Quoting directly from my review of Wonder Showzen - Season One, I had this to say about the series:

“"Wonder Showzen is dark, disturbing, subversive and so funny, it actually made me shoot cola out of my nose. Don’t be surprised when it’s cancelled next week.”"

Looking back on that statement with a copy of Season Two in my hands, I really shouldn’t be surprised to see the series continue on its path of televised anarchy; Wonder Showzen, like the punk movement (and every “punk” movement afterwards), is really just marketable rebellion. Simultaneously carrying an anti-establishment message while being delivered to the public by the mass media it claims to loathe. None of that makes Wonder Showzen any less funny. A touch insincere, maybe, but this stuff can be hilarious.

A word of caution to those who loved Season One, but didn’t bother checking out the newer episodes when they originally aired on television (like me!): if you weren’t a fan of the meta-mindfest that was episode 108 (“Patience”), you might want to stop now, since that aspect of the show outright dominates Season Two. So, to provide structure in the chaotic environment, let’s do an episode by episode rundown!

Time: Chauncey creates a time machine for the purpose of going back in time and screwing with peoples’ minds. But that idea is blown as Future Chauncey comes back and impresses everyone with his cool stylings and leather jacket. Wordsworth, Him and Sthugar ditch Regular Chauncey, who decides to get revenge by creating his own, more awesomer time machine. Beat Kids tries to one-up last season’s Little Hitler with L’il Dead Pope, who interrogates surprisingly tolerant worshipers exiting a Catholic Church. Denying scientific truth! High five! Science: Today is Science Fair Day for the Wonder Showzen gang and things go down right haywire as Wordsworth produces a dream-recording machine and unleashes the physical embodiment of his own aggression. Clarence goes out on the street to discuss the American dream with the homeless, who are less friendly than the Catholics, and over in cartoon land, a young boy learns the pathway towards becoming a man is littered with bullets, blood and rabies. Special guest star: Hasidic Koala Bear!

Knowledge: Today’s guest is Middle America, who mumbles incoherently before capping every sentence off with the word “Texas.” Frustrated from all the taunting and gang rape, Middle America clips the cast just for fun. The cast left in shreds, Middle America takes over the television program, putting a Hee-Haw send-up called Horse Apples on the air instead. Don’t like it? Well Wonder Showzen took Horse Apples to a real focus group, and they loved it. They might not know what Rwanda is and they might pray to their television sets, but they know funny, so you’re wrong.

Justice: Today’s episode, brought to you by Harold P. Wiffington’s Comedy Record Scratch sound effect, finds everyone living on an 18th century plantation. Chauncey is drunk on power and spends his time whipping Wordsworth and Him before bedding his child bride Sthugar. Unable to resist that sweet, sweet primitive love, Sthugar forces herself on Him, and cries rape when Chauncey catches her. What will happen to Him? That’s for the court to decide.

Cooperation: Cooperation: Due to Internet downloads, street bootlegs and knock-offs, Wonder Showzen is now broke. In order to balance out the market (maybe, it’s never explained how this would work), Chauncey decides to buy bootleg knock-offs of the show from Chinese street vendors. This introduces the alternate bootleg universe of Wondur Showzin, habited by sock puppets that decide to declare war on Wonder Showzen. In-between the fighting, C. Larence takes to the street to interview bootleggers about their low-quality product. Devendra Banhart stops by to sing about war, and how it hasn’t helped solve anything. Oh! Except for World War II, The Civil War, The Revloutionary War, pretty much every war... Except for Vietnam (debatable).

Mathematics: Did you like Horse Apples, way back in episode four of this season? Well, here’s an entire episode, featuring hipster comics David Cross, Zach Galifianakis (apparently wearing a fake beard over his real beard?), and Todd Barry. Didn’t like it? America already said they loved it. Now shut up.

Television: Ever looked at a show and thought to yourself; “I could make better television than that?” Well, this episode is dedicated to Clarence, who gives the viewing public a chance at making quality television. The result is probably twice as many angry, blurred faces as you’ll find on an episode of COPS.

Presentation
Consisting of new digital material, archival footage and even intentionally degraded “bootleg” material; most of the sequences are sharp and have fantastic, children’s-show-appropriate colors. The vintage film material is spotty and damaged, while the bootleg video footage is intentionally filled with stutters, dropouts and distortion. The same goes for the stereo soundtrack – if the presentation looks and sounds funky, it was designed to be that way.

Disc one finishes up with a fantastic featurette about Episode 4, Knowledge. Targeting the focus group featured in the episode, the company brings back the people involved and makes them watch the episode of Wonder Showzen they were featured in. I’ve never seen people look so confused in my entire life and don’t expect to ever again.

The layout of the menu screens on Disc two is a take-off on the board game Candyland. Blank spaces, which suggest Easter eggs, turn up empty - though there is a hidden staring contest for those who have strong eyes.  First up on the Extras menu we have Beat Kids Outtakes, featuring excised footage from the season, it runs five minutes. Clarence Outtakes is four-and-a-half minutes of irritating questions and irritated answers. Exploiting its newfound popularity, Horse Around Unt Apple Boners is five glorious minutes of Horse Apples outtakes and deleted scenes. The only other feature to last more than two coherent minutes, Mish-Mosh, includes random deleted footage not connected by any particular theme.

There is a selection of commercials under the Original Promos section split up into two categories: PSA and Daymares. There is also a collection of eight selectable question marks that works as a Wonder Showzen FAQ. They answer nothing you might want to know.

Finally, there’s a collection of previews for The Andy Milonakakakauis Show – The Complete Second Season, Wildboyz – Complete Seasons Three And Four, Wonder Showzen: Season One, Beavis and Butt-Head: The Mike Judge Collection, and South Park: The Complete Eighth Season.

Overall
Wonder Showzen - Season Two might not be as fantastic as the first season, and it might lapse into (intentional) self-indulgence, but it’s still a strong series overall. Even fans might be split on the growing “meta” humor of the series, but they should give it a second chance with this nice DVD set. If you’re not familiar with the show at all, stick to the stronger first season.