The SmarK DVD Rant for The Sarah Silverman Program – Season One
Sarah Silverman has become quite the hot comedienne as of late, which pretty much guaranteed that someone was going to give her a crack at a TV show. And when you’ve got an unproven, potty-mouthed commodity, call Comedy Central!
The show is a pretty simple concept — Sarah and her endless supply of baseball shirts live in California in an apartment paid for by her older sister Laura (played by her younger sister Laura), who dates a cop named by Jay (played by Mr. Show alumnus Jay Johnston), and she has a pair of gay neighbours named Brian and Steve who seem totally straight. Sarah is completely lazy and self-obsessed, to the point where she’s like a child living in an adult body, which is where much of the humor is derived from. And that’s really all you need to know.
All six of the first season episodes are presented on one disc, in broadcast order, as follows…
“Officer Jay”. We start with episode 2, as Sarah has a cold and gets whacked out on cough syrup, resulting in a really trippy dream and a crash into a playground. Thus we meet Officer Jay.
“Ma’am, do you know why I’m standing here?”
“Because you got all Cs in high school?”
Sarah gets arrested and Laura comes to get her, and thus begins the epic romance between Laura and Jay, and also begins Sarah’s quest to destroy Jay for taking her sister away from her. In the B story, Brian insists that he’s actually bisexual, but no one’s fooled, especially when he’s pasting pictures of Steve on top of lingerie models. Sarah’s awe-inspiring self-centered nature compels her to break up the date and rampage her way into jail, giving us “Get your head off my titties, bitch!” Brian and Steve’s catchphrase is established here as well, with “I’m totally gay for you, dude.” I can see why they chose this one first, because it sums the series in 20 minutes and it’s incredibly funny.
“Humanitarian of the Year” Sarah befriends a homeless man who she went to high school with, then gets jealous of Jay’s actual humanitarian efforts with the blind. (“I must be like the blind kids, because I don’t SEE what the big deal is.”) The taboo subject of queefing is raised here, as Fred the Homeless Guy was driven nuts by his, shall we say, noisy mother, which is what put him on the street. Sarah’s petty justification for not giving Fred any food is one of those jokes where it’s funny because she’s being so needlessly mean to him in the name of being good, and then you realize that her sister buys everything for her and it attains a whole other level of irony that’s even funnier. That’s good comedy writing. I have to also mention Brian wearing a Titannica shirt here, by the way, because Mr. Show is the shit and you should all run out and buy the DVDs. Brian takes karate lessons, but Steve still gets beaten up because he just has a face that people want to punch for some reason. The storylines converge when Fred inevitably goes nuts again after living with Sarah for a day and battles Brian in a karate brawl, until Sarah queefs to save the day. A great running joke with Sarah being haunted by Fred’s dead queefing mother is another Sarah trademark (“Can’t you see I’m on the PHONE?!”) as she’s annoyed rather than scared. Look for a cameo from another Mr Show regular, Tom “Spongebob Squarepants” Kenney, as a cop at the end. I will pimp that show until you buy the damn DVDs!
“Positively Negative” Sarah has the blah’s, so what better way to cheer herself up than to take an AIDS test? Her interview with the nurse might be the filthiest and funniest thing ever, as Sarah learns that unprotected sex is actually a bad thing, and getting blood transfusions in Haiti (“How long? I don’t know, I was doing a lot of heroin at the time…”) is dangerous. Plus this scene is badass for using “Blood Makes Noise” by Suzanne Vega. No one remembers that one. Sarah immediately concludes that she has AIDS, because her life is based on momentary judgments instead of thinking. And thus she overshadows Jay’s first ever birthday party, and sabotages it by spending $17,000 of Laura’s money on the Sarah Silverman AIDS Awareness Project, which is to make everyone aware of Sarah’s AIDS. As usual, Laura gets guilted into defending her sister, no matter how stupid she acts. And then the great lines start coming hot and heavy, with “If we can put a man on the moon, we can put a man with AIDS on the moon, and someday we can put everyone with AIDS on the moon!” and “If this is how AIDS make you treat people, then I hope I don’t have it!” Jay getting shafted again and AGAIN and yet meekly crawling back for more abuse shows how great Jay Johnston is, I think.
