The Series:

If you’re not already aware, Adult Swim’s Metalocalypse follows the exploits of Dethklok, the Earth’s most popular heavy metal band. This band is so popular that they’ve become one of the largest economies in the world and when this fourth season begins, their new album is about to launch. They fly around in a gigantic metal helicopter and employ thousands of hooded minions, dubbed ‘the Klokateers,’ to cater to their every whim while lounging around their compound, Mordhaus. When they’re not delivering huge concerts to thousands upon thousands of fans (at various locations around the world – they are a truly global phenomena) who are willing to put their lives at risk or recording the most brutal albums in history, they’re generally hanging around playing video games, relaxing in the hot tub together, or drinking – though it should be noted that this fourth season introduces a new favorite past time, that being ‘jacking off.’

The band is made up of five members: vocalist and lyrical genius Nathan Explosion (voiced by co-creator and co-writer Brendon Small), second fastest guitar player in the world Toki Wartooth (voiced by co-creator and co-writer Tommy Blacha), the hateful bass player William Murderface (Blacha), fastest guitar player in the world Skwisgaar Skwigelf (Small), and former ‘Snakes N Barrels’ member Pickles the drummer (Small). Each band member has his own unique personality, whether it be Murderface’s penchant for war and women hating, Toki’s love of coke snorting clowns, Skwisgaar’s holier-than-thou attitude and incredibly condescending manners, Pickle’s penchant for booze and drugs or Nathan’s love of all things brutal. Individually, they are strong, but as Dethklok, they are unstoppable!

So powerful are they that a covert group made up of powerful military types like General Krosier (Victor Brandt), Senator Stampington (Mark Hamill) and Vater Orlaag (Malcolm McDowell) have joined together to monitor Dethklok’s every move. They know that if they don’t periodically interfere that the band will become even more powerful than they already are and seeing as they’re already the seventh strongest economy on the planet, they don’t want that, particularly as it looks more and more like Dethklok could very well bring about the end of the world – and in this fourth season, now featuring awesome narration from none other than Werner Herzog, it looks like they’re going to do just that. It’s also worth noting that although the series switched from twelve minute episodes to longer twenty-one minute episodes for its third season, for this fourth shot the producers have gone back to the eleven minute format.

The episodes in this set, which make up the complete third season of the show, are presented in the following order:

Disc One:

Fanklok: As the band once again returns to Earth, Nathan lets loose the shocking information that he is romantically involved with a female fan. Meanwhile, Murderface decides to take up smoking and tries to get the rest of the band to join in. All of this ends poorly when the band figure out that Nathan’s girlfriend has a very strange past.

Diversityklok: Nathan tries to cash in on his own personal catchphrase – ‘That’s doable’ – and has it printed up on hats and other trinkets, but this soon gets pushed to the wayside when the band is accused of being racist. Murderface’s moustache starts to take on a life of its own and Toki decides that he’s tired of the band pushing him out of the way and decides to start his own exclusive club. A concert to prove that the band members are not racists goes horribly, horribly wrong.

Pranklok: The new Dethklock album starts shipping but a storm destroys all the ships and every copy except for the master sinks to the bottom of the sea. Before the band realize this, Nathan and Pickles go on a worldwide bender while Murderface prank calls people. Nathan eventually receives a vision from a whale that convinces him to destroy the master copy of the album, sending the world into a downward spiral.

Motherklok: With the world suffering from the massive financial catastrophe caused by destroying the new album, Dethklok decides to help kickstart the economy by setting up a bunch of massive travelling carnivals with rides and performances. When a Dethfair is to be held in Wisconsin, Pickles has to deal with his mother and prove his worth as a real estate agent to gain her acceptance.

Booklok: When Skwisgaar refuses to let Toki play a solo at a concert in Brazil, Toki writes a tell-all book entitled ‘Skwisgaar Is Ams Dick’ which quickly becomes a bestseller and ruins Skwisgaar’s reputation. Toki winds up getting all of his endorsements and winds up getting to play the solos, but fails to heed his bandmate’s warning about the audience…

Writersklok: When Nathan gets writer’s block and can’t create material for the new album, Dick Knubbler brings in some help in the form of producer Abigail Remeltindrinc. The band don’t want to take direction from a woman but she soon sends them on a vacation. Eventually they wind up in the Middle East where the men think that they are women because of their hair and a high ranking sultan tries to make them members of his personal harem. They try to convince him of their real identities and he gives them an ultimatum – prove you are Dethklok by performing a brand new song… or perform fellatio.

