French and Saunders on DVD
Battling British Egos with Parodies cause Laughs
Have your bones fall out over the 6 disc DVD collection set of French and Saunders.
French: "Are you going to do the accent?"
Saunders: "I am doing the accent, "How ARR Yue?"
British comedic icons Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders are perhaps more well known for their other work, French for Vicar of Dibley and Saunders for Absolutely Fabulous. What some people may not know is that the cult phenomenon that became Ab Fab was spawned from their irreverant sketch comedy show French and Saunders.
The show's centered theme was the duos battling egos in a variety of sketches involving a white room, tabloid magazines and constant obsession with Madonna. However, the more memorable sketches were the mounds of incredible close-to-the-real-thing parodies of film, television and music videos including Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Titanic, Star Wars, a handful of Madonna parodies and Kill Bill. This resulted in a show within a show, within a show. - Really, it's not as confusing as it sounds.
And because of this show within a show aspect, victims of their scathing parodies often come out scolding them for their childish behaviour and lack of originality. - Who doesn't like to see adults being talked down too?
BBC/ Warner distributes the 6 DVD boxed collection. It comes with BBC Video trailers as well as their Christmas Specials up to 2004. (There is a 2005 Christmas Special that aired but sadly may be the last as Jennifer Saunders announced this year that she will no longer be acting to further concentrate on her love of writing and directing.)
My only grievance with the set is that it is a collection which means they don't contain all of the sketches from the series. And the sketch that cemented my love for F&S is sadly not found on any of the discs.
I would do anything to see that sketch again ... ANYTHING! But as Saunders would say, "Don't get funny."
