bad bad news

heya

fairly, or reasonably, recently i was listening to a spot of provincial radio, look you see. well, maybe look you hear but anyway. it, the wireless, was "on" so as to provide some distracting sound as i completed some task or other, quite likely that it was doing the dishes. on this particular broadcast they were discussing recent DVD and Blu Ray releases.

my attention was drawn from the dishes (or whatever) and to the radio when they mentioned one of them "special edition" DVD and CD sets was coming out in regards of the film Eat The Rich. by no means was this a film that i recall fondly, but memories are that it was not all that bad, and that the soundtrack was quite smart. 

it was in investigating the availability and price of this new Eat The Rich release that i became aware of something that was of far (as in considerable) more interest to me. that would be a (it said) new release of the Bad News films, with a suggestion that it was a "complete" set. 

so yes, but of course i purchased. right up to the point of watching this set (and that is a warning of what is to come) anything issued in the name of Bad News was an autopilot purchase. not that much got released, which is a great shame. it is just wonderful that so many out there seem to fondly remember the band as much as i apparently do.

infuriatingly i could find no, as in zero, information dans le internet about what exactly this double disc set contained. sure, it was going to have the two films, Bad News Tour and More Bad News, but what else, i wondered? what unreleased stuff was there? i knew of very little that had not had an official release on VHS or DVD. the short "wish list" would be some footage from a gig, the Cashing In On Christmas video and the Comic Relief thing they did. of them, the latter always struck me as unlikely, as Colin Grigson did not appear.

making the lack of information all the more infuriating was the price. this is not a cheap set. if one is lucky they can find it for slightly north of £15, but be prepared that it seems mostly available for a brokered fee considerably north of that. and, depending on what you already own, it just might not be worth getting.

on the plus side, excellent packaging. some effort has gone in here. you get fancy picture printed discs and a glossy booklet. for the most part the booklet is a reprint of an interview, frustratingly printed in an impenetrable way, for the small orange text on black does not work too good. but still, some lovely images.

things started going south when i popped the first disc in. well, technically the second disc, for of course i went straight for the extras. i can pretty much recite the films backwards to you, and my interest was just in the extras really. moving on, and what one is confronted with when the disc comes up is an FBI warning, threatening you with a (presumably US) $250,000 fine if you pirate that what you have just bought. then i remembered why Completely Bad News felt familiar. it was a USA release a few years ago. one that i looked at, and ultimately decided not to import at the time. whoops.

so, with this in mind, it appears the "unreleased bonus material" might, and most likely does, relate to the USA (and i suspect Canadian) market. breakdown of the extras after the pretty picture of the boys below, taken from the booklet.

not sure how i have to word it to make sure you google enthusiasts get this hidden information. but here goes. here are the details of the extras and bonus material on the Bad News dvd set.

Bohemian Rhapsody - the ace music video, previously released in the UK as a video single.

Behind The Scenes - actually the second track on the Bohemian Rhapsody video single, really called Every Mistake Imaginable. the quality is utterly shocking, like a low resolution poorly buffered rip from You Tube. the DVD i have made myself off my VHS single is of far superior quality.

The Making Of Bad News / The Bad News Story - finally, i thought, something new and interesting. no. on the DVD case it says "making of", on the disc itself it says "Bad News Story". essentially a 12 minute thing made up mostly of footage from the two films, with some new(ish) (about 10 years ago) footage of Den Dennis and Spider Webb. it is that latter bit, plus some interview snippets with Jeff Beck, which is of interest.

La Tourne Infernal - presumably originally for the Canadian market, here you go. this is Bad News Tour dubbed in to French. i have no need for this and less interest, don't know about you.

Photo Gallery - some standard images of the band, shown as the film (rather than the slower album) version of Warriors Of Genghis Khan plays.

Trailers - advertising for other Comic Strip ventures. includes the classic A Fistful Of Traveller's Cheques.

should you not have the Bohemian Rhapsody video single or a functional VHS, then perhaps this is worth somewhere north of £15 to you. i would suggest, maybe, just watching the video as uploaded to You Tube countless times should cover it for you.

as for the films, well, yes, as brilliant as ever, as funny now as they were on first viewing. maybe even funnier, as time has been kind. for the record, yes, More Bad News has all of the "f" words bleeped out. this appears to be the only version to exist, never on tv, VHS or DVD have i heard it unedited. being fair, the bleeps seem to make the expletives funnier.

yes, of course, ostensibly the price is proverbially "worth it" for the two Bad News films alone. do some shopping around, however, and you can get a much better deal. for (normally) south of £15 you can get a set called The Best Of The Comic Strip Presents. that set features both Bad News films and some other classics, most notably the previously mentioned A Fistful Of Traveller's Cheques. as to why that one is so celebrated, well, Hotel Bastardos.

if you wish to go full tilt, both Bad News films (of course) feature on The Complete Comic Strip Presents, which can be bought for around £30. yes, Traveller's Cheques is on there too, along with The Supergrass, which is really, really funny. also, Supergrass features (trying to be spoiler free here) the following equation = Robbie Coltrane + chainsaw + unique mix of Two Tribes by Frankie Goes To Hollywood. say no more.

a similarly packaged "mega" box set of Bad News is due out on December 20. of this year, being 2019. the price being quoted is an eye watering £80 or so. going on this release, it will not be bought. again, there is an infuriating lack of information on the "mega box", but from what i can tell it features these DVDs, the two albums on CD, and some unreleased "live" CDs of the band. also an Alan Metcalf business card. not wishing to show off, but as i have the two different CD releases of Bad News (the 2nd release featuring much of the 2nd album), the tape of Bootleg and now the films on DVD twice, as well as vinyl, VHS, etc, i suspect i can live without live recordings that will not be listened to and a business card.

quite the missed opportunity, this. a better quality copy of Every Mistake Imaginable (i would have given them my VHS to master off), and the Cashing In On Christmas video rather than the French dub version of the first film would have made this the perfect set. to quote that other famous metal band, it's a fine line between clever and stupid.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!