Dethcamp: Offdensen travels for business while Toki goes to make friends at Rock-A-Rooni Fantasy Camp. This leaves Nathan and Pickles in charge of Mordhaus while Skwisgaar and Murderface take advantage of Toki’s absence by eating junk food and watching scary movies. When Nathan finds out that Toki has befriended former Dethklok member and current Nathan Explosion foe Magnus Hammersmith, he heads to the camp to deal with it.

Dethvanity: When Murderface is awarded the prize for being the ‘Brutalist Looking Musician’ in the world he decides to get a makeover and become Handsomeface. He borrows money from Nathan to pay for plastic surgery and heads to Mexico, meanwhile the band are dealing with age related criticisms of their own and soon decide to follow suit.

Disc Two:

Going Downklok: Abigail is forcing the band to head into a submarine to travel to the depths of the ocean where they’ll record the new album uninterrupted. Without any women around, the band, at Murderface’s behest, start jacking off with such regularity that they all get Carpel Tunnel Syndrome and can’t play their instruments. With masturbation now off limits, they all start to fall for Abigail, with Nathan willing to do anything to win her affections over Pickles, even perform oral sex on her. Abigail isn’t interested until the batteries on her vibrator expire, while Murderface can’t take it anymore and tries to rape Toki, whose laundry has all turned pink.

Dethdinner: When the band’s record label hosts a dinner to introduce the new album, Nathan tries to sit near Abigail but she doesn’t want anything to do with him. Toki gets hooked on a website called Facefriends and soon shows up at the dinner with Dr. Rockzo, who has friended him on the social networking site. Murderface goes on a hunger strike for more credit on the album and winds up hammered on a few glasses of wine while Pickles, still hoping to score with Abigail, becomes enraged with Nathan.

Breakup Klok: Pickles quits the band and Dethklok breaks up. Murderface embarks on a new career as the Congressman for New Jersey, Toki tagging along as his personal assistant, while Skwisgaard and Nathan decide to start a new band with some help from Knubbler. When Toki sends out pictures of Murderface jacking off, his career goes down in flames while Nathan and Skwisgaard soon realize they’ll never find that sound they want. Pickles tries to start his own winery but just winds up poisoning people. When Roy Cornickelson is killed after the band’s final show is attacked, Nathan delivers the eulogy and tries to apologize to Pickles to get Dethklok back together.

Church Of The Black Klok: Offdensen smuggles the band to a cave deep below the ocean where a strange cult called The Church Of The Black Klok lead by Ishnifus Meaddle are waiting for them. The band’s history up to this point and their role in the prophecy of the Metalocalypse is explained, setting up the show’s fifth season…

…and at the risk of spoiling things further, we’ll just leave it at that. With the third season a slight disappointment, it’s great to see Metalocalypse return to form with this fourth batch of episodes. With each episode presented uncut (meaning the language and, yes, the nudity is fully intact here), the season is a whirling dervish of heavy metal inspired insanity that is as bizarrely hilarious as it is truly epic. With opening narration from Werner Herzog in most of the episodes here, the series takes on a ludicrous heaviness not just in terms of the music used but in terms of the themes and concepts that it’s exploring. Like the seasons before it, this fourth season starts off fairly light and gravitates towards the apocalyptic themes that have run through it since the beginning as the season draws to a close. So while we’re watching episodes about masturbation and Pickles’ real estate career we’re slowly but surely dealing with the impending financial collapse of the world markets and the efforts of clandestine groups to usurp control of the band to use for their own nefarious goals.

Once again the voice acting from the entire cast is excellent. The show has been around long enougn now that fans expect a certain level of quality from the performances and this season doesn’t deliver. Much of the humor from the show stems not just from the over the top scenarios but also from the various band members’ reactions to those scenarios. The voice actors earn top marks all around in this department. The music created for the show also adds a certain level of awesomeness to the series, as you can tell it was made by legitimate fans of metal. The playing is solid, the vocals are, well, brutal, and the lyrics are wonderfully ridiculous.

