You can see my back teeth, I'm smilin' so big!

An early Chistmas present. The Home Movies season 1 DVD set.

For those unfamiliar, Home Movies is a very unique series that lasted 3 or 4 years on Cartoon Network. It was animated, and realtively lazily animated, at that, and was founded more on the ad-libbed, character-driven dialogue, than visual gags, or even one liners. It's about kids, but it's *for* kids in the same way Calvin and Hobbes was. That is to say that it's really warm, but it's also really intelligent. It's really goofy, but it's also sort of off-putting. Many have said they couldn't get into it at first, but they ended up loving it, because it's hard to "get" right off.

Now, as I said, I just got the DVD set for the first season. And it's fiiiiiine. I went through all the episodes first, and watched as these very particular characters interacted, or maybe bumped into each other. It reminded of watching a film that's developed two characters so well, that when you see that they're about to interact with one another, you get really excited, cause so much interesting stuff is about to happen. They banter and talk over each other, they stammer and back track. Brendan and Jason and Mellisa, Paula and McGuirk and Eric all feel more real than any sitcom cast, *because* of the ad-libbing. Because we watch them react. Feel embarressed, or shocked, or amused. It's the moment to moment rise and fall of their takes on the conversation, or on the equally oblivious person they're talking to, that feels rich and layered. Human. Nobody in this show has any control over their situations, but they all seem to excercise an attitude of control. Paula is in way over her head, raising Brendan and the baby, Josie, by herself, but she remains relaxed, in a sort of spazzy way. And she's hilarious. McGuirk tries to coach soccer, but he doesn't really care if the kids are good at it or not. He just ends up pulling Brendan or Mellisa into his latest plan, which always fall flat on their face, in a non-resolution, just barely cut-to in the end of each episode. It's a world that plays by very realistic rules, with very flawed, witty characters populating it. For a comedy show it's actually very rewarding.

Next I looked at the short films, or "home movies" made by some of the voice actors from the show. The actual Brendan Small has a guitar instructional video that made me laugh my ass off. It made me want to see more from Thor von Clemson, but I get the sense it wouldn't be as good--the video stands perfect on it's own, and had me watching it several times in a row to hear what I had laughed over teh previous time. ...And so I could quote it to my friends, later. ("Oh, and you'll learn how to fly on a guitar!") Jon Benjamin's film wasn't quite as "insti-classic", but it was pretty good. There could definitelly be more episodes of Baby Pranks, since confused babies truly *is* funny as shit.

Finally, I watched the commentarried episodes through. Not every episode has commentary (about half), but it's clear why. Brendan Small and Jon Benjamin (and to a lesser extent Loren Bouchard) would much rather do comedy schticks with one another than actually reflect on the series. Something I found dissapointing until I realized how funny these guys are. Bouchard tends to sit back and enjoy it when this happens, and I can see why. When Benjamin mentions they have the voice actress who plays Mellisa with them (which they do not), Small launches into... I don't know... a homeless black man voice? And when he can't keep it up during a creepy song he/she sings, Benjamin steps in to be the comedian who was "actually" doing the voice. It's so random, that you have to give up and laugh. They are so good at rolling with the punches, thinking on their feet, and keeping the madness going, that it made me realize how weak "Whose Line Is It Anyway" is. These two obviously have a dynamic down, and it occured to me as I was watching the episodes, again after having seen it with commentary, how little of the dialogue is probably in the script (they divulge that the first five episoes don't actually have *any* script). To what extent the voice actors are just riffing, and to what degree Loren Bouchard must have edited hours and hours of said madness down into a 22 minute episode. This team really was brilliant, and it makes me deeply thankful that we ever got a chance to see this series, and depply sad that it didn't get a longer run. I know it's a hackneyed idea, but the DVD set makes me long for a Home Movies film. ...Movie. Whatever. I... screwed up... ...that word...