Created by comedian Jonathan Katz and producer Tom Snyder, Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist is an animated series that originally ran on Comedy Central from May 28, 1995 to December 24, 1999. Starring Jonathan Katz, H. Jon Benjamin, and Laura Silverman, the series focused on Dr. Jonathan Katz, who was voiced by, and visually based on, the comedian of the same name. Dr. Katz is a divorced psychologist who lives with his son, Ben (H. Jon Benjamin). For the most part, Dr. Katz had famous actors and comedians as patients. Katz was also forced to deal with his disinterested secretary Laura (Laura Silverman) and the idiosyncrasies of his daily life, when he wasn’t seeing patients.
Though Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist – The Complete Series has already been released, Paramount/Comedy Central has released a 110 minute Best of compilation for those of you who don’t feel the need to own the entire series, or find the $84.99 price tag, a bit too steep.
The biggest problem with this Best of DVD is that you don’t get any significant scenes between Dr. Katz and his son, Laura’s scenes are minimal and there are no moments of Dr. Katz at the bar. All of these things really contribute to showing what a uneven, confused personality Katz was. The full scope of the show is ignored in favor of focusing on the one-on-one interactions between Katz and many patients.
What is offered does provide some laughs. Unscripted, the comedians in sessions basically riff about whatever they feel like, with a confused Katz serving as the mediator. Eighteen celebrities take a turn on Katz’s couch: Margaret Cho spends the session as her mother, talking about gays; David Cross does two funny turns about gay Jesus and a stoned surgeon. It’s interesting to note the different ways that comedians approach this material. In some cases, they let Katz serve as the guide, and simply come up with the funniest possible response to his probing questions (Denis Leary is quizzed about his anger issues). In other cases, the comedian takes the lead, attempting to get provoke some sort of reaction (Patton Oswalt attempts to get Katz to act like a supervillain). There are also occasions where the comedians do their standup routine, using less-than-smooth segues to just jump into material that was obviously planned ahead of time (Dave Chappelle’s routine on superheroes). Finally, there are the moments when they just act like they are in a serious therapy session (Janeane Garofalo tries to work through surprisingly ordinary issues).
There are a few misses. Julia Louis-Dreyfus trying to have a session over the phone and David Duchovny doing his session from a broom closet miss the mark. While most of the material did provide some laughs, I still would have preferred complete episodes to give viewers a more well rounded view of the Dr. Katz experience.
The programs are presented in a 4:3 window; sometimes almost full frame and sometimes in what appears to be a 1.66:1 ratio, none with anamorphic enhancement. Color is acceptably saturated, and there is no banding. If the viewer selects to watch all of the sessions at one time, the program has been divided into 18 chapters.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 mono sound is decoded by Dolby Pro-logic into the center channel. The volume has been set too high on the disc leading to some distortion with some of the louder-voiced celebrities unless the sound is manually reduced. Otherwise, it’s an artifact-free audio mix, simple and efficient.
This disc limited special features:
There are four “Dr. Katz Remembers” episodes involving the good doctor with his receptionist Laura and his son Ben. Katz and his son breaking each other up at a funeral is particularly funny.
Four Comedy Central Quickies feature excerpts of about three minutes each from The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Reno 911!, and South Park.
There are previews for the DVD releases of South Park – Season 11, TV Funhouse, and The Best of The Colbert Report.
