The Criminally Overlooked Art of Spoof DVD Commentaries

I don’t know about you, but I am a sucker for a good DVD commentary. When done thoughtfully, they can greatly increase your appreciation and understanding of a film. Most often it's simply a group of cast and creators gathering to share anecdotes and insights on the film and the production process. Other times you find instances where the individuals performing the commentary have meltdowns or actively rag on the film they're doing commentary for. When approached creatively and comedically, it also offers the opportunity to do something truly hilarious and even downright baffling to the unsuspecting viewer.

Enter the spoof DVD commentary. For obvious reasons, they're most commonly associated with comedy films, but not always. Here we have actors performing entire commentaries in-character, directors making up preposterous facts about the production of the film, fake retrospectives from fictional historians, and so many other bizarre approaches to an aspect of home video that goes criminally overlooked by most moviegoers. Here are some of my favourite spoof DVD commentaries in no particular order:

Tropic Thunder

You know the line in the movie where Robert Downey Jr says "I don't drop character ‘til I’ve done the DVD commentary"? Well, he stayed true to his word. He does the whole commentary with Ben Stiller and Jack Black while in character as Sgt. Lincoln Osiris, and swaps to Kirk Lazarus at the moment when his character does in the film. It’s completely unhinged and hilarious. RDJ continuously interrupts Ben Stiller when he tries to talk, and routinely tells everyone else to shut up whenever his character is on screen.

Dodgeball

Dodgeball features a spoof commentary track, which was so convincing that a lot of people who listened to it were completely caught off guard and had no idea it was a joke. It starts off innocuously enough, but doesn’t take long for things to go off the rails. Vince Vaughn is loudly munching a bag of chips right into the mic the whole time. Meanwhile, Ben Stiller shows up late talking about how he’s worried about his car getting stolen and is constantly asking someone to go check on it. Eventually, they give up halfway through and just leave, claiming "nobody listens to these anyway." For the rest of the film, they just switch on the commentary track for There's Something About Mary.

Blood Simple

The 2001 DVD release of Blood Simple has several spoof special features, including an introduction to the film from a fake film historian named “Mortimer Young” — who also did the introduction for The Big Lebowski — and features a scripted commentary written by the Joel and Ethan Coen from another fake historian named “Kenneth Loring.” Loring states increasingly bizarre facts about the making of the film, such as a certain driving scene being shot in reverse and upside down, that an obviously real dog was actually an animatronic, and other comically false claims throughout.

This Is Spinal Tap

The main cast (Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, and Michael McKean) performs the entire commentary in-character, fully committing to the bit of Spinal Tap being a real band. Not only is it hilarious, but it adds dimension to the characters, showing additional sides of them not featured in the actual film. I consider it to be one of the greatest commentaries of all time, spoof or no spoof, and should be a required viewing for any fan of the film.

Talladega Nights

This one’s one of the more obtuse commentaries from this list, and might be my favourite. In the commentary on Theatrical DVD release, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay lead a “25th Anniversary Retrospective” of the film, taking place in 2031. Several cast members make appearances playing fictional versions of their future selves, with Adam McKay playing his fictional son "Darnell McKay." Among many pieces of improv gold, the commentary track features a segment where John C. Reilly phones in from the front lines of the war in Michigan against Ted Nugent.

Additionally, the Unrated DVD release features a different improv commentary with Adam McKay and Ian Roberts where they talk about how the film cost $500 million to make, and where the budget went, spending the entire first day of production getting the set blessed by a shaman, building animatronic robots to play Ricky Bobby’s kids, filming in Ecuador because the lighting was nice, and filming a night race in the daytime by covering the stadium with a second-hand quilt.

Step Brothers

In the commentary for Step Brothers, Adam McKay, Will Ferrell, and John C Reilly knock it out of the park again with a musical commentary. They spend nearly the entire film performing improvised singing over music. It’s basically as if Prestige Worldwide is doing the commentary.

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events

Author of the book, Daniel Handler, performs the commentary in character as Lemony Snicket and actively spends most of the commentary shitting on the film and the director, who is doing the commentary with him. Snicket is constantly shocked by the events taking place in the movie, despite having written the book, including a memorable jump scare during the snake scene.

Some Additional Non-Spoof But Still Funny Commentaries

Total Recall: In the Total Recall commentary — and most Arnold Schwarzeneggar commentaries for that matter — he spends the whole thing describing the actions on screen as they happen like it’s a described video track. “This is my job. I’m a construction worker.” or “I just used his body as a human shield.” or “She’s trying to stop me from seeing the TV, but I can see it over her shoulder.”

The Twilight Zone: Mickey Rooney was asked to record a retrospective commentary for an episode of The Twilight Zone he was in several decades after the fact, and did so in the grumpiest and antagonistic fashion imaginable. Rooney starts the commentary with “I don't remember anything about this, and I don't really care” and it all goes downhill from there. There are some iconic quotes in this thing that you will not want to miss out on.

Armageddon: Ben Affleck famously spends a large chunk of the commentary for Armageddon just picking out plot holes in the script and criticizing Michael Bay’s direction. You may have seen the following clip making rounds on social media:

Batman & Robin: Joel Schumacher goes on a journey of acceptance through the 5 stages of grief throughout the commentary of Batman & Robin, starting with being in denial of the film’s shortcomings, to acknowledging its faults, and then apologizing to the audience from embarrassment by the time the film ends.

The 40 Year Old Virgin: The commentary for The 40 Year Old Virgin doesn't have a gimmick, but it features a large amount of cast along with Judd Apatow, who crack jokes and tell interesting anecdotes about the film, often discussing how none of them expected the film to turn out as well as it did.

“So Where Can I Find These Commentary Tracks?”

Unfortunately, in the streaming era, we don’t have access to the host of special features that DVDs used to provide, with some services like The Criterion Channel being an exception. In the good ole days of video rentals stores, when DVD’s reigned supreme, there were so many amazing long-form supplements being produced for these physical releases. Nowadays most featurettes and what-have-you end up in bite sized chunks on YouTube or TikTok. I could go on and on about the lost art of DVD authoring, but that’s a topic for another day. Thankfully, many (but not all) of these commentary tracks can also be found online, but often in very low quality and without the visual component so you’ll need to do some manual syncing to get the full experience.

Double thankfully, most-if-not-all of the movies mentioned above can be found all over the place at second hand stores or discount bins at your local Walmart on DVD and Blu-Ray for just a couple bucks. I recently paid only 50 cents for my now-cherished DVD of Talladega Nights, which inspired this article. So, next time you’re out thrifting, take a look at the media wall to see if you can spot any of these titles. I guarantee it'll be worth the purchase.

I’m always on the hunt for more fun and unique commentary tracks, so if you have any suggestions for ones I may have missed, let me know in the comments!