The remarkable endurance of a Play-Doh man and his dog, Spot, being repeatedly maimed and tortured by Mr. Hand and Mr. Sluggo is celebrated in this recent three disc set from Lion's Gate. Originally starting off as short sketches on Saturday Night Live in the seventies, Mr. Bill has since become somewhat of a cultural icon in his own right and continues to be a recognizable and entertaining character to this day, thirty years since Walter Williams created him back in 1974.

Mr. Bill's Classics

This disc gives us, well, the classics. Those beloved skits from Saturday Night Live that started it all. Shot on 8mm, these shorts are the ones that introduced Mr. Bill to his audience in brief, two or three minute doses. Plenty of material is crammed in here and it's a total blast to relive such classic moments as Mr. Bill Goes To The Circus (the first of the shorts to air on SNL), Mr. Bill Goes Fishing, and my personal favorite, Mr. Bill Goes To Court where he's sued by Mr. Sluggo for no real reason at all and then justly convicted by a jury of Sluggo's and finally given the death penalty.

Mr. Bill Does Vegas

This half hour feature finds our illustrious friend heading to the city of sin to make an attempt at being a stand up comedian at The Improv. Being Mr. Bill, he needs all the help he can get and it arrives in the form of cameo appearances from The Smothers Brothers, Jenna Elfman, and of course, Wayne Newton. What visit to Las Vegas would be complete without a visit from Wayne Newton? Why, no visit. This is a fact that cannot be disputed. Had Wayne Newton been omitted from this program for some reason, we could not take it as seriously as we do.

Mr. Bill Christmas Special

In his first ever Christmas Special, Mr. Bill teams up with my personal favorite Saturday Night Live character, Father Guido Sarducci. Father Guido is having some issues finding Christmas dinner, and who better to help him out that everyone's favorite Play-Doh injury magnet? Witness Mr. Bill singing Christmas Carols, trimming his Christmas tree, drinking eggnog and reading the classic novel, A Christmas Carol.

While taking in all of this material in one sitting can become mind numbing and quickly heads into overkill country, in small doses the skits are just as funny today as they were the first time I saw them and it's certainly nice to have the option of watching as many of as few of them as you want at your own pace rather than hope to catch them on re-runs of Saturday Night Live.

Video:

Since the majority of this material was shot on 8mm, there's obviously going to be some deficiencies inherent in the source material but aside from some heavy grain and some scratches and print damage here and there (far more noticeable in the older material than in the newer pieces) it all looks pretty good. The picture is consistently crystal clear and there aren't any compression issues worth noting. It's not perfect, and it never will be, but it does look far better than I had figured it would before I took a look at it.