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Punk’d: The Complete First Season

Review by: Elaine Cedrone
Elaine Cedrone@TheCinemaSource.com

Remember that gawky, awkward kid in junior high? The one with the overbite and Coke-bottle glasses that the jocks used to push against the lockers and flip his backpack over his head?

Do remember when that kid came back after the summer of tenth grade and was suddenly…hot? His braces had fixed his overbite and then come off, his mom had finally agreed to let him get contact lenses and shop at Abercrombie and Fitch, and it seemed like he’d grown about six inches since June. Unfortunately, he quickly forgot what it was like to be a nerd and slipped his way into the popular group with the ease of someone parking a car - he was loud, boisterous, and kind of annoying. Deep down, though, you could always tell he was still in shocked awe of his new social standing, and for that, you just couldn’t completely hate him.

With the debut of his reality celeb-pranking show, Punk’d on DVD, I can’t help but think of Ashton Kutcher as this kid. Okay, I’m not suggesting that Ashton was ever a dorky, picked-on seventh-grader, but his sudden rise to A-List status seems as fast as it was random. Sure, he was always pretty cute as Kelso on “That 70’s Show,” but it seemed like one day he was starring in films like Dude, Where’s My Car? and then he had broken up with his partner in PDA, Brittany Murphy, and begun a high-profile relationship with Demi Moore and forming the “New Rat Pack” with insta-best bud, P.Diddy. His incredulity at his newfound position in life (and this is someone who once spend his days dusting Cheerio dust off the floors of a General Mills plant for some extra cash – no joke) is seen right at the beginning of Punk’d, when explains the formation of the show, giggling, “MTV gave me a lot of money for a show” like a kid in a candy store. While he’s clearly enjoying the perks of celebrity, with Punk’d, Kutcher mocks and torments the denizens of his new life while comparing them to his ways-of-old; in one segment involving valet parking, he quips, “where I come from, you park your own damn car.” He’s a part of the in-crowd, but he’s still got enough Average-Joe in him to enjoy making the pampered squirm.

Helping Ashton humiliate unwitting celebrities are his field agent henchmen: hysterical, versatile Dax Shepard, Al Shearer, and 8 year-old Ryan Pinkson, whose young appearance has him playing little kids (with attitude, of course). Armed with his band of Merry Pranksters, Kutcher runs around, playing elaborate pranks on his celebrity pals, from Jessica Biehl from 7th Heaven to Trishelle from The Real World Las Vegas to his own pal and 70’s Show co-star, Wilmer Valderrama.

For me, the best thing ...