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Best of Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (The)
R1 - America - Paramount Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: James Teitelbaum (8th December 2008). |
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The Show
 I am in awe of how incredibly lame this series is. Should we begin with how annoying the animation is? Or how lackluster the voice acting is? Or how unfunny the scripts are? Hell, let's take them in that order, after a short introduction. This is a series about a therapist, his son, and his secretary. In each of the eighteen short episodes on this DVD, Dr. Katz (Jonathan Katz) analyzes a different celebrity guest (Margaret Cho, David Duchovny, Janeane Garofalo, Denis Leary, Conan O'Brien, Sarah Silverman, etc.). The guest list is impressive, considering the fabulous lame-osity of this show. If there is any saving grace to this series whatsoever it is, um, nothing. The cartoons are animated using a style made to look like some old 8-bit computer was used for the drawings. Lines are especially jaggy, colors are simple, and movement is minimal. If this was a stylistic choice, that is fine, but what really gave me a headache is the animator's habit of having all of the characters constantly twitching, as though they were rendered by amateur cell animators who couldn't keep their frames consistent. So we have this miserable hybrid of bad cell animation (simulated) and bad computer graphics (simulated). Both fake low-fi techniques were overdone, so that the whole thing just looks absolutely unwatchable. Subtlety, people. Learn the word. I pity the epileptic watching these cartoons, I am seriously sure it might trigger fits. Looking at this mess gave me a headache (I am not kidding), and that is reason enough not to recommend it. The voice acting is poorly recorded, languidly paced, and bored-sounding. I did almost stop to wonder if any of the material is improvised on the part of the guests, but to be honest I can't be buggered to take the time to do the due diligence and research the answer. Call me a miserable journalist, but this one isn't worth wasting my life on. Make it stop.
Video
Aspect ratio is 1.33:1 full screen. Do I have to reiterate my feelings on the animation? Okay here's the most polite four-letter word I can come up with: hate. That said, the image is clean, and sharp. Sharp, that is, like an ice-pick to the retina. Many reviewers have used the cliche "painful to watch" for various things over the years, but this time I mean it literally. Total time for the eighteen short episodes is 1:47:50.
Audio
All of the episodes are in English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo with no subtitles. This is good, because now people in other countries won't be able to cognate how lame this American cartoon is. The voices sound like they were recorded in a closet with a broken SM-57.
Extras
Paramount has included a light selection of extras including 5 short clips, some Comedy Central quickies and a series of bonus trailers. Below is a closer look. "Dr. Katz Remembers" are five more shorts that each run 3 minutes 30 seconds in which Katz's secretary Laura encounters Katz's son (one of the five shorts is an easily-found Easter egg accessed by clicking the text of the feature's title). Five Comedy Central Quickies (each is a short clip from a Comedy Central show) are included for: - "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart: BaracKnophobia" which runs for 2 minutes 11 seconds. - "The Colbert Report: Cookie Monster" which runs for 2 minutes 12 seconds. - "South Park: Mr. Cartmanez" which runs for 2 minutes 10 seconds. - "Reno 911: Prostitution Sting" which runs for 2 minutes 8 seconds. Bonus trailers round out the extras, they are for: - "Comedy Central's TV Funhouse" which runs for 1 minute 26 seconds. - "South Park: The Complete Eleventh Season" which runs for 1 minute 18 seconds. - "The Best of the Colbert Report" which runs for 1 minute 25 seconds.
Overall
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