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PLEASE NOTE: Michael D's is currently in READ ONLY MODE. Anything submitted will simply not be written to the database.
Lots of stuff is still broken, but at least reviews can now be looked up and read.
The Norman Gunston Show-Volume 3 (1975)

The Norman Gunston Show-Volume 3 (1975)

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Released 20-Mar-2002
Cover Art

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Details At A Glance

General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Main Menu Audio & Animation Featurette-Unedited Tim Allen Interview Notes-Guarantee Of Excellence Trailer-Segment from Volume 1; Segment from Volume 2 Trailer-Malcolm; Secret Policeman's Ball Trailer-What's Up, Tiger Lily?; The Natural History Of The Chicken DVD Credits
Rating
Year Of Production	1975
Running Time	67:56 (Case: 75)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu	Cast & Crew
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Simon Francis
Studio Distributor	Umbrella Entertainment	Starring	Garry McDonald
Case	Click	Starring	Garry McDonald
RPI	$29.95	Music	None Given

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	Full Frame	English Dolby Digital 2.0 (224Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	None
16x9 Enhancement	No
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.33:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No	Miscellaneous
Subtitles	None	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

NOTE: The Profanity Filter is ON. Turn it off here.

Plot Synopsis

For those of you who don’t know who Norman Gunston is, or if you haven’t read Nemir’s review of Volume 1, Norman Gunston is a character portrayed by Australian comedian Garry McDonald. In the 1970s, Norman interviewed such talent as Mohammed Ali, Paul McCartney, at times asking controversial questions such as the sexuality of Boy George.

Following on from Volumes 1 & 2 of this The Best Of The Last Norman Gunston Show, this time Norman meets with the likes of Ian Botham, Lionel Ritchie, Tim Allen and Guns’n’Roses and features a musical number from African band Mahotella Queens. Norman’s, and McDonald’s, comedy is hit and miss for me. He can be clever and laugh-out-loud funny one minute, and average the next, even embarrassingly un-funny at times. Again, this collection is no exception to the way I feel about McDonald, with it including some great interviews with Tim Allen and Guns’n’Roses, and also some downers with Ian Botham and his musical rendition of “Unforgettable”. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t like his attempts at musical comedy.

The overall running time of 75 minutes does seem a bit short for each disc, and perhaps all of this footage could have been put on a single disc, or even onto a 2-disc set.

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Transfer Quality

Video

Being not quite 10 years old, the made-for-television footage is still in good shape.

The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.33:1 and is not 16x9 enhanced.

Being produced for Australian television, The Norman Gunston Show doesn’t feature top production levels. The transfer cannot improve on the source material, and the fairly low-budget production comes up quite well. The sharpness is only ever adequate, and the shadow detail fares no better. The fact that the show features multiple shooting locations results in differing lighting quality. A constant, but never distracting, low level of noise and grain keeps this transfer from becoming anything more than expected.

Colours seemed consistently decent throughout the entire collection of clips, never bleeding or oversaturating.

MPEG artefacts were non-existent, but there were occasional film artefacts present, particularly during the first 30 seconds of the Tim Allen interview.

Being a single layered single sided disc, there is no layer change.

*Video Ratings Summary*
Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

The audio, much like the video transfer, is nothing outstanding, but simply adequate.

There is only one soundtrack, English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono. The dialogue was always clear and I did not note any dropouts. I noticed some inconsistency with the dialogue quality, but this was due to the variability between the studio and the outside interview environments. The soundtrack is clear of any distinct background noise or hiss. There were no problems with audio sync either.

The few minutes of music contained within these clips came across very well, and was always clear.

Being a mono soundtrack, the surround and LFE channels were never required.

*Audio Ratings Summary*
Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

Extras

NOTE: Being part of a 3-part collection, some extra features are repeated on all discs, so some segments of this section are quoted verbatim from Nemir's review of The Norman Gunston Show-Volume 1.

Main Menu Audio & Animation

The menu background is a still of Norman Gunston, cropped from the same image that adorns the cover. The only audio component is about 15 seconds of applause, which strangely enough represents the only use of the front or rear surround speakers during the entire programme.

Featurette

What we get here is the unedited footage of Norman’s interview with Tim Allen. With a forewarning quality notice stating that the footage has been transferred from poor quality source material, this is a great extra feature. Running for just over 26 minutes, and being the best interview of the lot in my opinion, this was a great inclusion.

Notes

A guarantee of excellence that is really just Norman explaining in three paragraphs why we should buy this series.

Featurette

A snippet from the first disc in the series, this is a clip from a rave party where Gunston interviews some of the party’s participants.

Featurette

A snippet from the second disc in the series. This time, Norman Gunston interviews Julian Clary.

Trailer

The original cinematic trailer for Malcolm. It is presented in widescreen letterboxed format. Lots of charm, lots of film artefacts.

Trailer

I believe this is the original television ad for the recording of the first Secret Policeman's Ball. As with the previous trailer, it has lots of film artefacts.

Trailer

A trailer for Woody Allen's What's Up, Tiger Lily? It is a full frame presentation and in keeping with the previous trailers has lots of film artefacts.

Trailer

A weird 15 second grab of a chicken wandering around the screen to the sound of the Eurhythmics, presumably to get me interested in viewing The Natural History Of The Chicken. This trailer is presented widescreen letterboxed and is blessedly free of film artefacts.

DVD Credits

Not really an extra, more something that shows up after the feature (or can be selected from the main menu as an Easter Egg of sorts). I love that this title has credits, but I don't feel they go far enough, really only listing the producers individually. It would be great to know who it was at Madman that did the encoding.

R4 vs R1

NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.

This is a multi-region encoded PAL release for the Australian market. At this stage, we are unaware of there being any other releases of this DVD.

Summary

More hit and miss entertainment from Norman Gunston, spread across three discs when it all could have possibly fitted onto one. The video quality is decent for a television show, without becoming anything more than that. The audio quality is adequate for this release, without any problems other than location inconsistencies. The extras are better than expected, with one stand-out feature.

Ratings (out of 5)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

Review Equipment
DVD	Pioneer DV-525, using Composite output
Display	Teac 82cm 16x9. Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable.
Audio Decoder	Built in to amplifier/receiver.
Amplification	Sony STR DE-545
Speakers	5 Sony speakers; Sherwood 12" 100w Powered Subwoofer

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