You might think that the series would have run its course by this point but this season proves that’s not the case. With the fifth season in development at the time of this writing, who knows what direction Brendon Small, Tommy Blacha and company will take us in but here’s hoping that they can keep up this level of quality for a long time to come.

The DVD:

Video:

Metalocalypse looks pretty good here and it’s nice to see that the episodes are presented in 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen (the first volume was not 16×9 enhanced). The series is intentionally pretty dark with a lot of blacks, browns and reds used so don’t expect a particularly bright color palette here but color reproduction is pretty much spot on and there are no problems with mpeg compression artifacts. Some slight line shimmering shows up here and there but at least the picture is consistently clean. Overall, the video quality is very good.

Sound:

Each and every episode in the set is presented in English language Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound mix with optional subtitles in English only. Dialogue is clean and clear though some may have trouble with a few of the characters’ accents or with deciphering the lyrics to some of the songs (the subs provide help here if you need it). The low end sounds nice and growly during the songs and channel separation in the front and back of the mix adds some atmosphere to certain scenes when its required.

Extras:

There’s nothing on the first disc (excluding two amusing Easter Eggs) but the second disc contains a whole bunch of deleted scenes and other oddities. Pickles Flyby is a weird bit where Pickles appears in a little box and sort of floats by different locations from the series offering some input for ten minutes. There are three different Staresdown shorts here (entitled Staresdown 1, Staresdown 2 and Staresdown 3) that are short staring contests between Toki and Skwisgaard, while the Murdethoughts segment is a four minute segment of Murderface lying in bed with his mask on from the plastic surgery episode espousing on things. The Prophecy is more Herzog narrated prophecy dialogue over some bizarre imagery that lasts just over two minutes while Dr. Rockzo’s Greatest Hits is an awesome faux-commercial for the new compilation album from everyone’s favorite cocaine loving rock n roll clown. CFO Rapsis a strange rap video made up of clips of Offdensen sound bites while the Dethklok Fan Art section is a still gallery of, well, you probably guessed Dethklok fan art – and if you did, you’d be right. The Dethgame is a seven minute pretend game show in which contestants answers trivia questions about the band… or suffer the consequences.

Menus and episode selection are provided on each of the two DVDs that make up this set. You can watch the episodes on their own or use the ‘play all’ functionality to set yourself up for a marathon session.

Final Thoughts:

Metalocalypse: Season Four is awesome, plain and simple. The series has returned to its former glory and in this fourth season is as intriguingly unusual and unique as it is frequently hilarious. The DVD set from Warner Brothers and Adult Swim looks and sounds quite good and includes some fun extras as well. Highly recommended.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop! and has contributed to AV Maniacs. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.

In general, there’s a sense that the modern cartoon makes a distinct effort to be for both kids and parents alike. Aside from shows with an educational mandate (like “Dora the Explorer,”), the tendency to slip in a little subversive humor for the grown-ups watching these shows seems to be on the rise. I guess that’s what I was expecting of “The Adventures of Gumball,” which shares Cartoon Network airtime with fantastic kid / adult crossovers like “Adventure Time” and “Regular Show.” Instead, the Y7-rated “Amazing World of Gumball” is aimed more fully at youngsters, who will probably enjoy this candy-coated creation more than I did.

The show follows the adventures of Gumball (Logan Grove) and his brother Darwin (Kwesi Boakye), who get into various situations, most of which involve their imagination. They are watched over by their parents, Nicole (Teresa Gallagher) and Richard (Dan Russell), and frequently accompanied by their younger sister Anais (Kyla Rae Kowalewski). Style-wise, the show blends its 2D animated characters with photographic backgrounds, computer animation, and even what looks like puppetry and toys.

Visually, the show is a knockout. From the poppy opening credits, there’s definitely a strong sense of imagination in the show’s cast of characters, ranging from an angst, deep-voiced T-rex to a cheerleader peanut with moose antlers. Even when the show was not entertaining me with its stories or characters, it’s a blast just to look at. I have no idea why there’s a talking banana among the cast of characters here, but it’s fun.

