Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.5
Audio		2.5
Extras		4.5
Overall		4.0

Regular Show: The Complete First & Second Seasons Blu-ray Movie Review

Anything but regular...

Reviewed by Kenneth Brown June 21, 2013

Pop quiz, hotshot: name the finest, funniest prime time or late night Cartoon Network animated series. Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The Venture Bros. Adventure Time. Robot Chicken. Superjail! The High Fructose Adventures of Annoying Orange. Metalocalypse. The Amazing World of Gumball. Squidbillies. Regular Show. An endless array of Adult Swim anime. The point being: just now, fifty different animation addicts rattled off the names of fifty different animated series, and, disagree all you'd like, not one of those animation addicts is wrong.

The genius of Cartoon Network's programming is that there's virtually something for everyone. Each animated actioner, comedy or experiment is that unique. Find Aqua Teen Hunger Force irritating? Try Adventure Time. Not big on Finn and Jake? Give Hank and Dean Venture a shot. Limited laughs there? Head on over to Metalocalypse; perhaps something harder and more deathly metallic is more to your liking. No? Looking for something lighter? May I humbly suggest creator J. G. Quintel's anthropomorphic slacker comedy, Regular Show. My personal trifecta is Adventure Time, Robot Chicken and Venture Bros., but Metalocalypse and Regular Show are locked in a photo finish for fourth. And you? Regular Show might just be at the top of your list, it certainly has enough going for it to make it a fan-favorite in its own right.

The palpitating heart of Regular Show is lazy twentysomethings Mordecai (Quintel) and Rigby (William Salyers), a best-of-friends blue jay and raccoon duo not-so-gainfully employed as groundskeepers at a local park. With little to do and even less desire to do it, the apathetic slack-mates are often left to their own devices and find themselves in one reference-laced misadventure after another. Dipping in and out of their lives is beautiful red robin-next-door Margaret (Janie Haddad), kindly lollipop-headed manager Pops Maellard (Sam Marin), easily annoyed gumball-machine co-manager Benson (Marin), immortal coworker Skips the Yeti (Mark Hamill), nemeses Hi-Five Ghost (Jeff Bennett and Quintel) and Muscle Man (Marin), and other oddballs, eccentrics and talking animals, supernatural creatures and living, breathing confections.

The hilarity that ensues is most definitely an acquired taste, and by and large a love-it or hate-it affair. Just how random and innocuous is Mordecai and Rigby's journey into the nichiest nooks and crannies of '80s and '90s pop culture? 8-bit demons. Death Kwon Do. Fun with antimatter. Disembodied consciousness quests. Time travel. Arcade game high-score records. Evil clones. RPGs. Jinxes. The undead. Tron. Wereskunks. And on and on. If you aren't laughing after the first few episodes, you'll never laugh. If you can barely breathe, you may want to space out future episodes. If you can't feel your face, Regular Show is without a doubt for you.

The series' biggest downfall is naturally the same scattershot, hit-or-miss jokes and running gags that make it tick, which tend to require the utmost devotion to enjoy consistently and to the fullest. Quintel based the various personalities and their dynamics and banter around his college days and his friends at the time, and if you share their particular penchant for doing nothing, if you're of like mind when it comes to their comic sensibilities, you're set. No effort required. You'll have an out-n-out blast with Regular Show. If not, well, best look elsewhere.

Regular Show: The Complete First & Second Seasons includes 12 Season One and 28 Season Two episodes:

1.		The Power		21.		Party Pete
2.		Just Set Up the Chairs		22.		Brain Eraser
3.		Caffeinated Concert Tickets		23.		Benson Be Gone
4.		Death Punchies		24.		But I Have a Receipt
5.		Free Cake		25.		This Is My Jam
6.		Meat Your Maker		26.		Muscle Woman
7.		Grilled Cheese Deluxe		27.		Temp Check
8.		The Unicorns Have Got to Go		28.		Jinx
9.		Prank Callers		29.		See You There
10.		Don		30.		Do Me a Solid
11.		Rigby's Body		31.		Grave Sights
12.		Mordecai and the Rigbys		32.		Really Real Wrestling
13.		Ello Gov'nor		33.		Over the Top
14.		It's Time		34.		The Night Owl
15.		Appreciation Day		35.		A Bunch of Baby Ducks
16.		Peeps		36.		More Smarter
17.		Dizzy		37.		First Day
18.		My Mom		38.		Go Viral
19.		High Score		39.		Skunked
20.		Rage Against the TV		40.		Karaoke Video

Regular Show: The Complete First & Second Seasons Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Like Adventure Time's recently released Blu-ray seasons, Regular Show: The Complete First & Second Seasons features a pair of strong 1080p/VC-1 encodes that present the series in a whole new light. There are a few minor issues, most inherent to the animation and its digital source -- intermittent, barely there banding and negligible aliasing -- but none of it proves distracting in the least. Colors are hyper-bright as intended, primaries punch through striking whites, black levels are inky, and contrast is dead on. Moreover, the series' line art is clean and exacting, and the fine, canvas-like texture of the watercolor backgrounds is perfectly resolved. Without any significant anomalies to wheeze and whine over, I can safely say Quintel's Regular Show has never looked -- and probably will never look -- better than it does here. It even nudges past Adventure Time's BD presentations.

Season One includes 12 episodes on a single BD-25 disc. Season Two includes 28 episodes on a single BD-50 disc.

