![]() ![]() Score: 4 out of 10 The Video Not much can be said about the full-screen transfer except that it does a passable job representing the original broadcast quality. ![]() Sketches: Cheerleaders 1, Simma Down, Sparks, Barbara Walters Montage, Pharmacy, Morning Latte, Rita, Office Flirt, Judge Judy, Character Montage, Cheerleaders 2, Joy Lipton, Always & Forever, Friendly Skies, Leg Up, Credits (Cheerleader Montage). Cheri Oteri was an enjoyable member of the late-Nineties SNL cast, but the choice of sketches for The Best of Cheri Oteri don't do a very good job of properly showcasing her talents. Her turns as the cross-medicating train wreck Collette Reardon and Rita DelVecchio, the woman who yells at the neighborhood kids and keeps anything that lands on her porch, fall on the less-annoying end of the scale, though a better sketch with the latter that featured former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani would've been a better choice. In the context of an episode where she may only do only one of these bits a week, it's not a problem, but when a poorly-chosen Morning Latte sketch - spoofing airhead morning show hosts - is close to a tag-team of skits of her as a shrill prom date and then a spastic kid visiting a airliner cockpit, the teeth stay on edge a lot. Where The Best of Cheri Oteri runs into rough sailing is in the overabundance of sketches that feature her in breathy, hysterical shouting. Other impressions sampled include Mariah Carey, Ross Perot(!), Jennifer Lopez, Kathie Lee Gifford and New York public access cable porn host Robyn Byrd. While those are amusing, her good Debbie Reynolds impression is trapped in a terrible sketch called Leg Up with Molly Shannon as fellow hoofer Ann Miller. Her mimicry skills are showcased in a montage of her appearances as Barbara Walters and on a Judge Judy spoof which features an appearance from the real Judge Judy. Also quite raunchy is Office Flirt in which a tube-topped, big-haired Oteri disgusts the people who are trying to eat in the break room with her single-entendre comments. ![]() Guest host Sarah Michelle Gellar gets into the spirit of things nicely. Things pick up a bit with Sparks, a recurring sketch with her and Chris Kattan as a couple who are constantly devolving into raunchy sexual behavior and when called on it, accuse the complainants with having dirty minds. Unfortunately, The Best of Cheri Oteri opens with a one-two groin-kicking combo of a Cheerleaders sketch (at a swim meet) and a bit with her playing an abusive burger joint cashier who keeps ordering the customers to "Simma down now! Simma down!" When a character is exclusively constructed of a single repeated catch phrase, it's enough to make you want to call the dentist for some soothing oral surgery. Like the INXS compilation, as I watched, I realized just how unvaried many of her characters were as they shared too many shrill and histrionic traits - at least in the sketches showcased here. As a cast member from 1995-2000, Oteri was a sprightly comedienne who frequently paired up with Will Ferrell for sketches - least notably the awful cheerleader sketches that provoked a mad punching of the fast-forward button at the instant of their too-frequent appearances - and specialized in some decidedly oddball characters who at best we're decently drawn, but at worst were grating one-dimensional annoyances. ![]()
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