Dilbert: The Complete Series

After being fired from UPN's primetime lineup, this 1999-2000 animated series based on Scott Adams' nationally syndicated comic strip has been promoted to DVD. Dilbert, the bespectacled potato-shaped engineer with the upwardly mobile tie, is the poster boy for the corporately disenfranchised. Though Adams' cynical, cubicle eye-view of corporate culture was somewhat co-opted by The Drew Carey Show, animation lends the series a surreal flourish not possible in a live-action series (in the first episode, for example, we see the devastation wreaked by an "all-natural" anthrax lozenge). Dilbert may "just want to make the world a better place," but that is difficult in a workplace where the Pointy-Haired Boss insists his employees first come up with a name for an as-yet undeveloped product, where employees literally give their souls to the company, and where an evil cat reigns as a director of human resources loathe to help employees. As the old saying goes, it's funny because it's true. The voice cast are excellent hires, with Daniel Stern as the hapless Dilbert, Larry Miller as the clueless Boss, Kathy Griffin as sardonic coworker Alice, and Chris Elliott as Dogbert. You don't have to have a refrigerator, cubicle wall, or computer festooned with yellowed Dilbert strips to appreciate this series; in an era of downsizing and corporate scandals, it will strike a Kafka-esque chord with fans of Office Space and The Office, or anyone toiling for a company that loves misery. Taken together, however, the 30 episodes collected here are ultimately not in the same league with the superlative Golden Globe-winning The Office. A strong optional purchase. (D. Liebenson)