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Wildboyz: Season 1
Paramount // Unrated // October 26, 2004
List Price: $29.99 [Buy now and save at Amazon]
DVD Talk Interview W/Steve-O of "Wildboyz"
The Movie:
One of the best shows that MTV has created, "Wildboyz" pairs former "Jackass" members Steve-O and Chris Pontius, sending them off into the world to explore various animal life. Essentially, imagine a real "Beavis and Butthead" crossed with something off the Discovery Channel. The first season of the series, which consists of eight episodes, has the duo heading off to South Africa, Alaska, Florida, New Zeland, Australia and Belize.
The show manages to be something completely unheard of on the channel: funny, entertaining and - just a little bit educational. While Chris Pontius and Steve-O admit to little knowledge ("Our research shows that the Tawny Frogmouth bird is one of the only animals that likes us") about the creatures that they run across (and the ones that run over them), the show occasionally brings on experts to discuss the creatures a bit and getting to see creatures in their native environment is always enjoyable. Occasionally, the two also learn about native cultures (such as during the Australian and New Zeland episodes), although it doesn't always go well - Pontius attempts to learn how to throw a boomerang, only to find out that he doesn't exactly have the skills to catch it yet.
As expected from a show featuring two former members of "Jackass", some of the bits are gross. Trying to "save the Salmon population", Chris takes a female Salmon and funnels eggs into Steve-O's mouth, then takes a male Salmon and funnels Salmon sperm into his co-stars mouth. Another bit has the two taking the droppings of Zebra-like animals Koodoo ("Koodoo doodoo") into their mouths and seeing how far they can spit it. The rest of the bits are funny (a little cat called a Jaguarundi jumps out of a bush and nearly takes Chris's head off, Steve-O hangs out with an anteater and spreads termites all over himself - when he realizes that termites actually bite and tries to get the anteater on him, the creature seems totally uninterested) or occasionally scary (Among other things, Chris tries to pet a wild jaguar, the two camp out and leave food all around their tent, inviting a bear in; the boys jump into the water with sharks, a cameraman gets attacked by a cheetah and Chris tries to grab a cookie off a rattlesnake's head.)
"Wildboyz" offers a lot of laughs and provides a good tour diary of the areas, as the show's cinematography is slicker and more beautiful than one might expect from a largely low-brow series. Hopefully, MTV will continue with the show.
Note: Language on the episodes is uncensored on the DVD.
The DVD
VIDEO: "Wildboyz" is presented in 1.78:1 non-anamorphic widescreen by Paramount. The picture quality was quite good, although there were some minor variations in quality due to the different kinds of video cameras occasionally employed in filming the series. Sharpness and detail are largely quite good, as the picture remained well-defined, for the most part. Some footage that appears to have been show with lower quality equipment (Beta Cam?) looks a tad softer, but not terribly so.
The picture occasionally shows some minor edge enhancement and slight traces of pixelation, but neither issue caused any real distraction. The elements used seemed to be in fine condition, with no wear or other concerns. The show's natural color palette looked bright and well-saturated, with no smearing or other faults.
SOUND: "Wildboyz" is presented in Dolby 2.0. Played back in Pro Logic II, the show's soundtrack meets expectations. Music has a nice spread across the front speakers, ambient sounds are clearly presented and dialogue remained easily heard and sounded natural.
EXTRAS: The DVD offers a commentary from stars Steve-O and Chris Pontius, along with executive producer Jeff Tremaine and cinematographer/co-creator Dimitry Elyashkevich. The four aren't particularly informative, but they do certainly seem to be having fun joking about what's going on on-screen and chat about some of the behind-the-scenes stories regarding working with the animals.
Jump to the second disc and you'll find the remainder of the supplemental features. The main draw here is two sets of additional footage: bonus footage and outtakes, both sections broken down by country. No time is available on the DVD for these sections, but each section offers approximately several minutes of footage. The outtakes and deleted footage offer some funny moments, but most of the bits were rightly taken out.
A moderately long "making of" documentary doesn't give much in the way of information about the production of the show, choosing instead to focus more on interviews with the two stars, who talk about some of their various experiences on the series.
The second disc also offers a "Wildboyz Encyclopedia", which offers more information on the animals encountered; a "bite list" for the two stars, bios and interviews for Steve-O and Chris Pontius, a photo gallery, promos for other MTV titles and two music videos from Turbonegro.
Final Thoughts: "Wildboyz" offers inspired chaos and hilarity as Steve-O and Chris Pontius hit various places worldwide in search of potentially dangerous animal encounters. Paramount's DVD edition offers very good audio/video quality, as well as a solid helping of supplements. Recommended.
