Saturday Night Live: The Best of Chris Kattan

This DVD in it's short hour and fifteen minute running time can by no means encompass all of the best of Chris Kattan's work. But it sure as heck does a good job trying. The DVD gives us about a dozen hilarious sketches; some are better than others, but the good ones shine through. There is a hilarious sketch with Chris as "Mango" fighting with Jennifer Lopez at the Divas Live concert that had me in stitches. There are clips featuring the Roxbury Brothers, Kyle & Shawn DeMarco, and Goth Talk. All of Chris's funniest characters are represented in at least one sketch but hopefully, like Will Ferrell, NBC will release a Volume 2 soon to fully showcase Chris's comedic skills.

Chris Kattan was on "Saturday Night Live" for 7 years, and during those 7 years, he created an amazing string of classic characters and stinging impressions that kept millions of people around the world laughing. "The Best Of Chris Kattan" tries its best to capture all of his best moments on one disc. It misses a few, but overall it's hysterical.

Like "The Best Of Molly Shannon", this dvd focuses solely on his most popular recurring characters. And like Shannon's best - off, it's a good thing. All of the classics are here - The Roxbury Guys, Mr. Peepers (I never really liked this one to be honest), Buddy Mills, Kyle DeMarco and his brother Sean (Chris Parnell), Gay Hitler, Azrael Abyss, Suel Forrester, Eddie Lewis, Gator and, of course, Mango (I disagree with one reviewer who said the Garth Brooks sketch is the best; the one here with Jennifer Lopez is sidesplitting). Also included is a montage of his impressions, including Steve Irwin, Kid Rock, Andy Dick and his classic Al Pacino.

There are a few great moments I wished were here. For example one cold opening where Julianna Marguilees was host and Chris Kattan couldn't chew his McDonald's apple pie and wanted her to chew it for him. the outcome is gross but it was hilarious. Also, I would've loved to have seen the terrible reenactement of his "SNL" career he did on his last episode as a cast member in May of 2003. And last but not ;east, his Paul Begella and Michael Gelman impressions could've been included.

These ntpicks aside, this is a truly enjoyable and hilarious look at an amazing comic's career on the greatest variety ever to hit tv in history.

While not as talented as Will Ferrell or Darrell Hammond, Chris Kattan manged to carve his own niche in "Saturday Night Live's" long history and emerge as one of the most popular cast members of the show's stellar 1995-02 period, creating a range of diverse characters ranging from exotic gay male dancer Mango to gibberish talking southerner Suel Forrester.

This dvd includes all of Chris's principle characters, not all of them necessarily in their best moments but nonetheless in very funny sketches. The Mango/J.Lo catfight was definitely worth watchin just for the part where Mango calls her J.Ho, which I thought was hysterical. The DeMarco Brothers sketch with Bon Jovi I thought had some great lines, especially at the end where Jon Bon Jovi tricks Kyle (Chris) and his brother Sean (Chris Parnell) into thinking they want them (they're interpretive dancers) to work for them and telling them to go just when they have their hopes up. "Goth Talk" was hysterical, especially when Will Ferrell came out as Baron Nocturna and read a eulogy for dear departed Azrael Abyss (Kattan).

As a whole, this dvd is a very good retrospective of Chris's seven years as a cast member. However, a with most of the best of's, there were a few sketches that didn't work. They could've chosen a better (not to mention longer) Roxbury Guys sketch, preferrably the one where Jack Nicholson guest starred. Likewise, the Mr. Peepers sketch wasn't too great, either. In my opinion, the best Mr. Peepers sketch was the very first one with Tom Hanks where they go on "The Tonight Show" and wreack havoc on the set. Sketches that didn't work at all were the "Update" bit with Keri Strugg and the Siamese twins sketch with Jennifer Garner at the end. These sketches could have been removed and replaced by either:

The "Oprah" sketch from 1997 where he was Anne Heche (one of only two sketches where Chris said, "Live From New York, It's Saturday Night")
The Bird Family (which one reviewer mentioned) where Julianna Marguilles mouth fed him Apple Pie
The Mango sketch with David Duchovny
On "Hardball" where he played Paul Begalla, who was constantly insulted by Chris Matthews (Darrell Hammond)

Other than these complaints, "The Best Of Chris Kattan" is definitely worth watching. It's not as good as the ones for say, Will Ferrell or Dana Carvey, but it's really funny nonetheless.

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