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STUDIO: Turner Home Entertainment
MSRP: $29.98
RATED: Not Rated
RUNNING TIME: 230 min
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Featurettes
- Interviews
- Bonus Clips
The Pitch
Georgia’s Northern Lands sport some racist wildlife.
The Humans
Unknown Hinson, Dana Snyder, Daniel McDevitt and Todd Hanson
The Nutshell
Early Cuyler tries to do right by his clan. But, his boy Rusty doesn’t have the sense to be a manly squid. Plus, he keeps coming with hair-brained schemes that either end with him in jail or half-dead. The show works as a loose satire at the bottom rung of society that makes up the asshole of true Hillbilly country. If that wasn’t enough, David Allen Coe and other celebs show from time to time.
Introducing the Cronenberg aquatic handbag.
The Lowdown
When Adult Swim first announced this series, I wasn’t impressed. When the show was first announced, it was followed by a rather lengthy delay. This lead to the suckitude of Perfect Hair Forever dominating the late-night Animation arena. The first season had its hits and misses. But, you had Charles Napier voicing the local sheriff. Charles Napier makes any show better. Sadly, Napier decided to move onto greener pastures before the start of this season.
Early Cuyler is a racist squid. Some might guffaw at his antics or look down upon the group of people that Early is meant to satirize. Honestly, I just find the little squid to be hilarious. I’ve heard my fair share of insane redneck rambling in my day, but Early is the pinnacle of that insanity. Taking cues from show creator Dave Willis’ background in Northern Georgia. Many jokes are made about Sonny Purdue, the Bulldogs and the redneck vacation destination of Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
This is what happens when you let your 13 year old son drop out of school to hustle the autistic man-child video game players.
The show works well with the Adult Swim 11 minutes of content block. The jokes never have a chance to get stale and you squeeze enough of the absurdist plots. How long can you push stories about sentient K-Pros, God Squids or David Allen Coe? Some people won’t get the humor, but that’s to be expected. The show doesn’t really try to knock the humor out of the park. They want to drag you into the depths of the characters’ lives.
The second season also sports some great songs. Unknown Hinson voices Early Cuyler and he’s got a decent comedy career outside of the show. But, the sheer insanity of some of his hymns are meant to be heard. If you somehow miss them during the show, they also serve as background noise on the disc menus. The show’s getting ready to return with a fourth season in May. If I had to recommend a place to start with the show, I’d suggest picking up the last half of Season 1 and then migrating to this season. Squidbillies had a rather rough start, but it does get better.
Squidbillies comes to DVD with a rather packed second volume. You get a ton of featurettes that range from audio looping sessions with former University of Georgia football announcers to David Allen Coe demanding what color sneakers his animated doppleganger should wear. The A/V Quality is similar to most Adult Swim DVDs. You get Dolby 2.0 Surround that does a decent job of creating the soundstage of the North Georgia Squid Mountains. The visuals seem to really pop, which is a surprise after seeing the show on broadcast television.
Do what the Lord commands.
The Package
Featurettes –
The second disc is stuffed to the gills with featurettes. You watch the showrunners talk about the creation of the show and their various backgrounds. There’s a brief Q&A session that was recorded at the last DragonCon. It’s all pretty straightforward and rather lengthy.
Interviews and Bonus Clips – The bonus clips run the gamut from seemingly cut scenes to the squids being recreated as Dragons. There’s more interviews tucked into other areas of the second disc. But, they’re mainly material that seems gleamed from the aforementioned featurettes.
The best character on the show.
8.0 out of 10