The show’s stories are generally built around simple moral lessons, presumably aimed at kids. The first episode, for instance, “The DVD,” has Gumball and Darwin trying to devise a plan to deal with a broken rental DVD and the “final notice” letters piling up over it. I’m not sure if creator Benjamin Bocquelet intends for “The Amazing World of Gumball” to be a learning experience, or if these kinds of storylines are just whatever the writers happen to find funny, but it’s there for kids to pick up on it.

Personally, though, “funny” felt a little anemic here. The show’s jokes are not particularly edgy or biting; it’s probably fun for little kids, but won’t do much for anyone else. Slapstick is a big aspect, but something about the simplicity of the characters themselves limits the fun — the animation stays relatively simple, even when it’s going exaggerated for a gag. Admittedly, the show gets a little funnier as this collection progresses — the dance number at the end of “The Meddler,” the set’s final episode, put a smile on my face, so maybe that’s all part of “Gumball” growing pains more than an intended tone.

Episodes: “The DVD,” “The Third,” “The End,” “The Quest,” “The Laziest,” “The Gi,” “The Refund,” “The Picnic,” “The Mustache,” “The Wand,” “The Curse,” “The Meddler.”

The DVD
“The Amazing World of Gumball”: The DVD arrives in artwork that feels generally in the style of the show’s psychedelic opening credit sequence, what with an explosion of colorful characters flying over a starfield background. Inside the white eco-friendly DVD case (the kind that uses less plastic, not the kind with holes), and inside the case, there is an insert advertising the “Amazing World of Gumball” portal on the CN website, and other CN DVDs on the back.

The Video and Audio
Presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen, “Gumball” looks approximately as good as “Adventure Time” does on SD-DVD. The image is colorful and free of any artifacts, but there’s a hint of compression-related haloing around the bold lines of the animation. Fine, but not as good as the show could look, both based on the source material (I’m sure this show also airs on CN in HD), and just the capabilities of SD-DVD in general.

Audio is Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo, which effectively captures the low-fi flute tones of the show’s score and the bright, poppy dialogue. A little surround activity punctuates the slapstick from time to time, but this is a pretty straightforward aural presentation. English captions for the deaf and hard of hearing are also included.

The Extras
Only one “extra”: a character gallery with very brief three-sentence bios for each character, accompanied by a single illustration. It’s so anemic I can’t even give it half a star.

Trailers for “Adventure Time”: My Two Favorite People, “Adventure Time”: It Came From the Nightosphere, “Regular Show”: Slack Pack, and “” play before the main menu.

Conclusion
“Gumball” wasn’t really my thing. Whether that was misguided expectations or just a reflection of the show (or potentially its struggle to find its footing) is not clear, but I wouldn’t be surprised if other people went in with the same basic impression. I also have to believe (although I won’t harp on it) that fans of “Gumball” won’t like the random episode releases any more than “Adventure Time” fans do. Rent it, and see if it’s something you enjoy before picking the disc up.

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THE MOVIE:

As much as I love it when a movie tosses a few unexpected twists and turns my way, it’s tough to ignore the sheer number of films that throw out their backs while bending over backwards to deliver that one big oh-my-god-you’ll-never-see-it-coming mega twist. Add Barricade to the list of casualties claimed by this growing trend. What could have been a spooky little haunted home invasion flick slowly comes undone in the second half as disjointed scares pave the way to a monumentally silly ending.

At least director Andrew Currie working from a screenplay by Michaelbrent Collings builds up a reasonably effective atmosphere before it all goes to hell. Much of the credit for our investment in the film’s setup goes to the core casting. Eric McCormack plays against type here as a dad struggling to cope with the death of his wife while putting on a brave face for his kids (Conner Dwelly and Ryan Grantham). We see just enough of his past home life with his wife played by Jody Thompson to understand that although he loved his children, he was never the most attentive father. Holding up the other end of this complex relationship are Dwelly and Grantham who carefully avoid turning into cute kid stereotypes. They are acutely aware of what they have lost but remember to cut their dad some slack as he discovers the weight of brand new emotional responsibilities.

