Mind of Mencia is certainly hit-and-miss and it may not have much longer until the material becomes tiresome and stale, but while it lasts, check it out.
Mind of Mencia: Season One (2005)
Directors: Various
Producers: Carlos Mencia
Writers: Carlos Mencia (creator)
Features: * Behind the Scenes Featurette * Bloopers * Commentary * Deleted Scenes
Characters:
Carlos Mencia...Himself, various
Genre: Comedy
Review:
Many have called comic Carlos Mencia, the Dave Chappelle of Hispanic comedy and that’s probably true. But that’s not where Mencia stops. He mocks everyone. Whether you’re white, black, Jewish, Asian, Muslim, Persian, Swedish...it doesn’t matter, you’re going to get trashed sometime during his cult Comedy Central show, Mind of Mencia.
Mencia isn’t always funny. He’s always trying to be as offensive and one-sided as possible and while that is often refreshing, from time to time, it borderlines on derivative and offensive. You can only hear the negative slang term ‘Wetback’ so many times before it ceases to be funny and transforms into genuinely hurtful, or even racist. But, as I said, that’s what Mencia’s out to due: to piss us off. He succeeds, gathering quite a few laughs along the way.
The biggest problem with Menica is that he’s not a particularly good comic. He’s funny, but a lot of his material gets recycled over and over again. In the first two episodes he made two black Olympian jokes. The next two episodes, he made that same mistake again, repeating an already unfunny joke. Mencia is a limited comic with some slightly unoriginal material. However, he’s the first truly popular Hispanic comic, which is where his credit is earned. Actor John Leguizamo took his shot a few years back, but only earned a slight cult status after a few HBO comedy specials.
Mind of Mencia is basically split up into three sections: Mencia’s stand-up act, Mencia doing a ‘Jay-walking’ type sketch and real sketches based on stand-up material featured earlier in the show. The stand-up act is tiresome. This is where the show fails. It’s hard for a comic to find fifteen minutes of solid stand-up material each week and Mencia does the best he can, but it can get very repetitive. The ‘Jay-walking’ stuff is hit-and-miss, but usually funny. The sketches, just like Dave Chappelle’s now defunct show, are the true gems of each episode. Very rarely do these miss and they’re basically the only reason to keep watching.
I hope that Mencia changes the format of his show in future seasons to better accommodate his strengths, otherwise he won’t last much longer as a comic. Rather, he’ll burn out and fade away like so many comics who’ve come before him.
The first season is comprised of twelve episodes. Each of the episodes is uncensored.
*Show Scorecard*
As entertainment: * * *
As a show: * *
Overall:
DVD REVIEW:
Video:
Presented in Full Frame, the show looks fine. It’s not the best presentation ever, but it’s comparable to the other Comedy Central releases.
Audio:
Here, we are presented with a pretty substandard Dolby Stereo track. I’m not surprised, nor am I really all that disappointed.
Extras:
This isn’t a loaded DVD boxset, but there are a few special features worth perusing.
Disc One: There’s a thirty minute Behind-the-Scenes Featurette with optional commentary by Mencia. This is a fairly standard making-of featurette with various folks goofing around and having fun. Mencia’s commentary is very light. He mostly laughs at his own jokes and offers very little incitement.
Disc Two: Here, there are a few additional extras which include; "Gene Simmons’ Words of Wisdom", "Mencia Moments", "You Can Say Anything" and other additional scenes. Rounding out the second disc is a series of always funny Bloopers.
The disc also offers annoying previews for other Comedy Central DVD, which are thankfully skippable, but frustrating nonetheless. People don’t buy DVDs, particularly TV on DVD, to watch commercials.
Final Thoughts:
Mind of Mencia is certainly hit-and-miss and it may not have much longer until the material becomes tiresome and stale, but while it lasts, check it out. It’s not for everyone’s tastes, particularly those who are easily offended, but it’s worth a rent for those ready for a good bout of racial pouncing.
*DVD Scorecard*
Video: 6
Audio: 5
Extras: 7
Overall: 6.5
Unrated
* Running Time: 259 minutes
* List Price: $26.99
* Available on DVD March 21st 2006.
Email Me with Comments, Concerns, Questions and Complaints regarding this review, but please, be nice.
----R. L. Shaffer