Directed: Matthew Bate
Starring: Eddie Lee Sausage, Mitchell D, Dan Clowes, Henry Rosenthal, Ivan Brunetti, Mike Mitchell and Bob Mothersbaugh.
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 89 minutes
Distributor: Tribeca Film
Our Score: 3.5 out of 5 stars
I have always been a fan of comedy prank CDs and I remember listening to The Jerky Boys religiously growing up. I am not sure how but I never came across Eddie Lee and Mitchell D’s audio vérité recordings till now, but I am glad I did. The recordings of Peter and Raymond has been used in pop culture over the last 20 years in music, comics and film. This documentary follows the Eddie Lee and Mitchell D as they take us through how this whole phenomenon was born and what is has turned into today. The interviews are really interesting and we even have rare interview Peter himself back in 1993.
The recordings made by Eddie Lee Sausage and Mitchell D. where done back in the last 80’s when they lived in a pink apartment building dubbed the “Pepto Bismol Palace” in San Francisco. When they moved into their apartment in 1987, they discovered that their neighbors, Peter Haskett and Raymond Huffman, constantly were arguing and Peter was often screaming “shut up, little man!” at Ray. Eddie and Mitchell found this quite humorous and began began tape recording the arguments and distributing copies among their friends. From this it grew and grew into what it is today.
This film has not only been premiered at 2011 Sundance Film Festival, It has also won numerous awards. Overall it is very entertaining, but the second half runs a little thin. This comedy will make you laugh for sure. If you have never heard these recordings, it is sure to impact you more than others who have been listening for years. If you want to know how popular this has become while writing this review I attempted to visit the documentaries website and this is what I received “Bandwidth Limit Exceeded”. It just shows the demand for this film.