As part of the recovery process, our central trio heads off to a cabin in the snowy mountains where Thompson’s character spent time as a child. A car accident along the icy roads gets their vacation off to a rocky start but they eventually end up at the cabin which is creepy in a deserted hunting lodge sort of way. Taxidermied animals, creaky doors, damp dark cellars…this place has it all. Cold, hungry and tired; the family agrees to try and make the best of their time in this uninviting location. Unfortunately for them, they may not be alone. At first, it’s just a quick shot of a face peeking in the window and some fleeting shadows in the woods. Soon, the intruders are in the house, ransacking rooms and pounding on doors. Our family may not know what’s going on but they certainly feel threatened. If this sounds like a simple home invasion, I assure you things will get a whole lot stranger before the truth comes to light.

I have to admit that I went into this film with fairly low expectations. After all, how much hope could one pin on a horror film from WWE Studios that doesn’t feature a single wrestler but gives us Eric McCormack like we’ve never seen him before? As it turns out my reservations were misplaced. Although the film clearly has some problems, none of them are related to the film’s lineage or its performances. As a matter of fact, I rather enjoyed the setup. The somber tone of the opening scenes established a mood that was ably supported by our 3 leads (McCormack, Dwelly and Grantham). I bought the idea of them as a fractured family trying to find some peace in the face of unimaginable loss. Even the first eerie occurrences pack a healthy dose of suspense. It’s nothing you haven’t seen before but the film is still effective at this stage.

The turning point comes when the family decides they have to barricade themselves in the house. Soon after he develops a pesky cough, McCormack’s character is roaming the halls like a sweaty maniac having random hallucinations in quick succession. These little fever dreams are handy for Currie since he gets to stage creepy little sequences without worrying about the complete lack of connective tissue between them. Why is the little girl stabbing a bowl of macaroni in the kitchen? Why is the boy floating in a bathtub full of water? Apparently, it doesn’t matter as long as you are distracted from the fact that the film has become stagnant. The overt reliance on these dream sequences demonstrates that when there is nothing tangible to hang on to, scares become a lot less effective.

At least Currie tries to save the final act by slathering on visual style in the form of defocused shots and canted angles. What he can’t save is the ending which is DOA. I won’t spoil it here but I assure you it is laughable. It is based on a shift in perspective that casts everything we’ve seen in a different light. When appropriately planned out and delivered, this sort of ending can be memorable. Here, it comes across as a cheap trick played upon the characters and the viewers. It’s not even substantial enough to register as having landed with a dull thud. It just hangs in the air, begging the question: “Is that all?”

THE DVD:

Video:
The anamorphic widescreen image is presented with sufficient clarity. Black levels are decent but a few of the darker shots are lacking in shadow detail. With that said, there aren’t any obtrusive visual defects at play here. A few directorial choices lead to soft defocused shots but they are fleeting. Altogether, this is a perfectly acceptable presentation for the material at hand.

Audio:
The audio is presented in English and Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround mixes with optional English, Spanish and French subtitles. The mix provides capable support to the forceful and effective soundtrack. All the creaky, eerie sound effects typical of a haunted house come through with clarity. Dialogue is also free of defects.

Extras:
A series of short featurettes take us behind the scenes of the film. Blueprint to Fear: The Cabin (4:54) gives us a tour inside the film’s central location. Elements of stage design are discussed by the cast and crew. Special attention is paid to distinctive elements of every single room in the cabin and how they impact the feel of the story. Next up, Whiteout (6:38) explores how the blizzards and snow effects were created for the film. This is a fairly interesting segment for anyone who ever wondered what the white stuff on screen was made of (who knew, there were 5 kinds of movie snow?).

Breaking Type: Eric McCormack (4:03) gives us some time with the actor as he covers what prompted his transition from humor to horror. Surprisingly, he was most interested in the fear engendered by parental inadequacies. The final featurette, Manning Park (5:25), takes us back outside so we can see how the film crew transformed this ski resort, a few hours from Vancouver, into a location worthy of filming the frantic exterior shots. We close things out with a Photo Gallery.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
After an engaging setup, Barricade slowly loses its way as the second half is handed over to a series of disconnected scares that culminate in a head-scratcher of a finale. This is unfortunate because Eric McCormack does a good job of breaking away from his comedic persona with support from the young but talented Conner Dwelly and Ryan Grantham. Their performances aren’t entirely wasted since the film does work in short bursts. It just isn’t the memorable sort that you’ll recommend to friends later on. With that said, I think there are just enough positive elements scattered throughout the film that one wouldn’t be ashamed to Rent It.

