TV Party… what can I say that wasn’t already eloquently said by Chris Hughes in his review of TV Party:  The Documentary?

Oh wait, I know, I can tell you what someone who really didn’t know how to reference this show in context had to say about it. You see, I know from reading Chris’ review that TV Party was an experiment in public television put on by Glenn O’Brien, a columnist for High Times magazine.  I also know that there were more than a few punk icons from the New York scene who dropped in and helped out. That got me interested because I loves the punk music.

The feature on this DVD is simply one episode. In particular, an episode where the premise is that the TV Party cast is going with a medieval theme and claiming they are starting a crusade to take back the Holy Land.

My wife knew none of this and what follows is her reaction. 

Three minutes and fifteen seconds into the show:

“Is it possible for you to write a review that simply says, ‘What the fuck?’”

Eight minutes and 10 seconds into the show:

“This is what happens when people who are high think they’re funny.”

Ten minutes and fifty four seconds into the show:

“Is this the first review you’re going to write where you give a DVD no stars?”

Fourteen minutes into the show:

“I’m going to work on a puzzle.”

Which left me approximately forty four minutes to try to remind myself that, back in the day, this was cutting edge.

In Hughes’ review of TV Party: The Documentary, he mentions that seeing the highlights through the course of 90 minutes leaves you wanting more. 

Watching the full episode that is TV Party: The Crusades Show will cure you of that. 

The show comes across less as a political statement made by the counter culture and more like a bunch of drunk/high fuckups who see themselves as more important/funny than they really are. Having read that sentence, please note that I am not a red state conservative. The person writing this is an abortion loving, marijuana legalizing, keep your prayer out of my schools liberal who at 37 still occasionally wears a mohawk. 

But I'm also a realist and a cynic, and I still hate hippies.

It’s not to say that TV Party:  The Crusades Show is boring. Hell, the wildly erratic camerawork is enough to keep your head spinning. It’s just that if you’ve ever been drunk with musicians who had a video camera, you’ve seen shit like this before. If you haven’t, trust me when I say it’s something best experienced first hand. 

There are some funny parts, though. When band leader Walter “Doc” Steding explains that TV Party is starting a crusade, he says the reason is, “There are a lot of old things over there that I have discovered are really mine.” That got a laugh out of me even though I’d already read the line on the back of the DVD jacket. 
                                                         
Even so, that is not funny enough to warrant sitting through the whole hour. In fact, the funniest parts of the show are entirely unintentional. Seeing Fab Five Freddy explaining that he is the “Monk of Funk” and then delivering a really crappy rap is unintentionally hilarious. Watching O’Brien get extremely pissed off as he takes one phone call after another from people heckling the show is awesome. Callers are dropping “f-bombs” and describing the taste of vagina. All of this was going out over the air, completely uncensored.

However, the funniest thing about the entire show is just watching Patrick Geoffrois of the Contortions stand in the background, guitar in hand, looking as awkward and out of place as a Baptist in a mosque. While all the other people in the band made some effort to conform to the Medieval theme, Geoffrois just stands in the back in a black leather jacket and looks as lost as possible.

So am I going to give this a no-pants rating? Probably not, but I do have a problem with strangeness for the sake of being strange. Jean-Michel Basquiat may have been a talented artist, but his “wry words” typed on the screen seem like a forced effort to make this a statement as opposed to the cluster fuck it obviously is. That kind of sucks. I mean, when the words “Sex Death” appear, it just comes off as posturing and there’s nothing artistic about typing selections from a menu across the band playing out of tune. Still, maybe that’s just my reaction after a quarter decade of desensitization and avante guard art shows.

As a time capsule, this works. If I was a fan of the show back in the day, I would probably love to have this as a reminder of a time when public television could still get dangerous. If you’ve never seen this before, though, you really aren’t missing much.

How Does It Look?
It looks like crap. I’m not kidding. It says it’s digitally mastered, but to paraphrase an old friend of mine, a polished turd is still a piece of shit.

How Does It Sound?
Surprisingly, not bad. I expected worse, but, aside from the occasional over-modulation, it’s not terrible. It sounds way better than it looks. 

Extras
There are five extras on the disc, and most of them are more interesting than the actual feature. First up is a Glenn O'Brien interview with James Chance of the Contortions and Anya Phillips. That interview is beautiful in its naivety. Anya Phillips stating that she felt the lack of interest in stadium shows illustrates how “modern” the public is beginning to think is a thing of innocent beauty. Chance backs her up by saying how few people attended the Beach Boys concert at Comisky Park. I’ll bet the crowd for The Rolling Stones or The Who in 1981 would have been a tad bigger.

 Watching the Andy Warhol Studios video for “The Secret Spy” by Walter Steding made me hate Andy Warhol even more than I already did. People, trust me when I say that’s very hard to do.

Then there's Killer Rabbit, which is notable for the inclusion of a sexy as hell Debbie Harry from back in the day. The premise is fun, but it’s dragged on and on, entirely ad-libbed by two people whose strength is not ad-libbing.

Glenn on Marijuana is just that. It’s Glenn O’Brien talking about marijuana, the etiquette of mixing seeds and the evils of 60 Minutes and the media… all the while smoking a joint with Chris Stein of Blondie. This is entertaining.

Finally, there's Tav Falco performing Train Kept A’ Rolling live in the studio. The sound isn’t terrible, but that’s probably because it’s a stripped down arrangement. This is fun and worth watching.  

What’s The Bottom Line?
In 1981, if you were home watching this on television, you were either laughing because you were in on the joke or you were offended as hell. When host Glenn O’Brien urges the viewing audience to masturbate both themselves and the person to their right, imagine your mom coming across this on TV with you as a child in the room. Mine would have completely lost it. 

Still, in 2006, watching TV Party:  The Crusades Show on DVD is like watching turtles fuck. It’s mildly interesting from a logistical standpoint but not nearly as fun as if you’re one of the turtles.