Ian's Newsround - It Is Ready. featured image

Yes, I’m quoting Demons and Angels again. The official site reports that work has now finished on the Series III and IV DVDs, with the following content confirmed:

  • All Change and Build To Last – two beasts of documentaries
  • Two lots of deleted scenes
  • Two collections of Smeg Ups, that we’ve already seen
  • Food and Lurve – musical featurettes, set to James Brown’s I Got You (I Feel Good) and Dizzy by Vic Reeves and The Wonderstuff respectively
  • Hattie’s DJ Diary – a ten minute compilation of footage from this year’s convention (Series III)
  • Backwards Forwards – the entire episode played in reverse (Series III)
  • Ace Rimmer – A Life In Lamé – a mini-documentary about Ace Rimmer, presented by Hattie Hayridge as Holly (Series IV)
  • Can’t Smeg Won’t Smeg – the mainly-improvised bundle of fun, apparantly from 1997’s Red Dwarf Night, which celebrated the ninth anniversary of the first episode
  • Three Easter Eggs each – one animated commentary, two secret

No mention yet of isolated music cues, raw effects footage, trailers and such like, but I fully expect to hear about them soon. Some thoughts: It’s good to see that the Easter Eggs will actually be secret this time around. Listing them in the booklet sort of defeats the purpose. It would seem that they are a tad better hidden than the last ones too, which is excellent. For once, it’s an unpredictable choice of music for the featurettes, and two excellent songs. Not a Chumbawamba in sight. Shame there’s only ten minutes’ worth of Dimension Jump footage – there were almost 300 people there, so some are bound to be disappointed. I hope my contribution has survived the edit. Andrew mentions that there aren’t any funny out-takes that we haven’t already seen. Frankly, I’d like for them to all be on the DVD, so we can judge for ourselves.

Of course, the fact that they’ve finished the DVDs three months and six months in advance poses a few questions. One is: why finish now? Okay, budget is a factor, but they’ve got three months to put a collection of new Smeg Ups together. Of course, they could be finished early so they can work on The Movie, which I’m sure you’ll agree is preferable to a few extra features. I’m nitpicking, I know. I should appreciate the fact that the DVDs are excellent as it is. I should look at what is there as opposed to what isn’t there. I should also appreciate that the people compiling the DVDs are in fact human, and may want to take a break every now and that. Nevertheless, Andrew Ellard should stop his bloody moaning about how hard he works – I’ll do the job for you, man!

The official site also brings news of a new book about Alternative Comedy, which, apparantly, is an umbrella that covers Red Dwarf. It seems that anything that’s innovative and/or produced by Paul Jackson is in the same category as The Young Ones. Nevertheless, author Chrissie McDonald has secured exclusive interviews with Bobby Llewellyn and Dave Naylor, so I’m going to have to fucking buy it now. Also on the official site this week, Talkie Toaster talks to Kill Crazy. Hooray.

In other news, #44 of Better Than Life, the newsletter-cum-magazine of The Official Red Dwarf Fan Club has finally arrived at the homes of club members. There’s a huge section of this year’s Dimension Jump, the highlight being two and a half pages of my delightful prose. As well as this, there’s the conclusion of a feature on the Smegazines, an interview with Emohawk‘s Stephen Wickham, lots of lovely reviews and analysis of The Inquisitor. Oh, just join the fucking fan club; not only do you get a lovely magazine, you also recieve a ten pound discount for Dimension Jump.

And finally, I’d just like to mention that I spent £180 on absolute tat yesterday. But then, it’s all Red Dwarf-related tat, apart from the DeLorean, so it has worth. Expect the full report on Memorabilia within in the next few days.

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