The Movie:
Action films can be hard to do well on limited budgets. Things like stunts, weapons, cars and effects cost money, and audiences can generally tell the cheap dodges from the quality material. Nevertheless, the producers of A Day of Violence manage to pull it off quite well, even though the film does have a few flaws.

Mitchell (Nick Rendell) is a regular guy, a tough who collects outstanding debts for the local mob. He may beat people up, and worse, to get them to pay back their loans, but he is hopelessly devoted to his wife Abbi (Tina Barnes) and step-daughter Holly (Bryony Mechan). His relationship with them sours, however, when an angry debtor rams Mitchell and Holly in the car, putting Holly into a coma.

Living on his own, and not doing very well, Mitchell thinks he’s finally found the answer to his prayers, and the funds to pay for the expensive experimental treatments to help Holly, when he discovers a cool hundred thousand in cash hidden in a bean bag by lowlife drug dealer Hopper (Giovanni Lombardo Radice). Stopping at nothing in his desire to heal both his step-daughter’s body and his relationship with his wife, Mitchell calmly slits Hopper’s throat and takes the money. The next day, he starts his new job as a collector for mob boss Boswell (Victor D. Thorn). Quickly, he is thrown into turmoil as his friend, and brief co-worker, Smithy (Steve Humphrey) is tortured and killed by Boswell for skimming funds, and Mitchell himself is sent to collect the very same one hundred thousand he stole from Hopper the day before. The money was Boswell’s, and he wants it back.

Of course, things go poorly for Mitchell and those around him from here on out. A brutal panoply of double crosses, deception, more torture, chases, gun battles, savage beatings and brawls make up the remainder of the film, as Mitchell tries to find some way to get out of his predicament yet keep the money. It isn’t easy, and a lot of people die along the way. But that’s what we like in our action movies. If it was a walk in the park, it wouldn’t be fun.

And A Day of Violence is fun, if one can get past the hyper-realistic and queasy stomach making blood and gore effects. The producers here really push the envelope, and show not only throat slits, beatings, and bullet hits, but a very realistic castration by garden shears with pretty close to a full on view. If one is not a fan of gore and ultra-violence, this is definitely a film to skip.

But there’s more going on here than mere gore. The story is pretty compelling too, though the multiple flashbacks are a bit cumbersome at times. One can understand and sympathize with most of the decisions that Mitchell makes, even if we find them repugnant. They make sense to his kind of person in his kind of situation. (Though some of the more horrible things he does make it more difficult to empathize or identify with him.) The front end of the film takes a while to get going, and has a few narrative stumbles, but the tension is maintained pretty well, and the third act is taut and thrilling.

The performances are somewhat haphazard. Rendell as Mitchell is natural and easy, quite believable throughout. Others, not so much. Victor D. Thorn as Boswell does quite well arguing with one of his henchmen in the car, or giving off a quiet air of bored menace, but there are a couple of scenes where he needs to really bring the crazy, and he can’t quite get to that level. Those two are the main highs and lows, and the rest of the cast are serviceable enough for what is required. They do their turns, with few frills, and get the job done. That’s a good metaphor for the film itself. It’s workmanlike, providing solid action thrills with not a lot of extras. The standout being the spectacularly well executed effects.

A Day of Violence is a good movie, if you can stomach it. Its small budget constrained it enough that it’s not a great movie, but it’s definitely worth a viewing. Recommended.

The DVD

Video:
The video is presented in 1.78:1 widescreen, and generally looks good, with a few minor issues. There is mild posterization throughout, which lends a feeling of grain to the image, even though it was shot in HD.

Sound:
Audio is Dolby digital 2 channel, and is also decent, with some minor flaws. On occasion it can be a bit difficult to make out the dialogue, and the lack of subtitles exacerbates this. No alternate language track is included.

