Anybody hear any good DVD commentaries?

[ScottotD]

Any Robert Rodriguez, Simpsons, Steven Soderbergh, Kevin Smith, John Carpenter, Bendico Del Toro, John Carpenter, Futurama or John McTiernan commentary is a safe bet imo.

Eurotrip and Orgazmo have GREAT drunken commentaries.

For starters, I'll recommend Roger Ebert's commentary on the Dark City DVD.  It's pretty cool.

I've tried to listen to that about 5 times, the fact it's Ebert puts me off in the first 10 minutes every time.

[THE QUEEN!!!]

Ebert's Citizen Kane commentary is really good. I love all Pixar commentary, and all commentaries by Norman Jewison (Fiddler on the Roof, Moonstruck, etc). One commentary that is more entertaining than the movie is Garry Marshall's commentary on the Princess Diaries. Seriously. He is so funny.

[Rattrap007]

Simpsons and Futurama. Fan-friggin-tastic

[spaceforarent]

I don't know if you ever got into Home Movies, but I think those are great commentaries. Brendon Small and H. Jon Benjamin are hilarious together on the season one commentaries, and there are plenty of other folks that get in the mix.  Season four includes also includes some fan commentaries from The Onion staff and Modest Mouse. There's a bonus feature on the season three set that's the audio from a radio interview with Loren Bouchard and Jon Benjamin that I've listened to many times. Always makes me laugh.

Home Movies, The Onion, and Modest Mouse are three of my favorite things. Don't know why I haven't listened to those commentaries yet.

And I'll third/fourth/whatever we're on for the Futurama ones, if you're a fan. I love how there always this slight battle between David X Cohen and the voice actors, with Cohen trying to explain all the nerdy references/jokes, and the voice actors doing their voices.

[stansimpson]

Simpsons and Futurama. Fan-friggin-tastic

Here, here on The Simpsons.  As an outspoken fan, of course they're great, but they really take their time and effort to make good commentaries.  They try to get everyone to watch the episode the day before so that they're more comfortable during the recording (and not just watching).  There's even a hidden Conan O'Brien commentary on one ep!  But really, I would consider them required listening to any fan of animation.  They're surprisingly candid, detailed, informative and often hilarious.  I can't recommend them highly enough.

Which reminds me... why haven't I started on the Futurama commentaries yet?  ....whoops.... I, uh, need to get on that... [/nervous laughter]

[Sharktopus]

I believe that some of the best commentaries are the ones for Futurama, God are they funny. Seriously, you've got Billy West, John Dimaggio, Maurice Lamarche, all the writers and Matt Groening bouncing off each other. I actually prefer listening to some episodes with the commentary on than the sactual episode, plus, you learn and hear all these hilarious little stories. Gay guy and the ghost anyone?

Gay Guy & The Ghost! "You can come sleep in here if you're scared."

Here, here on The Simpsons.  As an outspoken fan, of course they're great, but they really take their time and effort to make good commentaries.  They try to get everyone to watch the episode the day before so that they're more comfortable during the recording (and not just watching).  There's even a hidden Conan O'Brien commentary on one ep!  But really, I would consider them required listening to any fan of animation.  They're surprisingly candid, detailed, informative and often hilarious.  I can't recommend them highly enough.

Really? I tried listening to the first couple seasons, and they were dreadful. They clearly hadn't seen the episodes in over a decade and had no recollection of making them. I assume they get better, but I completely lost interest.

Which reminds me... why haven't I started on the Futurama commentaries yet?  ....whoops.... I, uh, need to get on that... [/nervous laughter]

You really do. They're the perfect balance of informative and hilarious.

[Relaxing Dragon]

Here, here on The Simpsons.  As an outspoken fan, of course they're great, but they really take their time and effort to make good commentaries.  They try to get everyone to watch the episode the day before so that they're more comfortable during the recording (and not just watching).  There's even a hidden Conan O'Brien commentary on one ep!  But really, I would consider them required listening to any fan of animation.  They're surprisingly candid, detailed, informative and often hilarious.  I can't recommend them highly enough.

Really? I tried listening to the first couple seasons, and they were dreadful. They clearly hadn't seen the episodes in over a decade and had no recollection of making them. I assume they get better, but I completely lost interest.

Well, consider the large amount of time between the early seasons and the DVD release dates. It probably had been over a decade for them for a few, and it was back when they weren't used to doing commentaries a lot. With DVDs being released more frequently now and lots of recording practice, they've got it down now.

Of course, I still need to listen to them myself. I do listen to Futurama from time to time, though.

