, Demolition Man)
and Ron Eldard (fireman Shep in series 2 of E.R.). It didn't
take long to get cancelled though as the men didn't behave particularly badly
at all.
Click on each of the following pictures for a sound-bite from that episode!
As Harry Enfield left the series, his character Dermot was written out by going on
a round-the-world trip with some dodgy girl he met. As a result, Gary needs to find a new
flatmate and places an advert in the paper, hoping to find a bloke who will bring in
plenty of fresh tottie to their batchelor pad.
However, after a serious of disastrous interviews with complete no-hopers, he gets Tony,
who starts breaking things from the moment he arrives. Shortly after he and Debs start
flirting around each other and Tony digs out his impressive alarm clock.
Also, there are tough times at work when Gary has to put Anthea in her place - the cupboard.
That's what Anthea refers to Tony as, when George says he thinks Gary is too old to be
living with another man and she gets the wrong end of the stick, as always. In the video
shop, Gary subtley (not!) breaches the subject of thinking that Tony is gay to Dorothy.
Back home, the walls are rocked as Tony plugs in his amplifier and strums the guitar, thus
giving Debs the first of many headaches.
That's what Tony wants to do in his six-month relationship with Pat (Debra Beaumont,
recently seen in Brookside as the posh girl whose name I've forgotten who tried to stop Jacqui
Dixon marrying Nathan), although she's not keen on him shouting out Debs' name in his sleep.
You won't believe it when you find out how she's been chucked.
Also in this episode, Gary gets up everyone's nose with his ultra-complex cleaning rota.
Click on the picture to hear Gary's thoughts on finishing with an old
girlfriends.
And very troublesome indeed is Gary's times ahead when he cashes in on a rare green vinyl
12" single (possibly Kenny Everett's Snot Rap from 1982) of Dorothy's after
Tony shows him a copy of Record Collector magazine. When she gets wind of his plan, she'll
do anything to make him feel guilty before he knows he's been found out, but he's more than
likely to put his foot right in it when buying a replacement copy.
This episode also sees the first date proper for Tony and Debs. He is trying to be romantic,
but after he needs some change to buy something, barman Les questions him rather undelicately.
In many senses of the word. Tony buys a van that's on the verge of breaking down and on a
shopping trip for the four of them, Gary and Debs end up stuck in a lift together, more
through his choice than hers.
After Tony plugs an electric blanket into his van's power supply, it results in a rather
shocking moment.
That's what Tony gets when he allows the real odd couple to stay, the girl of the couple
being Emma Amos, who co-starred with Neil Morrissey's ex, Liz Carling in Goodnight
Sweetheart, but do you get the feeling they're overstaying their welcome when the
first words out of Gary's mouth as he enters his office are, "Absolute bastards!"
Later on he has a major rant direct to their faces - then finds out from Tony that as long
as they're all really nice to the pair, there are four free holidays to Spain up for grabs
due to some spare tickets. Erm...
Click on the picture to hear Tony's theory about pants.
Presented in a 4:3 ratio and free of artifacts, the picture looks great and everything
you could ever want. It can often be comfortably zoomed in to a fill a widescreen TV without
losing anything of importance. The average bitrate is 5.24Mb/s for each episode.
The sound, presented in Dolby Digital 2.0 (Dolby Surround), comes across as clear as a
bell. Obviously, being a TV show free of special FX it isn't going to be one to test your
speakers to the limit, but it's spot on for what it needs to do.
Extras :
Chapters :
There are 7 chapters per episode - making 42 in all - with an onscreen menu decked out like
cans of lager in the fridge. In each episode, there's one apiece for the opening and closing
credits with five left for the programme itself, so the five lager cans actually lead to
chapters 2-6.
Languages and Subtitles :
All the episodes are in English, as you'd expect, but there are no subtitles which is
a shame. I'd like to see this rectified for future releases if possible.
And there's more... :
Four Interactive Quizzes are included, in the form of a pub quiz game to test your
knowledge of the series. Get it right or wrong and you'll hear a cry of enthusiasm or jeering
in a soundbite from Gary or Tony. Complete the quizzes (3 questions apiece) and you'll be
rewarded with special out-takes.
Menu :
The main menu is well-animated and scored, mixing in soundbites from the series with some
images, such as the French "BREST" road sign, the lads' thoughts on Debs and a pair of
lightsabres.
Overall, I've been waiting for Men Behaving Badly to be released on DVD for ages.
It's one of my favourite TV series and the tapes are getting a bit worn now.
It'd be nice to have a few more extras, even perhaps a running audio commentary from the
cast and crew as the out-takes show they all clearly had a lot of fun in making it.
For now though, what's here is well worth the asking price and it looks and sounds as good
as it should.
Series 3 and 4 should also be available by the time you read this, so I'm looking forward to
those, but I'd love to also see releases for the Xmas specials from 1997 and 1998's
three-parter "Last Orders", but this time in anamorphic widescreen and not cropped
to 4:3.
DVDs reviewed by the editor are watched on a Panasonic TXW32R4 32" widescreen TV
connected to either a Creative Dxr2 DVD-ROM player or Microsoft Xbox and
played through a Sony STR-DB930 amplifier.
PC games reviewed by the editor are on:
Since Nov 2005: Intel Pentium D 830 3.0Ghz, 1Gb RAM, 128Mb nVidia GeForce 6700XL, Windows XP
Since Aug 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.66Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb GeForce4 MX440 graphics, Windows XP
Since May 2003: Intel Pentium 4 2.6Ghz, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb ATI Radeon 9600TX graphics, Windows XP
Since Jun 2002: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, 64Mb ATI Radeon 8500LE
Since May 2000: Intel Pentium III 600Mhz, 384Mb RAM, Windows 98 SE, Voodoo 3 3000 AGP
Tony & Gary
Rent Boy
How To Dump Your Girlfriend
Troublesome 12"
Going Nowhere
People Behaving Irritatingly