Extras:
A number of extras are included. They are:

Making Of
It requires a certain amount of chutzpah to include a making of documentary that’s almost as long as the feature film it’s about, but that’s exactly what the producers of A Day of Violence did here. The making of clocks in at 1:18, and the feature at 1:34. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of interesting stuff here. It’s mostly director Darren Ward (and others) wandering around with a video camera doing ad hoc interviews with the cast and crew. A lot of material is covered, often focused on the blood and gore effects and how they were accomplished, but other topics as well, and it would be quite informative for those interested in low budget filmmaking.

Casting a Legend
The title is a bit of a play on words, as this five minute featurette details the effects team making a latex cast of Giovanni Lombardo Radice’s neck for his throat slitting scene. Radice is quite famous in horror circles for appearing in a number of quite violent Italian horror films in the eighties.

Deleted / Extended Scenes
Three scenes are included, for a total of almost seven minutes of footage, apparently cut for time.

Interview With Giovanni Lombardo Radice
This is an eight minute interview with Radice, discussing how he got involved with the film, and what the experience was like on set. Radice is a charming fellow, and quite engaging here.

Final Thoughts:
A Day of Violence is obviously not a film for everyone. In fact, outside of gore hounds and the like, most folks won’t find it at all appealing. Regardless, it is quite well done, considering its constraints, and offers up an hour and a half of action, thrills, pathos and redemption, of a sort. Check it out.

Virtually unrecognizable from its first few seasons, when The Lucy Show (1962-68) was about a Danfield, New York widow, Lucy Carmichael (Lucille Ball), sharing a big house with her two children, a divorced friend (Vivian Vance) and her son, the Official Sixth and Final Season finds Lucy a single if decidedly middle-aged, star-struck birdbrain ensconced in Southern California apartment and working for stingy, stuffy banker Theodore J. Mooney (Gale Gordon). What began as a slightly subtler, certainly more domesticated sitcom gradually gave way to “skit-com” slapstick, with The Lucy Show‘s final two seasons especially becoming a revolving door of big-name Hollywood guest stars.

Just as I Love Lucy was never quite the same the moment William Holden set Lucy Ricardo’s putty Pinocchio-like nose aflame, The Lucy Show “jumped the shark,” even earlier though, oddly, audiences not only didn’t seem to mind, a big ratings bump strongly suggested that’s how they loved Lucy best. Lucy’s wild-eyed obsession with Hollywood’s elite might have proved limiting for Ball’s team of writers, but audiences couldn’t get enough, so it seemed. In this, its final season, The Lucy Show garnered its highest ratings ever, ranking #2 among all primetime shows that season, and for which Ball was awarded her second consecutive Emmy Award, against much younger competition.

I didn’t much care for The Lucy Show in my youth, having endured it endlessly in reruns during the 1970s when television viewers had far fewer viewing options. Looking at it now, all these decades later, I’m more forgiving of its conceptual laziness and found myself enjoying watching guests stars like Jack Benny, Edie Adams, Joan Crawford, and Frankie Avalon clown for obviously appreciative studio audiences, and, by golly, I found myself laughing out loud a couple of times most episodes.

It helps that these Paramount/CBS video transfers are so good, and that they’re supported by a ton of extra features, all of it coordinated with the assistance of Ball’s image-conscious estate. (Thomas Watson, in tiny type, is credited as the DVD set’s executive producer. DVD labels should be less stingy giving credit where credit is due.)

The Lucy Show‘s seismic story shifts reflect its rather tumultuous history. Bob Carroll, Jr. and Madelyn (Pugh) Martin, veteran writers on I Love Lucy, left after the show after the second season, with like-minded scribes Bob Weiskopf and Bob Schiller, also of I Love Lucy, following soon after. Ball’s ex-husband (and savvy television producer) Desi Arnaz, was still one-half of Desilu when The Lucy Show began and by all accounts was a substantial part of its early success. When he left the company in 1963, Elliott Lewis and Jack Donohue took over in turn, but for the last season Ball’s famously less-talented current husband, stand-up comedian Gary Morton became The Lucy Show‘s executive producer, though probably Ball was really running the show.

