French and Saunders

Having loved several 80's British comedy TV shows that made it to the U.S.A. (including Young Ones and Black Adder Goes Forth), I decided to give the F&S: Material World DVD a try. The DVD is a collection of short skits from the series, which includes many parodies. Jennifer Saunders (with some help from Dawn French) later made her mark with the show Absolutely Fabulous, a show I didn't care for.

Unfortunately, I didn't recognize some of the parodies, rendering them ineffective. A music video by 'The Raspberries' (Cranberries) was strange, not initially recognizing the group or the significance of the song, with the laugh track painfully reminding me of the jokes I was missing.

In general, the comedy is a mixed bag of over-the-top skits. In the Batman parody, the evil villains (the 'Krankies') used jokes as a weapon to someone else's uproarious laughter ("What do you call a man with a car on top of his head - Jack!" ). In more inspired moments, Batman (Saunders) forgets the voice he used to open the Batmobile, and so tries a Dalek voice (Dr. Who), and eventually fails. Later, when a woman offers to be Batman's love interest, Batman confesses he doesn't know what to do, not even being able to 'get the car started'.

One comic tool F&S use is to portray actresses in a production, sometimes slipping out of character to complain when something goes wrong. In the opening sequence of the Loveheart (Braveheart) skit, Saunders is credited for Liam Neeson, and French is credited for Mel Gibson. Other comic targets include attempting accents, Ireland and Scotland, special effects gone wrong, and playing male characters (using overtly masculine or feminine personifications).

One sketch was Lord Of The Rings, where F&S made extensive fun of the special effects (such as making hobbits appear small). While it was one of the funniest sketches on the DVD, there was a lingering awkwardness in that they were making fun of movie effects that were superb - not exactly cannon fodder for parody.

Thick British accents (especially when comically exaggerated or muted) complicated viewing by making some dialog difficult to understand. Unfortunately, there were often no subtitles to come to the rescue.

Highlights included parodies of Batman, Madonna, Lord Of The Rings, and Baywatch, all of which were worth seeing despite some comic unevenness. Others that didn't work as well included "The Gulf" and "Tripping", both of which were dated. Cute references to other British shows can be found (including 'The Prisoner' in the Batman skit).

Watch it someday if you can, but don't expect any mind-blowing revelations. Just make sure to have the remote handy to skip over dull moments.

If you like a laugh then what more do u want?

Jen and Dawn are without a doubt the funniest comic duo in British comedy history! check out their lotr's parody and their titanic one! both A M A Z I N G! they seem to be able to become anyone they want to and nearly always better!!

id also recommend absolutely fabulous and THe Young ones (adrian Edmondson and rik mayell are soooooo funny!)

THey will have u laughing out loud and quoting lines for a week. addictive stuff!

comic talent at its best.

with 4 dvds out in america and promises for new specials i doubt if french and saunders will ever end and thank god. to be honest with french and saunders you either love em or hate check out their profiles and try to get your hands on every one. if you love them why not check out their website including the ever chatting forums who are always up to date on news ed

This show has provided years of belly laughs, satirizing television, films, the arts, pretentious society types....if something's ripe for parody, they pounce on it. In the earlier series, the motif was a VERY low-rent variety show, complete with weekly guest stars, WAY past-their-prime dancers, and the cheesy 2-man band Raw Sex. The pathetic show-within-a-show was interspersed with comedy sketches, the funniest of which depicted a pair of extras in various show business locales (a war hospital film, a production of Carmen, the background of a Sports News show); regardless of their importance (or lack thereof) to the show, the two managed to get in the way and disrupt the production (always with the "props bahsket" in tow). Later series were more straightforward random collections of sketches. Film and TV parodies combined with skewering of pretension are their specialty; it's these later seasons you can see on the videos available for purchase, including the skit that spawned "Absolutely Fabulous." In any case, fans of anarchic British comedy should love this show.

Monty Python, Bennie Hill, all the typical "great" British comedies were all male, until French and Saunders blew everyone out of the water. Their groundbreaking comedy grew as a cult so much the BBC moved them from channel BBC 2 to BBC1, and their show increasingly satirized popular culture on both sides of the Atlantic. Full confession that I never liked Monty Python or British craziness until French and Saunders came along and showed that women had their own perspective, own strengths, and could spoof women's lives accurately and without resorting to the usual sexism in men's comedy. French and Saunders was never deliberately feminist, but as two women at "the beeb," Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders didn't back away from addressing sexism or spoofing themselves. If you like their later work in the Vicar of Dibley (French), or Absolutely Fabulous (Saunders), then you need to see French and Saunders for their groundbreaking work that would lead to both series. Their ongoing collaborations continue to multiple return specials, the amazing series Jam and Jerusalem (with both Saunders and French in minor roles), and on the recent Kenneth Branaugh version of Death on the Nile. Their impact on British television and film reaches back to this iconic show.