The Movie:
One of the best shows that MTV has created, "Wildboyz" pairs former "Jackass" members Steve-O and Chris Pontius, sending them off into the world to explore various animal life. Essentially, imagine a real "Beavis and Butthead" crossed with something off the Discovery Channel. The first season of the series, which consists of eight episodes, has the duo heading off to South Africa, Alaska, Florida, New Zeland, Australia and Belize.
The show manages to be something completely unheard of on the channel: funny, entertaining and - just a little bit educational. While Chris Pontius and Steve-O admit to little knowledge ("Our research shows that the Tawny Frogmouth bird is one of the only animals that likes us") about the creatures that they run across (and the ones that run over them), the show occasionally brings on experts to discuss the creatures a bit and getting to see creatures in their native environment is always enjoyable. Occasionally, the two also learn about native cultures (such as during the Australian and New Zeland episodes), although it doesn't always go well - Pontius attempts to learn how to throw a boomerang, only to find out that he doesn't exactly have the skills to catch it yet.
As expected from a show featuring two former members of "Jackass", some of the bits are gross. Trying to "save the Salmon population", Chris takes a female Salmon and funnels eggs into Steve-O's mouth, then takes a male Salmon and funnels Salmon sperm into his co-stars mouth. Another bit has the two taking the droppings of Zebra-like animals Koodoo ("Koodoo doodoo") into their mouths and seeing how far they can spit it. The rest of the bits are funny (a little cat called a Jaguarundi jumps out of a bush and nearly takes Chris's head off, Steve-O hangs out with an anteater and spreads termites all over himself - when he realizes that termites actually bite and tries to get the anteater on him, the creature seems totally uninterested) or occasionally scary (Among other things, Chris tries to pet a wild jaguar, the two camp out and leave food all around their tent, inviting a bear in; the boys jump into the water with sharks, a cameraman gets attacked by a cheetah and Chris tries to grab a cookie off a rattlesnake's head.)
"Wildboyz" offers a lot of laughs and provides a good tour diary of the areas, as the show's cinematography is slicker and more beautiful than one might expect from a largely low-brow series. Hopefully, MTV will continue with the show.
Note: Language on the episodes is uncensored on the DVD.
The DVD
VIDEO: "Wildboyz" is presented in 1.78:1 non-anamorphic widescreen by Paramount. The picture quality was quite good, although there were some minor variations in quality due to the different kinds of video cameras occasionally employed in filming the series. Sharpness and detail are largely quite good, as the picture remained well-defined, for the most part. Some footage that appears to have been show with lower quality equipment (Beta Cam?) looks a tad softer, but not terribly so.
The picture occasionally shows some minor edge enhancement and slight traces of pixelation, but neither issue caused any real distraction. The elements used seemed to be in fine condition, with no wear or other concerns. The show's natural color palette looked bright and well-saturated, with no smearing or other faults.
SOUND: "Wildboyz" is presented in Dolby 2.0. Played back in Pro Logic II, the show's soundtrack meets expectations. Music has a nice spread across the front speakers, ambient sounds are clearly presented and dialogue remained easily heard and sounded natural.
EXTRAS: The DVD offers a commentary from stars Steve-O and Chris Pontius, along with executive producer Jeff Tremaine and cinematographer/co-creator Dimitry Elyashkevich. The four aren't particularly informative, but they do certainly seem to be having fun joking about what's going on on-screen and chat about some of the behind-the-scenes stories regarding working with the animals.
Jump to the second disc and you'll find the remainder of the supplemental features. The main draw here is two sets of additional footage: bonus footage and outtakes, both sections broken down by country. No time is available on the DVD for these sections, but each section offers approximately several minutes of footage. The outtakes and deleted footage offer some funny moments, but most of the bits were rightly taken out.
A moderately long "making of" documentary doesn't give much in the way of information about the production of the show, choosing instead to focus more on interviews with the two stars, who talk about some of their various experiences on the series.
The second disc also offers a "Wildboyz Encyclopedia", which offers more information on the animals encountered; a "bite list" for the two stars, bios and interviews for Steve-O and Chris Pontius, a photo gallery, promos for other MTV titles and two music videos from Turbonegro.
Final Thoughts: "Wildboyz" offers inspired chaos and hilarity as Steve-O and Chris Pontius hit various places worldwide in search of potentially dangerous animal encounters. Paramount's DVD edition offers very good audio/video quality, as well as a solid helping of supplements. Recommended.
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