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LETTITOR

This editorial available in a five-disc set

Liam Britten

editor in chief s there no grander technological advancement over these past 10 years than the advent of TV on DVD? I

know the artificial heart, Burj Dubai and

that death ray nobody knows about are

all very impressive and such but none

of them can let you watch every single

episode of The Sopranos in one sitting.

And therefore, they are all colossal

wastes of time and creative energy.

I’ve been into the TV on DVD thing for years now, as I’m guessing many of you dear readers are. I started by buying the complete Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Chappelle's Show, but the collection has grown steadily over the years, making sure that when TV programmers take my favourite shows off the air, I never truly have to go without them. It has made my life good—and will make my life even better once I can afford the box set for Kids in the Hall.

The other day, though, my faith in the power and the glory of TV on DVD was shaken when a friend of mine brought over a DVD set that had me “stoked,” as the kids might say, at the prospect of watching: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, every episode on DVD.

If you were born in the mid ‘80s to early “90s, you probably remember The Super Mario Bros. Super Show; it was that cartoon with Lou Albano voicing Super Mario as he and his friends from Super Mario Bros. 2 fought the bad guys from Super Mario Bros. 3 (when I was a kid, that anachronism pissed me off so much) and there were songs and a corny rap number and sometimes there would

be shorts based on The Legend of Zelda. There were only 15 or 20 episodes of this show, but every few years in the early “90s, YTV would put the entire run on their cartoon programming blocks for a few months at a time and I’d get to re- watch them once every year or two.

Needless to say, I loved this show back in the day. Being a normal, healthy, video game-obsessed six to eight year old, anything even remotely related to video games was the best thing ever. It didn’t matter if the Super Mario chewing gum tasted like crap; it had Super Mario on it, and therefore, was awesome gum.

This brings me back to the cartoon DVDs. When I watched them again in my friend’s living room for the first time in probably 15-plus years, I wasn’t taken back to a simpler time when this was the most magical show ever; I was instead shocked by how crappy the show was and how low my standards were for television as a child. My trip down Memory Lane was actually sort of sad in how it diminished my appreciation for a piece of my childhood. Undeserved appreciation, yes, but appreciation nonetheless.

While TV on DVD is great and everything, it doesn’t provide the context that a proper broadcast signal provides. For some shows with a cinematic vision (The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, etc.) this works fine; it’s like a series of short theatrical films with those programs. But other times, it just doesn’t work at all. Like the Mario show; re-watching the show I loved so much didn’t really draw up any good memories for me, it more just pissed all over them.

Your friend in high fidelity, Liam Britten

Editor in chief

The Other Press

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