Regular Show: The Complete First & Second Seasons Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While the back cover of the Blu-ray release of Regular Show: The Complete First & Second Seasons lists a number of audio and subtitle options, chief among them a Dolby TrueHD audio mix, all that makes it to the discs is a lossy 192kbps Dolby Digital 2.0 track and English SDH subtitles. As you'll soon be well acquainted, the lack of lossless audio -- particularly after the tease that is the box set's stated tech specs -- comes as quite a disappointment. That isn't to suggest the Dolby stereo mix isn't adequate. It is. Voices are clear and nicely prioritized, and the soundscape rarely overwhelms the proceedings, even when mad-dash chaos erupts. But without proper low-end presence, rear speaker support and the telltale fidelity of a lossless track, the track falls short. Serviceable? Sure. Ideal? Far from it.

Regular Show: The Complete First & Second Seasons Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• First Season Audio Commentaries: Season One features thirteen audio commentaries across twelve episodes: "The Power" with show creator JG Quintel; "Just Set Up the Chairs" with Quintel and writer & storyboard artist Sean Szeles; "Caffeinated Concert Tickets" with Quintel and creative director Mike Roth; "Death Punchies" with Quintel and Roth; "Free Cake" with Quintel and Roth; "Meet Your Maker" with Quintel and Roth; "Grilled Cheese Deluxe" offers two tracks, the first with Quintel and Szeles, the second with background painters Alex Dilts and Craig Simmons; "The Unicorns Have Got to Go" with Quintel and Roth; "Prank Callers" with Quintel, Roth and writer Matt Price; "Don" with Quintel, Roth and Price; "Rigby's Body" with Quintel and Roth; and "Mordecai and the Rigbys" with Quintel and Szeles.
• Second Season Audio Commentaries: Season Two offers twenty-nine more commentaries across twenty-eight episodes: "It's Time" with Quintel and writers/storyboard artists Calvin Wong and Benton Connor; "Appreciation Day" with Quintel, Roth, Price and supervising director John Infantino; "Ello Gov'nor" earns two, the first with Quintel and Szeles, the second with Dilts and Simmons; "Peeps" with Quintel, Wong and Connor; "Dizzy" with Quintel and voice actors Sam Martin and Bill Salyers; "My Mom" with Quintel, Martin and Salyers; "High Score" with Quintel, Martin and Salyers; "Rage Against the TV" with Quintel, Roth, Infantino and Price; "Party Pete" with Quintel, Wong and Connor; "Brain Eater" with Quintel, Martin and Salyers; "Benson Be Gone" with Quintel, Roth, Infantino, Szeles and Price; "But I Have a Receipt" with Dilts and Simmons; "This Is My Jam" with Quintel and Szeles...
  
  And they just keep coming: "Muscle Woman" with Simmons, art director Paula Spence and character designer Ben Adams; "Temp Check" with Quintel, Wong and Connor; "Jinx" with Spence, Adams and Simmons; "See You There" with Quintel; "Do Me a Solid" with Quintel, Roth, Infantino, Szeles and Price; "Grave Sights" with Quintel, Wong and Connor; "Really Real Wrestling" with Quintel, Roth, Infantino, Szeles and Price; "Over the Top" with Quintel, Wong and Connor; "The Night Owl" with Quintel, Roth, Infantino, Szeles and Price; "A Bunch of Baby Ducks" with Quintel, Roth, Infantino, Szeles and Price; "More Smarter" with Quintel, Wong and Connor; "First Day" with Quintel; "Go Viral" with Spence, Adams and Simmons; "Skunked" with Quintel and Szeles; aaaaaaand "Karaoke Video" with Quintel and Szeles.
• The Unaired Regular Show Pilot (HD, 8 minutes): The hit animated series' unaired television pilot presented in high definition, albeit, like both seasons, with a lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track.
• Interview with JG Quintel (HD, 5 minutes): Quintel discusses the series, its origins and its influences.
• Animated Student Short (SD, 4 minutes): The genesis of it all, "The Naive Man from Lolliland."
• Animatics (SD, 18:48 minutes): Animated animatics are available for "The Unaired Pilot" and "The Power."
• JG Pitches "The Power" (HD, 17 minutes): Quintel recreates his pitch-board pitch for "The Power."
• Original Pencil Tests (HD, 1 minute): A quick pencil test from Saerom.
• CG Test (HD, 1 minute): A blink-and-you'll-miss-it CG turntable test for the Hodgepodge Monster.
• Sam Sings Mystery Karaoke (HD, 2 minutes): Silent singing. The next big craze.
• Music Video (HD, 2 minutes): "Party Tonight," a cheesy but amusing live-action music video.
• Teaser Trailer (HD, 3 minutes): From Comic-Con, circa 2010.
• Original Regular Show Commercials (HD, 1 minute): Two promos.

Regular Show: The Complete First & Second Seasons Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Regular Show isn't for everyone, but then neither is any Cartoon Network series. The joy is in finding the standout shows that suit your personal tastes and humor. This may be it, or... it might not be at all. Either way, a fair chance is in order, and Warner's Blu-ray release offers a 40-episode trial run of the still-thriving series' first two seasons. And with an excellent video presentation and a generous supplemental package (complete with 42 commentaries), it's hard to go wrong, even if lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 is as good as it gets in the audio department. So strap in and give Regular Show a spin. It isn't backed by a lossless track (as is incorrectly noted on the back cover of the set), but the sting should wear off soon after laughter sets in.