Harry Potter and other films. I did see a few of those on the Macromedia website but missed the rest of them. The quality is great for the web episodes, since it was all done in Flash. The animation style isn’t as good as the regular cartoon, and seems a bit more jumpy. But I’m really happy they included the web episodes on the DVD for people to watch if they didn’t see them on the web.

Features:
n- Clip Compilation: Top Ten List
n- Clip Compilation: Trailer Parodies
n- Making of: Creating the Critic
n- Short Film: Webn-isodes
n- Commentary on 8 Episodes
n- Full Screen Presentation
n- Languages: English (Stereo)

Audio:
ENGLISH: Dolby Digital Stereo CC

Video:
Standard 1.33:1 Color

Subtitles:

Favorite Scenes: Marathon Mensch, L.A. Jay, Siskel & Ebert & Jay & Alice, I Can’t Believe it’s a Clip Show
Rating: Rated NR
Running Time: 520 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: