Amazon.com reviews for
"Bob and Margaret" (1998)

photos

board

trailer

details

Bob & Margaret 4-6 (3pc) (vhs):

Amazon.com video review: Bob and Margaret probably love one another, but it's hard to tell from their animated adventures, created in England (a short, Bob's Birthday, won an Oscar) and broadcast in the United States on Comedy Central. But that's just part of their charm--they're miffed at everything, including each other, just like any other noncartoon couple.

This collection includes a couple of minor gems. In "The Burglary," B&M are robbed and attempt an even bigger scam--insurance fraud. "Trick or Treat" finds Bob learning of the death of a college chum he doesn't even remember and being sent into paroxysms of cosmic reflection (he hopes his dead relatives aren't watching him, he says, "because I have a lot of nasty habits"). Fans and completists will find this essential; more casual viewers might want to stick to sampling individual tapes (volumes 4 and 6 are more satisfying than volume 5). --David Kronke

Bob and Margaret, Vol. 1: A Night In (vhs):

Amazon.com video review: Comedy Central's listlessly restless, prim and improper British couple (first seen in the Oscar-winning animated short Bob's Birthday) hit video with this two-episode volume that finds them repeatedly foiled in rare moments of attempted intimacy. In the first, "A Night In," the remarkably unremarkable Bob and Margaret try to figure out how to spend an evening together and can come up with nothing better than renting a movie and phoning out for pizza. But even that simple plan goes awry. In the other episode, "Discomfort of Strangers," Bob's annoying Canadian cousins--the loud, cheap, and sweaty Melvin and Cookie (who make ugly Americans seem positively palatable)--barge in, virtually unannounced as Bob and Margaret plan a second honeymoon.

Largely, B&M eschew big gags in favor of smaller, more observational humor with a benignly adult edge on the proceedings. Those who love animation because it can do so much more visually than live-action comedy won't be terribly impressed, but fans of low-key and deadpan humor will have an extremely mild blast. Here's the couple's key exchange: Bob says, "We're not boring." Margaret responds, "Yes, we are." And, funny enough, they're both right. --David Kronke

Bob and Margaret, Vol. 4: The Burglary (vhs):

Amazon.com video review: England's--and Comedy Central's--soporific spitfires, who won an Oscar with their first animated short, Bob's Birthday, return with another collection of their tentative travails. In "The Burglary," the very British (and, hence, very low key) Bob and Margaret are robbed by thieves who talk as if they've been watching too much Martha Stewart Living. And that's when their real troubles start--they try to scam their insurance company for far nicer items than the ones they actually lost. The second episode, "The Neighbors," offers a cynically sinister, and pretty darn funny, view of suburbia. Bob and Margaret--and, it seems, the entire block--time their morning departures for work so as not to have to chat with their neighbors. B&M try to get out of this rut by befriending their new neighbors, an American satellite-dish sales rep and his bovine Quebecois wife (Bob and Margaret enjoys slagging Canadians more than Americans). Needless to say, it doesn't work out too well.

This volume finds the pair at their observational best, particularly in the gags about how technology has gotten so useful, or at least so impressively advanced that the average person has no option but to fear it. --David Kronke

Bob and Margaret, Vol. 5: For Pete's Sake (vhs):

Amazon.com video review: A recurring theme in the ongoing tale of this unhappily happily married British couple (seen regularly on Comedy Central after winning a Best Animated Short Oscar) is their repeated debate about having kids, even while all about them they're confronted with living, breathing, squealing reasons to avoid life's little miracles. This volume explores that topic in-depth--the first episode concerns Bob and Margaret babysitting Bob's petulant nephew and niece; the second has Margaret confronting a mom who spanks her child in a megamarket.

Though the squalling kids are appropriately annoying, the observational humor here feels a little pat, and flat, particularly in the second episode, "Shopping," which covers such well-worn territory as fighting for a parking place and long lines at the checkout. Still, each episode has its gem of a moment. When polite thugs pick Margaret's pocket, they're caught on security cameras; the crack force monitoring the cameras react decisively, saying, "We'd better keep an eye on those two--they may be shoplifters." --David Kronke

Bob and Margaret, Vol. 6: Holiday (vhs):

Amazon.com video review: This is both the most aggressive and the most morbid set of misadventures from Comedy Central's placidly perturbed British couple. In the first episode, "Holiday," Bob and Margaret plan a romantic getaway to England. How it turns out, we'll never know, because the episode gets bogged down in the tiny minutiae of the journey, rather than the destination. You know, boarding the dogs with a psychotic, arguing over seat assignments on the plane, trying not to get one's brains blown out by the on-board terrorists decked out in sundry religious garb--that sort of thing. Bob frets over whether he should take a sleeping pill; if there's a disaster, he worries, "I won't be able to panic properly!"

"Trick or Treat," the second installment on the tape, borrows ever so slightly from the David Schwimmer-Gwyneth Paltrow movie The Pallbearer. Bob is invited to a funeral for a college chum he scarcely remembers. It's a time for particularly pointed cosmic reflection: Bob observes, "People refuse to accept the misery of eternal nonexistence." This is a particularly schizophrenic collection, ranging from some of the series' most flagrantly gory gags to some of its most thoughtfully subtle. --David Kronke