Directed by:
Star Price
Starring:
Penn Jillette …. Himself
Teller …. Himself
Studio: Showtime Entertainment.
Release Date: October 3, 2006.
Number of Discs: 9.
Number of Episodes: 36.
Running Time: 1140 minutes.
MSRP: $89.98.
Available at Amazon.com
Penn & Teller are often cited as saying how their hero, Harry Hudini, was the inspiration for not only their act but for Bullshit! as well. During his later years, Hudini spent a lot of his time disproving things that many people were made to believe as fact. The sudden change was based largely from him wanting to prove that people can’t communicate with the dead, which was started because of the passing of his own mother. From there he would spend his final years going around looking for common misconceptions and revealing them to the public.
Bullshit! is very much in the vein of what Hudini was trying to achieve.
Believe it or not, it’s actually safer to call people assholes or scumbags on TV than it is to call them liars, thieves, scam artists, quacks, or swindlers. Isn’t our legal system grand? And since our two hosts are more interested in keeping the show going – and keeping their bank accounts safe – by simply using obscenities to get their message across Penn & Teller can make their views clear without fear of legal repercussions. And since it’s on pay cable, it’s nice to see a show take full advantage of the whole “free speech” thing.
Season One:
The guys hold nothing back in the fact that they have their own side of an opinion that they feel needs to be brought to light, the show IS called Bullshit after all. Season one is hands down the best season of the set. All thirteen episodes are poignant pieces with well thought out opinions on the matter at hand with iron clad proof and facts to back them up.
One thing this season takes serious aim at is all the swindlers who take advantage of the easily persuaded or emotionally fragile. They especially take up the same stance as Hudini when it comes to people who pretend to talk with the dead and tamper with the last thing people have of their loved ones – memories. Another thing they take serious are alternative medicines, practices that proclaim themselves as helpful and scientific but are just another way of separating people from their money. The ones that sometimes take advantage of the legitimately ill, who could be receiving actual medication to help their illness and possibly save their lives.
The hosts also enjoy to take shots at all the the “End of the world” theorists. Mainly trying to get the point across that for centuries people have been predicting the end of days, and every single one of them have been wrong. Why start believing people who rant and rave about it now? The episode on environmental hysteria shows nature conservative that seem to enjoy hopping on to causes just for the sake of it, and that most of time they’re uninformed about the stances they so adamantly rally for or against.
The best show of the season is centered around creationism. Now Penn & Teller don’t out and out attack people who believe that god created man, they’re just against the belief of it being pushed in to public schools and being talked about as fact. There’s a difference between believing in faith and pushing your beliefs on others, that’s what is mainly being talked about here. Another one that’s worth noting is the episode for bottled water and Feng Shui, in which we learn that some times getting a glass of water from the tap is actually cleaner then going out and buying a bottle of H2O. Or that Feng Shui, which touts itself as a science, is no different than hiring an interior decorator to move your furniture around.
Also talked about in this season are Ouija boards, diet pills, hypnosis, products that claim to make your penis or breasts larger, Self-Help, ESP, second hand smoke, and alien abductions. The reason there are so many topics at hand here is mainly due to most of the shows combining two topics that are connected and making each episode more “theme” oriented. It certainly helps them out by not having to drag out a topic for a full thirty minutes that could easily be covered in half the time.
Score: 10/10
Season Two:
The second season is just as enlightening as the shows freshman season, however there tend to be a small detraction in terms of how the guys choose to state their stance on why something should be questioned. Instead of making sure their view is 100% backed up, they instead choose to mock their interviewees while they’re talking. Causing some poor pacing where the show slows down just for a laugh or two instead of getting their views across.
This one starts off with a look at PETA, an organization that many look at as nothing more than a rallying group who hate seeing animal cruelty. But they show us the dark side of this group that is very disturbing. We see them as violent and malicious people that support people who commit acts of violence on organizations that treat animals poorly. Their episode that debunks the efficiency of recycling is especially eye opening. Here we learn that it actually costs more to recycle goods than to just make new ones. And that the service is mainly still in use for tax purposes.
Perhaps the shows two biggest episodes are “Death Inc.” and “The Bible: Fact or Fiction”. The first shows us funeral homes taking advantage of the bereft, forcing top of the line products (read: most expensive) on their customers at their most weakest. The second reveals many stories from the Bible as complete works of fiction by using simple science. They talk about validity – and plausibility – of such things as Noah’s Ark, the parting of the Red Sea, and even the existence of Jesus. Oh you can bet they got letters for this episode.
Every episode is used to its full potential and all thirteen seem to have real meaning to the creators. And their passions show through here. Other topics talked about this season are the war on drugs, the twelve step program, the worlds sudden safety hysteria, people looking for love through speed dating and online services, America’s sudden rally against profanity, tarot cards, and lastly people trying to find the cure for staying young.
Score: 9.5/10
Season Three:
Season three is a huge drop in quality as far as this show is concerned. It tends to favor theatrics and simple comedy on matters nowhere near as involving as the seasons before it. Getting caught up with the punch lines, forgetting to fully form their opinion on the matters at hand and making the time spent watching the episodes feel less validated. There are still a handful of episodes here that hold on to what made this show great to begin with. But most of the time the episodes feel like they’re only here because the duo ran out of critically important topics to rip apart and needed to fill thirteen half hour episodes with whatever they could.
Anyway, the best offerings from this season include a look at endangered species and how people are interfering with natural selection. The episode shows how the endangered species act is largely over blown, and talk about the current laws surrounding it that tends to actually favor our government more than the animals. An episode surrounding conspiracy theories disproves many of the beliefs about the JFK assassination, the moon landing, 9/11 and many other famous cases that have cause people to look for extraordinary answers to make up for the simple facts they can’t accept. “Signs From Heaven” covers the simple explanation for finding such things as the virgin Mary on your grilled cheese sandwich. While “Holier Than Thou” is perhaps the shows most controversial topic of the whole season, here Penn and Teller do some serious deep research on religious figures like Ghandi and Mother Teresa. Bringing to light some very unsavory things from their past.
But when they miss, they really miss. Episodes about things like life coaching, the necessity of college, worrying about big brother, the nations obsession with hair, and being “the best” at what we do and own. But in these episodes, it never feels like the guy fully support what they’re saying. And most of these end with viewers walking away just as (or more) confused then when they started watching. They lack that hard hitting investigation found in season past.
Score: 7/10
Penn and Teller don’t try to hide their bias during the show, by simply watching a few episodes you begin to realize that at times the interviews are edited in a way to favor their personal opinion. Now granted, most of the time this method is done simply to get the show at the correct runtime, and edit it down to the bare essentials they need to get a point across. But it’s hard to watch and not think there are personal agendas at work some times. The key phrase in that sentence is “some times” the other times are simply the interviewees sticking their own foot in their mouths. Which tends to be a lot.
The series does at time feel heavy handed towards the later season. Now, I say this as someone who 99% of the time agrees with what the two hosts are trying to say. But that doesn’t make watching it any more enjoyable, how is hearing that your own views are validated not going to get tedious after a while? Eventually it just becomes a “yeah, I know… get on with it!” experience that can feel a bit time consuming.
Penn & Teller: Bullshit! is a show that can help allow you to think outside the box, or atleast get you so riled up it has you talking (or yelling) at your television set. If your watching it in a group, enough facts are presented where it will entice a well informed conversation. And that’s what the show aims to do, get people talking and perhaps get them to see something for what it really is. Instead of what they’ve been made to believe all these years.
Video:
(Presented in 1.33:1 Fullscreen)
The show is presented in its original fullscreen presentation and all the episodes are shown exactly as they were when they first aired. The video quality tends to differ depending on the locations, cameras, and footage used. All of the in studio footage looks pristine, and as would be expected, looks far greater than the material shot outdoors or in an office building somewhere.
Audio:
(English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, 2.0 Stereo and Spanish Mono)
This isn’t a Michael Bay film, so the show has little need for the 5.1 track and it’s never used to any noticeable degree that differs from the 2.0 one. Still, the sound doesn’t hurt either way with both English tracks making the show clearly audible with no hissing or any other types of digital or compressions errors.
Extras:
The first season is packed with bonus material. But since it was released back in 2004, it feels a bit pointless to go in to great detail on what’s included. First up we have Junkyard Ghost (14:13) which is in many ways a mini episode that looks at a supposed haunting at a car impound lot, it’s in a rough cut with a place holder audio track which doesn’t quite hold the same humor as when Penn does the final voice over. Next up is a James Randi Interview with Penn & Teller (18:15) here Penn and James talk about how people can be so gullible, and how the people who commit the crimes should be criticized, not the victims. They also discuss the difference between skepticism and cynicism. More Bullshit! (27:34) and Bullshitting Around (10:10) are deleted scenes and outtakes that are highly enjoyable, there are around 30 in all. Behind the Scenes (6:27) is nothing more than someone taping the show while its recording on a standard handheld camcorder, nothing of interest happens here. Wraparounds (6:24) are interesting, here we see the recording of the show with different spins on the lines of dialogue, and Teller doing some hilarious physical comedy. Also found on the DVD set are a Naked Promo (:18) which is exactly what it sounds like, Penn & Teller Bio!, Trailers (The Boys of 2nd Street Park, A Woman’s a Helluva Thing, Rio: Go Wild), and Weblinks.
Seasons two and three are as bare as TV sets come, the only things you’ll find on each are Filmographies, Trailers and a Photo Gallery. Boo!