It was a busy time for Desilu. During The Lucy Show‘s early seasons the company’s main source of revenue was renting out the many stages and backlot space Lucy and Desi purchased from RKO – two big lots in Hollywood and Culver City – bought back in the 1950s. But beginning in 1966 Desilu was producing two very expensive hour-long dramas: Star Trek and Mission: Impossible. At the time Star Trek wasn’t doing so hot ratings-wise, but Mission: Impossible was a huge critical and commercial hit, and Ball made the wise financial decision to sell Desilu to Gulf+Western, a conglomerate that had recently acquired Paramount Pictures, Desilu’s next-door neighbor on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.

In another amazing shrewd commercial decision, Ball ended The Lucy Show, reworking it as Here’s Lucy in order to retain ownership and control of the sitcom in which she’d star. Here’s Lucy ran another six years.

More than half of these Lucy Shows feature Hollywood stars, usually but not always playing themselves. “Lucy Meets the Berles,” the season opener, is a typical example, with Lucy moonlighting (as she illogically often did) as a secretary to Uncle Miltie, who’s taking a break from comedy in order to produce his first picture. He wants to cast a reluctant Ruta Lee and Lucy, overhearing her script reading over an intercom, mistakenly believes the two are having a torrid love affair. Though only mildly amusing, it’s nonetheless fun to watch Lucy and Berle playing to the studio audience, with Lee and Mrs. Berle almost breaking up on-camera a la The Carol Burnett Show.

Ball, ever the canny manager of her shows, had a standing agreement to trade off appearances with the biggest stars. For instance, after Carol Burnett appeared on The Lucy Show, Ball returned the favor by guesting on Burnett’s new comedy-variety series. Clearly, scripts were also tailor-made to stroke the egos of Hollywood royalty. That Lucy Carmichael made such a fuss (all, invariably, were her “all-time favorite”) helped, but the lengths the writers obviously went to lure big names is also sometimes hilarious and obvious.

In “Lucy and the Lost Star,” for example, Joan Crawford appears. In an opening scene, Crawford’s agent informs her that one particular studio is just dying to sign her, and for good money, too, because the public is just clamoring “for new Joan Crawford pictures!” In 1968? Shlockmeister producer Herman Cohen, maybe – but all of Hollywood?

That episode garnered a certain amount of infamy due to Crawford’s reported drunkenness during rehearsals, her feuding with Ball, and Ball’s unsuccessful attempts to replace her (with Gloria Swanson), but the final show, in which Ball and guest star Vivian Vance wrongly assuming the Great Star is destitute and try to reinvigorate her career, is legitimately funny on its own terms.

Besides regulars and semi-regulars like Mary Jane Croft, Mary Wickes, Doris Singleton, Lew Parker, and Roy Roberts, the star-studded guest star list this season also includes Jacques Bergerac, Frankie Avalon, Jack Benny, Dennis Day, Robert Goulet, Dick Shawn, Richard Arlen, Charles “Buddy” Rogers,” Vivian Vance (two episodes), Jackie Coogan, Edie Adams, Buddy Hackett, Phil Harris, Ken Berry, Ralph Story, and Sid Caesar. About half are “celebrity” shows. Barbara Babcock, Lucie Arnaz, and Gerald Mohr also make appearances.

Video & Audio

As with all (official) Lucy-related DVD releases, The Lucy Show – Official Sixth and Final Season looks splendid in its original full-frame format, strong color and sharpness throughout, with 24 episodes spread over four single-sided, dual layered DVDs. Episode titles with brief descriptions and airdates are offered as part of the packaging. The English-only mono, with optional SDH English subtitles, sounds great, too.

Extra Features

Supplements include an okay sketch with Ball, Tim Conway, and Carol Burnett from the latter’s comedy-variety series; a black and white clip from Ball’s Emmy Award win and her sincere acceptance speech; outtakes; costume sketches, vintage openings and closing (with sponsor spots, permission for which is duly noted); extensive production notes, less extensive cast bios, and photo galleries; and one episode, “Lucy Gets Her Diploma,” also offered in an Italian-dubbed version with Italian credits.

Parting Thoughts

Not really a classic of television comedy but for its guest stars, excellent home video transfers, mountain of extra features, and even for some of the comedy itself, The Lucy Show – Official Sixth and Final Season is Recommended.

Stuart Galbraith IV is a Kyoto-based film historian whose work includes film history books, DVD and Blu-ray audio commentaries and special features. Visit Stuart’s Cine Blogarama here.