The History Channel does a good job of presenting some of the intriguing stories of the past, and they have a pretty good lineup of shows.  There are only so many documentaries on the civil war or tank battles in WWII that one can watch however, so they wisely pepper their schedule with other topics too.   One of their more unusual shows is Weird U.S.  An outgrowth of the zine Weird New Jersey that hosts Mark Moran and Mark Sceurman have been publishing for a decade and a half, this show looks at some of the more usual and strange people, places, and events in US history.

This first volume presents two episodes of the show.  Strange but True and Road to Weirdsville.  (For a look at the other DVDs that have been released check out Adam Tyner's reviews of volumes two and three.) In the first the Marks look at a case of crime and punishment that occurred in NJ in the 1830's.  French Immigrant Antoine Le Blanc had only been in the US for two weeks when he brutally murdered the family, and their servant, that had employed him on their farm.  Arrested, tried and found guilty, Le Blanc was sentenced to be hanged and then dissected by a local physician.  For reasons that are never explained, after the doctor had finished his work, Antoine's skin was made into wallets.  Mark and Mark go looking for one of these gruesome artifacts from the past, and eventually find it.

They then travel to Tennesee to search out Melungeons; people with a mixture of North European, American Indian, and African blood that may have predated Europeans in America.  After that they discover some abandoned nuclear missile silos, and then go down to Florida where they find the winter home and retirement community for circus sideshow acts.

The Road to Weirdsville starts out in a pre-Katrina New Orleans where the hosts, ironically it turns out, view the above ground cemeteries and then buy a charm from a Voodoo priest.  Hitting the road again, they take a tour of the White House.  Not the one in Washington DC though, the exact miniature replica that a man in Florida has spent his life building.

Coney Island is their next port of call as they check out some of the sideshow acts that are still running there today, as well as looking at the amusement park's history.  Then they end up in Las Vegas for an annual convention of ventriloquists.

While the hosts like to go on about how everything that they showcase is very weird, I didn't really find it so.  The first story about Antoine Le Blanc was very good and strange, but a lot of the other segments were just so-so.  Is anyone really surprised that there are ventriloquists in the US, or that they'd gather in Las Vegas?  The fact that there are abandoned missile silos isn't that unusual either.

I did enjoy the stories about people though.  The guy who built the miniature White House was an interesting character, and I liked the interview with the retired sideshow hawker.  These were fun to watch, mainly because it was evident that these people really had a passion for what they did.

The hosts, Mark and Mark, aren't really that entertaining.  They are a little stiff in front of the camera, and the segue segments are a bit hokey and too scripted.  They are more fun when the camera catches them honestly reacting to what they see instead of trying to stay on a script.   One thing that is in their favor is that they rarely make fun of the people they are talking to.  The times when they do are rare and it's not too overt.

This DVD has two episodes, which run about an hour and a half all together, in a standard keepcase.

Audio:

The stereo soundtrack is about average for a TV show.  There isn't any distortion or dropouts, but there isn't a lot that will impress either.  A standard audio track that fits the show well.  There are no subtitles.

Video:

The full frame video was also okay but unimpressive.  The colors were a little too strong which caused some details to be lost, and there was some EE applied to the picture that will be noticable on larger screens.  There is a bit of aliasing too, but this isn't a major problem.  DVDTalk reviewer Adam Tyner noted "a thin black bar with white dashes that buzz throughout the entire length of each episode" on volumes two and three, but I didn't see this on my set-up.

Extras:

Disappointingly, there are no extras.  Outtakes would have been nice, as would excerpts from other shows or a commentary.

Final Thoughts:

This was an interesting show, but not a strange or weird as I was hoping for.  It was more "huh, imagine that" weird than Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas weird.  Still a program that's worth watching even if some of the segments don't work as well as they should.  I can't see a lot of replay value in this disc, but it would make a good rental.