The Ricky Gervais Show: The Complete First Season (dvd review)

Warner Bros. Home Video // Released January 4, 2011 // Not Rated

The Pitch
From the creators of the smash-hit series The Office and Extras and based on the original record-breaking podcasts, comes the new animated comedy series, The Ricky Gervais Show. The series is an animated version of the original podcasts that earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records for the most downloads. It is voiced by Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant, and colleague and friend Karl Pilkington whose offbeat musings inspire many of the storylines which include the merits of 20th century inventions; Karl’s suggestion for population control; how philosophy has evolved through the ages and not forgetting Karl’s perfectly round head!

The Review
Despite my unabashed love for Ricky Gervais’ work on both The Office and Extras, I’ve never really appreciated his stand-up.  The reason for this is that much of Gervais’ magic comes from his interactions and reactions with other people.  From the stage, he’s too far removed, but The Ricky Gervais Show is one of those rare occasions where source material is reimagined into something amazing.

Using The Ricky Gervais Show podcast as it’s source material, someone at HBO had the very clever idea to simply animate the podcasts, with wonderful results.  At his side is his longtime collaborator, Stephen Merchant, and the misguided, ignorant and hilariously effective Karl Pilkington.  Part of the success is the interplay between the trio, and Pilkington’s omniscient ridiculous opinions often incites Gervais’ infectious laughter.

I’d also like to congratulate the production team on such fantastic design work.  The characters are clean, easily recognizable caricatures reminiscent of the great model sheets from classic Hanna Barbera.

The set features adaptations of the podcasts original twelve episode first season, animated into thirteen animated episodes.  Extras are minimal with an animation storyboards and a too brief promotional video.  The Ricky Gervais Show is both smart and stupid, clever and obvious, and overall one of the funnier things that I’ve seen in some time.  Highly recommended.