DVD Corner

It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia- A Very Sunny Christmas Blu-ray Review

“A Very Sunny Christmas” is an amusing holiday special.

GRADES:

CONTENT: B

PICTURE: C+

AUDIO: B

EXTRAS: B-

THE SPECIAL:

The crazy adventures of the idiotic Paddy’s Pub employees (Mac, Charlie, Dee, Dennis, and Frank) continue in this 43 minute Christmas special. The plot essentially involves the gang trying to get into the spirit of Christmas as they have had disappointing experiences with the holiday in the past.   

As with all ‘Sunny’ episodes, this special contains plenty of insane and bizarre antics that fans of the cult show have grown accustomed to. Viewers can expect to see glue sniffing, prostitution, a naked Elf, Santa’s neck being bitten, a snow blower, a violent stop motion animation segment, and a naked Danny DeVito in a couch (don’t ask). While many of the scenes (such as the Rankin/Bass esque stop motion animation segment) are funny, the special does tend to go overboard with over the top humor. To me, it always seems like the writers rely too heavily trying to shock the viewers with unpredictable and disturbing moments. While I applaud them for coming up with screwed over, original ideas, it can become a bit tiring after awhile. I mean, do we really need to see a naked DeVito?

Summary: ‘Sunny’ fans shouldn’t hesitate to check out this demented X-Mas special.

PICTURE AND SOUND:

This special was not shot in HD and thus was upconverted to 1.78:1 1080p. I don’t quite understand why this received a Blu-ray release as the picture quality resembles that of a DVD.

The 5.1 DTS-HD audio track is OK. The dialogue and music sounded fine but they never sounded spectacular by any means.

EXTRAS:

* A producer’s introduction and 3 young Charlie and young Mac deleted scenes.
* “Sunny-Sing-A-Long”- The gang sing three Christmas songs. The songs are accompanied by weird imagery/editing.
* “Behind The Scenes Making Of” (7:30) contains set footage, interviews, and the making of the claymation sequence.

November 20, 2009 - Posted by nicklyons1 | 1 | Blu-Ray review, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia- A Very Sunny Christmas Blu-ray Review