The Legend of Neil: The Complete Series

A YouTube project that went viral and was eventually acquired by Comedy Central, writer-director Sandeep Parikh's ultra-low-budget satire focuses on New Jersey loser Neil who—follow me closely here—engages in a drunk session of kinky autoeroticism while playing the classic Nintendo video game The Legend of Zelda, and then awakens to find himself transformed into the warrior-elf Link within the game world, which is presented here in chintzy-looking live-action without any fancy TRON stuff (although it does spoof the aesthetics of 8-bit side-scrolling and “levels”). In individual short episodes, Neil (played by co-writer Tony Janning) replenishes his life force via sex with an especially hormonal fairy (Felicia Day); learns that his wizard-like mentor (Mike Rose) has Tourette's; falls in love with the captive Princess Zelda (Angie Hill), who is actually black; and finds himself having to sing in a gimmicky all-musical chapter. Yes, sophomoric sex gags and profanity predominate, but so does hilarious stuff, especially the non-sequitur takeoffs on The Office and Glory (on the other hand, one sees the Harry Potter bit coming way in advance). Presenting all 20 episodes from the series' three seasons (2008–10), DVD extras include two audio commentaries, a “making-of” featurette, music videos, and a prop-building demo. Sure to appeal to gamers (and fans of absurd web shows), this is recommended. (C. Cassady)