Audio Commentary - Critiques and Parodies of The Audio Commentary

Critiques and Parodies of The Audio Commentary

The Audio Commentary has been a subject of discussion among filmmakers. Many directors see them as an unnecessary bonus feature, while others record "fake" commentaries, which may contain false information or inside jokes. Other filmmakers have parodied the commentary concept, as the following examples demonstrate.

• The Coen Brothers movie Blood Simple has a fake commentary written by the Coens and read by an actor posing as a film historian. This "historian" Kenneth Loring gives information about the production that almost everyone would recognize as being totally ludicrous. He claims for instance that one the opening scene was shot upside down with the actors saying their lines backwards and that some roles were reserved for Rosemary Clooney and Gene Kelly.
• In an episode of The Simpsons ("The Bart Wants What It Wants"), Bart is watching an Itchy & Scratchy DVD and decides to turn the commentary on. A small box appears at the corner of the screen, showing Scratchy ("We shot this at four in the morning, and the crew was getting a little cranky") and Itchy ("You can never get enough takes for Steven Soderbergh"); midway through Scratchy's next sentence, Itchy cuts off his head.
• Welsh comedian Rob Brydon starred in the ITV comedy show Director's Commentary (2004) in which he played a fictional director, Peter De Lane, and parodied the often conceited and pompous nature of directors when giving DVD commentaries by articulating his thoughts over archive footage. Although the show was well received, it did not sustain viewer interest, and as of 2006 only one six-episode season was produced.
• The book Speak, Commentary, by Jeff Alexander and Tom Bissell, collects a series of fake audio commentaries purportedly made by well-known American cultural critics and political pundits on popular science fiction and fantasy movies. The contents include Ann Coulter on Ridley Scott's Alien, as well as Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn on Peter Jackson's films of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring and The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

• The Adam and Joe Show parodied audio commentaries in a sketch which stated that audio commentaries often sound like "self indulgent wankers in a pub".

• Webtoon Homestar Runner has featured the characters of the H*R universe doing commentaries for many of their cartoons. Most notably The King of Town DVD, In Search of the Yello Dello and the music video for They Might Be Giants' "Experimental Film."

• Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy contains audio commentary where the actors end up discussing very little of the film's content.

• Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby features a commentary in which director Adam McKay fabricates nearly every piece of information about the film, such as the production's move to Brazil, the roles of Walker and Texas Ranger being played by robots, and that the original cut of the film was 9½ hours long and contained a segment of a stick of butter.

• Monty Python's The Meaning of Life features a fake commentary titled "Soundtrack for the Lonely: A Soundtrack for People Watching at Home Alone." It consists of a rather disgusting man played by Michael Palin who burps, yawns, farts, and talks under his breath while he watches the film at his flat. Throughout the commentary, he calls his friends (played by Terry Jones and Eric Idle) by telephone.

• The Hot Fuzz 3-disc collector's edition DVD includes a commentary featuring real policemen and a commentary in which director Edgar Wright and fellow filmmaker Quentin Tarantino discuss nearly 200 films and television series but barely make reference to Hot Fuzz.

• In an episode of the series King of the Hill, Bobby listens to the audio commentary of a fictional film. The film's director remarks that "the sky wasn't sad enough" for the scene.

• In the American Dad episode Bullocks to Stan, the fish character Klaus Heissler purposely begins to audibly give a commentary on the events of the episode; when Roger asks what he's doing, he says that he is acting as if the characters lives were on a DVD and he's the expert giving commentary on it. Near the end of the episode, his commentary can be heard over the events of the climactic fight between Stan and Bullock, despite the fact that Klaus is not present at this event like he is at previous events he comments on in the episode; he claims that the 'actor' playing the busboy was killed during the making of the episode, and at one point apologizes for talking over what he claims is the funniest line in the episode.