For TV shows, I love all the Family Guy commentaries, especially from the first few seasons (before the revival). There's some great, funny stuff on there, as well as some explanation of the more obscure/weird jokes, which is always nice.

[Sharktopus]

I really enjoyed Ben Burtt's contributions to the Star Wars audio commentaries. Everybody else, not so much.

[stansimpson]

Here, here on The Simpsons.  As an outspoken fan, of course they're great, but they really take their time and effort to make good commentaries.  They try to get everyone to watch the episode the day before so that they're more comfortable during the recording (and not just watching).  There's even a hidden Conan O'Brien commentary on one ep!  But really, I would consider them required listening to any fan of animation.  They're surprisingly candid, detailed, informative and often hilarious.  I can't recommend them highly enough.

Really? I tried listening to the first couple seasons, and they were dreadful. They clearly hadn't seen the episodes in over a decade and had no recollection of making them. I assume they get better, but I completely lost interest.

Hm, yeah, I forgot about the first few seasons.  I think it's when they started releasing them on a regular basis that they seemed to get used to it (I don't know if you remember, but when they released Season 1, they had no idea if TV on DVD would be a good business venture).  I think anything past Season 5 is a solid bet.  You can tell by the way the menus change too.  They fool around with different menus, layouts and features for the first few seasons until it's like "Forget it!  This is the way it's gonna be and every season after because we're in this for the long haul."  That's when the box sets and their features are at their best.  I just don't remember when that happens exactly.

[Sharktopus]

Yeah, I'm sure the Simpsons commentaries must get better, but I stopped buying them after season 3. I realized "Why am I paying money for episodes I've already seen twenty times? Screw this."

Although the look at the original animation of the planned first episode was fascinating. (And cringe-worthy.)

[spaceforarent]

Why am I paying money for episodes I've already seen twenty times?

I hear the 21st time is the best.

[Thrifty]

I can't remember any movies that had memorable commentaries, but there are some TV shows.

Freaks and Geeks, besides being a terrific show, went nuts with their commentaries.  18 episodes, 29 commentaries.  Some include a commentary made by the fans, an all girl cast member commentary, a commentary with Coach Fredricks, Mr. Kowcheski, and Mr. Rosso all commenting in character.

The Simpsons and Futurama have some pretty entertaining and informative commentaries.  One of the commentary tracks for the Futurama episode "Roswell That Ends Well" was done after some kind of party, so most of the guys are drunk.  They're still coherent, but their speech is erratic and slurred.  You sure wouldn't want them driving.

Home Movies had some interesting commentaries too, as mentioned upthread.

[TTYT]

ANY Futurama commentary is awesome. I don't think I've watched all but two episodes twice without the commentaries since I got the DVD sets.

The commentaries on the Lord of the Rings Extended Editions are great - especially the cast commentaries. The guys who play Merry and Pippin are hilarious, and Christopher Lee pipes in every once in a while to drop some detailed info on the story that helps you understand it a lot more. My favourite parts of the cast commentaries (I can't remember which movies these parts are on, forgive me): The story about the "tig" game and the recollection of Christopher Lee having trouble getting around in costume ("I can't get up these GODDAMN STAIRS, Pete!")

The commentaries for Pitch Black and The Chronicles of Riddick (Unrated Edition) (which is actually an enjoyable leave-your-brain-at-home movie compared to its utterly crap theatrical cut) are great...

The commentaries for Pirates of the Caribbean 1& 2 are pretty good, too - athough the writers' commentary for the 2nd one is definitely the funnier one. Kinda disappointed they didn't do a commentary for the 3rd movie...

And the commentaries for both live-action Hellboy films AND both Hellboy: Animated films are pretty cool, as well.

[Rattrap007]

The Tropic thunder commentary is awesome. RDJr spends the entire commentary in the character his character is playing (ie the black guy). Then at the end he drops to the actor in the film (the actor who is playing the black guy) and finally himself. it is awesome and hilarious.

[Darth Geek]

The Tropic thunder commentary is awesome. RDJr spends the entire commentary in the character his character is playing (ie the black guy). Then at the end he drops to the actor in the film (the actor who is playing the black guy) and finally himself. it is awesome and hilarious.

Yeah, I loved that one. Although it didn't seem planned out very well, as some of the other people at the beginning didn't seem to know how to deal with him doing that.

Some commentaries that should be avoided are Tim Burton's on Edward Scissorhands, John Carpenter and the Lighting guy on The Mouth of Madness.

Spaced had some great commentaries, too.

I second the recommendation of the Joe Dante Gremlins commentaries. both with him and the producer and effects guy, and him with the actors. Just great. Dante does great commentaries for his other movies like Innerspace, as well.