The Series:

So, who or what is The Upright Citizens Brigade? The basic premise is that it's a group of four individuals - Antoine (Ian Roberts, the literal doctor from Arrested Development), Colby (future Saturday Night Live star Amy Poehler), Trotter (Todd Phillip's regular, Matt Walsh) and Adair (Matt Besser) - whose soul purpose is to keep the entire Earth under surveillance and to do what they can to destabilize society. That is, if the introductory voice over to the series of the same name is to be believed. The reality is that, as far as the series is concerned, the whole 'surveillance' thing exists really as just a way to zoom in on completely random events in the form of some truly bizarre sketch comedy bits. So the basic skeleton on which the random skits are hung is that the UCB are watching us and sometimes interfering with us in order to cause chaos and wreak havoc across the land. This fairly wide reaching premise allows the writers to really go nuts with their ideas, as there's really nothing outside of the UCB's reach - as such, the show is ripe with comedy gold! The series ran for only three seasons on Comedy Central but it's retained a solid cult following ever since thanks to the magic of DVD.

The first season of The Upright Citizens Brigade contains ten episodes spread across two DVDs as follows:

DISC ONE

The Bucket Of Truth: A husband and wife are interested in buying a fancy new house. They wind up buying it because it comes with a 'hot chicks room' (which is just that - a room full of hot chicks) and a bucket of truth. Meanwhile their girl-scout daughter has gone missing. It seems she's made friends with the Unabomber who is in fact a very effeminate gay man. A rogue cop dealing with his dead wife is on the case, but he keeps being thwarted by Bong Boy, a strange stoner who appears any time danger is eminent.

Poo Stick: The latest trend in self defence is the poo stick - a branch with a dog turd stuck on the end. A wannabe actor takes a job that he thinks will be an independent version of 'Cats' and winds up delivering balloons in a cat suit only to be continually menaced by a crazy lady with one of the poo sticks. Meanwhile a Disney executive finds out he isn't as good at writing songs as they men he pays and a man who works at a video store has to deal with a moron who claims to have appeared in and delivered titular lines in both Star Wars and Out Of Africa.

Saigon Suicide Show: Shot in a theater in front of a live audience, this episode finds the members of the UCB hosting an appearance from the Saigon Suicide Squad in hopes that exposing the audience to another culture will help end racial prejudice. When the Saigon Suicide Squad doesn't show up, the Hong Kong Danger Due tries to talk the UCB into letting them take their place on stage. Meanwhile, the audience learns about how prejudice can affect Jews, drunken Irishmen who pee their pants, and astronauts.

Power Marketing: When the UCB fails in forcing Alan Greenspan to change the national currency to leaves, they take other measures and we learn about a golfing man and his plan to always have the upper hand over his competition by way of 'ass pennies.' A crowd gathers to attend a 'power marketing' seminar where a man who used to weigh 500lbs and do his dishes in the bathtub is now a successful businessman with a foxy wife and a boat thanks to his new brain. Meanwhile, the concept of hyper-minimalist architecture is explored.

Children's Revolution: A bus driver with a mammoth ass uses her proportions to keep the kids on her bus inline. Unfortunately, she's cruel and the nerdy kid (whose father was also terrorized by her) has had enough and decides to learn how to kick ass. Meanwhile, a pair of teamsters give some grade-school children an all too realistic puppet show and a couple has to learn to deal with their son Daniel, who can only says 'shut up.'

DISC TWO

The Story Of The Toad: A couple rehearsing for their upcoming wedding deal with a quirky flower girl who just can't seem to concentrate on her duties until tough love is employed. Meanwhile a man takes his new 'girlfriend' (who looks like a man) to dinner at the home of another couple where they learn the truth about why the woman is in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. Finishing off the episode, the UCB appear in a park to demonstrate the merits of uncommon backrub techniques.

The Lady Of The Lake: A frat boy out fishing for the day pulls in the Lady of the Lake and takes her back to his van for a good time. When she won't stop emerging from things he grows tired of her but she's fallen for him and keeps appearing at inopportune times. Meanwhile a Spanish student is taken advantage of by a girl who only wants to use him to do her homework, a man finds his new job making salads in a restaurant is more dangerous than he thought, and a candy called Tik-Tik's soon becomes the rage.

Time Machine: This episode is all over the place, dealing with the reality of human clones and how they relate (or don't) to Albert Einstein's chronic self-pleasure phase. While this is going on, two couples head out for Chinese food and play a dorky game with their fortune cookies while a Jewish man realizes that as long as he does it through a hole in a white sheet that nothing he does is actually a sin. To top things off, a man who owns a time machine hosts a party, and one merry maker decides to try it out only to wake up in a leather outfit every time he lands somewhere.

Cyborgs: As if the Upright Citizens Brigade's decision to use cyborgs to make their way undetected through the dregs of society, we also lay witness to a strange board meeting called to figure out which member stole from the corporations funds. When a kid drinks a gallon of Bug Juice a camp counselor is forced to torture himself in order to coax the guilty party to confess while a woman who hangs out at a coffee shop hopes to draw attention to herself but not letting anyone get even a peek at her diary. To finish things off, we see how the airlines prepare their pilots to crash and burn.

The Little Donny Foundation: Done as a fake documentary, this episode focuses in on Little Donny, a young boy who suffers from a unique medical condition called Magnimus Oblivio Phallucitis which is where the afflicted has a giant schlong but is unaware that their endowment is unusual. Through the magic of television we meet Donny and his family, learn how they cope, and just maybe we'll learn something about the disease along the way.

While not every single sketch is a hit, more often than not the series proves to be extremely clever and subversive enough to remain unpredictable and fresh from episode to episode. So many of the gags come completely out of left field that you can't help but be caught by surprise if you're seeing this material for the first time. What's also interesting about the series is how the stories and skits intertwine with one another throughout any given episode. It helps provide a beginning, middle and end to the shows and as such a sort of strange context is provided for a lot of the more random moments. Throw in some random pop-culture references (Chumbawumba!) and a few well placed political jabs (the bit with Greenspan is hilarious) and you've got a show that falls somewhere roughly half way in between The Kids In The Hall and Monty Python's Flying Circus.

Video:

Aside from a little bit of aliasing and some line shimmering in certain scenes, the episodes contained in this set all look pretty good. There aren't any issues with print damage or mpeg compression artifacts to complain about nor is there really much to be concerned about in regards to edge enhancement. Some skits look better than others simply because they were shot in a studio as opposed to out on the street under less than ideal conditions but overall, things look pretty solid across the board with this release.