Reviewer's Bias*
Loves: Good hidden-camera comedy
Likes: The Just for Laughs festival, seeing people's true selves
Dislikes: Cheesy gags, silent comedy
Hates: Hammy acting

The Show
Just for Laughs is one of, if not the biggest comedy festivals in the world, and a draw for the biggest names in laugh-making. At one point, National Lampoon was pretty big in comedy too. But then, they slapped their name on everything that passed their way, and quickly became a brand name for mediocre or even awful comedy. If Just for Laughs keeps putting out shows like "Just for Laughs Gags," they will be able to give National Lampoon plenty of competition for their surely-unwanted title.

The show is your standard hidden-camera show, as a cast of actors set up a variety of unusual public situations for people to wander into, and then catches their reactions. The situations include simple tricks like placing two cones on a path and pretending they are connected by an invisible wire, to see if people will try to avoid tripping, and more complex set-ups like a old woman lifting a car or a living scarecrow grabbing passers-by. Most of what they do though involves making people uncomfortable to see how they will handle themselves. It's a classic format, but one that continues to work, since a hidden camera is one of the few eyes that will actually catch people being real. Evenmore so than documentaries, hidden-camera TV is the only true reality TV.

Unfortunately, there's nothing all that great about what the cameras catch, since many of the situations are somewhat blah, like an uncontrollable water hose, a skirt caught in a car door, or a remote control that doesn't work. Occasionally, the gags are brilliant through, like a woman losing a hat and slipping on another, just before a kind person catches up to her with the hat she had apparently lost. It's the simpler gags that make people question what they just saw that work best, but unfortunately, there's too few of those types of jokes included. There also could be more of the "saucier" gags included, like seeing people react to a priest and a nun making out next to a building, or a woman who gooses people helping her with directions, using a hidden third hand. There's something about the addition of sexuality to the mix that makes the reactions all the more amusing.

What works against all the material is the format, which is done without words. As a result, the show is incredibly accessible, obviously, but acting without words requires very broad facial and physical behavior, which makes it all seem veryham bone . So every time the actors introduce a segment, they do so with the most awful mugging to the camera, which makes it hard to enjoy. Also hurting the show, thanks to the lack of language, is the lack of reveals, which is a key part of any hidden-camera gag. Hearing how the person feels once they find out they've been fooled is the punctuation mark of the whole thing, and here, all you get is a smile or a wave. Without the spoken thoughts of the "victim," it's as if the gag is incomplete.

There's a definite dark side to all of this fun and frivolity, and that's the seemingly natural instinct of people to just look away if something unusual is happening, even if it's possibly harming someone. One bit, in which a postal truck driven by a child opens to reveal several more kids who grab an old man, force him into the truck and drive away, usually results in nervous laughter on the part of bystanders. Only a few show any caring (writing down a license plate, for example), when that could have been the last anyone's seen of him. I guess, it's part of taking the bad with the good, as seeing people's honest reactions will reveal things we'd rather not see. On the other hand, the willingness shown toward helping strangers is refreshing, even if they are being taken for fools.

The DVD
Packed in a standard keepcase, you get two volumes, or six episodes, of "Just for Laughs Gags" on this DVD, which features a static full-frame main menu, with options to watch individual volumes, individual episodes or everything at once. There are no audio options, no subtitles and no closed captioning.

The Quality
The full-frame transfers look nice, with appropriate color, a relatively high level of detail and no noticeable issues with dirt, damage or digital artifacts. The only issues would possibly be the minor pixelation along hard edges when the video is frozen. Otherwise, it's a crisp, attractive image throughout.

The audio is very plain in its Dolby Digital 2.0 presentation, which is to be expected, as there's no real dialogue, and the music is, for the most part, rather low-key, like the kind you'd hear from a piano in a movie house, in the days before "talkies."

The Extras
Joke's on us... there are no extras to be found here.

The Bottom Line
Apparently people like the silly gags produced by Just for Laughs, as the show has lasted a while, and now it's come to America, but in watching this DVD, I just don't see the attraction. Sure, there are some pretty funny moments here and there, but overall, it's got a cheesy feel and the majority of the gags just don't pay off greatly, thanks in large part due to the lack of dialogue. The disc itself looks and sounds good, for what it is, but there are no extras to be found, so the DVD lives and dies on the strength of the six episodes. Unfortunately, the strongest moments don't overcome the weakness of the rest.

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*The Reviewer's Bias section is an attempt to help readers use the review to its best effect. By knowing where the reviewer's biases lie on the film's subject matter, one can read the review with the right mindset.