“Not Without My Daughter” Sarah’s alarm is set for 9:11, because it’s Sarah. So she’s obsessed with winning a beauty pageant, but the problem is that she’s 20 years too old for the Junior Miss Rainbow. So she adopts her own contender, whose name is also Sarah but who she renames “Heather” because “it’s easier that way.” The even more awesome B story sees Steve farting in Jay’s cop car as revenge for getting dropped off too soon, and a cell phone conversation about it results in a wacky misunderstanding with Homeland Security about a “sunrise surprise” for the police. Another Mr. Show sighting in the form of Scott Aukerman here. Sarah & Heather prove to be equally evil and self-centered (and oddly similar in their features) and Becky Thyre is a guest star as well. The Michael Bay-inspired moment with Heather singing “Amazing Grace” at the pageant while the bomb squad opens the cop car and discovers the “bomb” left there just about made me die with laughter the first time I saw it. Sarah’s completely oblivious story to Heather about how she got pregnant 10 years ago and had it aborted at 8 1/2 months, totally missing out on the obvious conclusion that even the 10 year old kid makes, is the show encapsulated in one brilliant joke. And then it ends with “Before we begin, I am legally obligated to ask — are we talking about a fart?” just to finish on one last awesome line.
“Muffin’ Man” Brian orders a cola and gets a TaB, and after Steve badgers him into trying it, he goes with the full on passive-aggressive reaction and starts a war of wills to show how much he loves TaB in all its forms. Sarah meets Jay’s lesbian cop partner Tig, and finds herself thinking about her. So she immediately decides that she’s a lesbian, and a militant one at that. Her come-on line (“When I say it, I mean tit, and when I say tit, I mean your tit.”) is one that I quote often. Just because. By the time we proceed to Steve & Brian packing up to move to the TaB bottling plant in Tennessee, Sarah has already moved through several stages of her “relationship” with Tig. And her big epiphany moment of course goes totally opposite to what it would in most other sitcoms. The TaB war is awesome, as is Sarah’s song about her lesbian self in the poetry bar (“Whether you’re gay or lesbian or white or black or Asian, but only those five groups.”), but it’s kind of an uneven episode.
“Batteries” So this is actually the original pilot, aired as the season finale. Sarah’s remote batteries die while she’s stuck on a dying kid telethon, and no one wants to watch that. But her trip to the corner store is blocked by a wheelchair marathon, or as she puts it, “some kind of anti-leg protest?” Her day gets worse when she gets involved in a fart contest over brunch and accidentally poops, and of course sings a song about it. This earns her a date with Black God, who she sleeps with and then dumps. And the store clerk, when she finally gets there, is HIRO! Holy crap! Sarah steals the batteries and the cops just can’t grasp that it’s not a black male. “People in wheelchairs are allowed to have marathons, which seems like cheating but what are you gonna say?” And I couldn’t finish the season without pointing out that Paul Tompkins from Mr. Show plays Jay’s original partner.
I should point out that not everyone will find this show funny. In fact, I’d wager that a great many people wouldn’t. It’s been criticized for relying too much on the conceit of cute and innocent Sarah saying things that no human being would say. However, unlike Drawn Together, there’s actually other layers to the humor. And I just think it’s a lot funnier overall.
The Extras
Good selection of stuff for a relatively low-key release. You get…
– Commentary from either Sarah & producers or Brian & Steve on 5 of the 6 episodes. The last one has no commentary, sadly. All the commentaries are upbeat and loose, obviously done by people who enjoy hanging out together.
– Karaoke sing-a-long with songs from the show, with or without vocals.
– Original pitch animatics for the opening credits.
– A series of short songs from Sarah at the Comedy Central Stage.
The Pulse
It’s cheap, it’s friggin’ hilarious, and it’s on the verge of becoming one of the next big things for Comedy Central, so why not pick it up before the second season starts? It’s not for everyone, but if you loved Mr. Show, it’s a no-brainer.
Highly recommended.
