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By Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Ty Burr
Ty Burr is a writer at large for EW and is no relation to Raymond or Aaron

The world of new-media marketing gives a reviewer a special appreciation for promotional babble. No one is yet sure what ''interactive'' really means (wait a minute-isn't a book interactive?), so it can mean almost anything, and that is pig paradise for marketers who have been merrily debasing our language with nonwords like infotainment. Every CD-ROM that crosses the transom is ''revolutionary.'' Every new game is touted as the latest Myst. Even screen savers arrive bloated with hype. So it's refreshing-no, it's revolutionary-to find one of two new CD-ROMs derived from jaded television comedy shows: Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time (7th Level, CD-ROM for PC/Windows, $59.99). Here's a product that announces its uselessness in its very title. It nearly lives up to that title, too, which means that you can enjoy the disc without having to worry about being part of any brave-new-world baloney. If anything, Waste belongs to the fine old milieu of exploitation, existing primarily to recycle old TV sketches and various rude noises. Of the original members of the British comedy troupe, only Waste cocreator Terry Gilliam seems to have had substantial input, and if you liked his animated cut-and-paste confections on the show, you'll have a high old time with this. More important, what Waste retains is the Python spirit: merciless in debunking anything remotely serious, and here applied to the entire concept of multimedia. The disc's a point-and-click affair, as most CD-ROMs are, but in this case you honestly don't know what will happen when you click anywhere in the Exploratorium or the Exploding TV Room or the Portrait Gallery. Maybe you'll see the ''Dead Parrot'' skit. Maybe you'll get a crazed bit of animation. Maybe you'll end up in a penalty box listening to cheesy music-and good luck trying to get out. There are more purposeful aspects to Waste, but none that approach greater meaning. A Desktop Pythonizer lets you clutter up your computer screen with squiggly icons and screen savers. Three arcade-style games let you match wits against flying pigs (and their lethal droppings). And buried under everything is a puzzle (the ''Secret to Intergalactic Success'') whose rules and entry points you'll have to find on your own. If this sounds too good to be true, know that, yes, the publicist assured me that the game is ''kind of like Myst,'' and that players who solve ''Success'' stand a shot at winning, among other things, a Pentium-based multimedia system or $5,000. So much for irrelevance. For true pointlessness, you'll have to buy another TV-yuks CD-ROM, Saturday Night Live (GameTek, for Mac and PC/Windows, $79.95). The package contains two discs: one focusing on the classic Belushi/Chase/Murray years, and one covering the later Murphy/Carvey/Myers regimes. Both employ the same basic interface to access well-known sketches and bits: ''Weekend Update,'' fake commercials, musical parodies, political skits. But because there's so much video footage, some of the skits are truncated, which throws off the timing. For instance, John Belushi's flipped-out news commentator (''But noooooo!'') just isn't as funny if you can't see him start out as another 6 o'clock-news grayface. Each disc also has a ''scrapbook'' section, featuring skits and factoids in text form, but that goes against the manic liveness that made this show work (and occasionally still does). Don't get me wrong, there are hilarious moments here. But you'll find them in a more convenient format at your video store. And while the Waste disc had me laughing out loud as I nosed around its on-screen byways, SNL's interactive experience isn't very funny. Even pressing Waste's help button pays off with a gag: In one instance, an officious British voice natters, ''Ah, yes, 'Help!' 'Help!' was one of the better songs written by John Lennon and Paul McCartney. '' That beats Myst in my book any day. Monty Python's Complete Waste of Time: A- Saturday Night Live: B-


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Posted Sep 16, 1994
 

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