Another of Saturday Night Live's regulars gets a compilation of his own in Saturday Night Live: The Best of Chris Farley. This collection contains some of Farley's most famous (and funniest) skits. One of the best is a composite of pieces from "The Chris Farley Show" with Farley as the incompetent host interviewing various celebrities. ("That was awesome!") We also get the highly amusing "sports fans" skit that made a catch-phrase out of "The Bears..."

Another very funny piece is Farley as the "motivational speaker"... it goes on a bit longer than it really needs to, but it's sure to crack up anybody who's ever suffered through a bad guest speaker, especially those awful "don't use drugs!" speakers that seemed to be all the rage to bring to high schools. Other highlights include an absolutely hilarious mock advertisement for cold medicine, and a skit in which Farley's yokel character appears in a Japanese game show (with Mike Myers as the Japanese host!).

The quality is a bit uneven, , with other pieces falling a bit flat. I didn't particularly care for the "Chippendales" skit, in which Farley's sole joke seemed to be "Hey, I'm disgustingly fat and I'm exposing my body!" Another lackluster sequence is a montage of clips from various unrelated skits, with each brief clip involving Farley falling and breaking something, or being shoved around somehow. Overall, though, the funny material balances out the weaker segments, so that The Best of Chris Farley ends up being reasonably entertaining.

I was disappointed to see two duplicate skits from the Best of Adam Sandler collection; in a 61-minute collection, did they really need to repeat material that's found in another currently in-print collection? This is only the second SNL best-of collection that I've seen, so I can't say whether this is an isolated repeat or part of a trend, but I do think it's unfortunate to get any repeated material at all.

The DVD

Video

Saturday Night Live: The Best of Chris Farley is presented in its original 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The image quality is reasonably good, with colors looking acceptable and the print appearing clean. The image is not particularly sharp, but for a transfer of a television program it's satisfactory.

Audio

The Dolby 2.0 soundtrack is also satisfactory, with the performers' dialogue always clear and understandable.

Extras

A little over 15 minutes of bonus material is included on the DVD. We get a skit that appeared in the dress rehearsal of SNL but was cut for the final broadcast; at two minutes, it's funny at first but soon drags on too long. Another section of "outtakes" is about three minutes of clips from various SNL skits in which something or other goes wrong (usually involving one of the actors cracking up, or a wig falling off...). Finally, we get two segments that show Chris Farley as a television guest: for Conan (6 minutes) and Leno (5 minutes); I didn't find these particularly funny, but fans of Farley may appreciate them. Lastly, we get a photo gallery and a "family album" of pictures of Farley as a kid.

Final thoughts

As a light-weight piece of entertainment, The Best of Chris Farley isn't bad; Saturday Night Live fans will enjoy having this collection of skits. Given the fairly short running time (61 minutes), it's not worth spending a lot of money on, but it's a good choice if it's on sale. Recommended.