Dilbert: Seasons 1-2 (1999)

(Part 1 of 2 reviews Season 1) TV. As a huge fan of Scott Adams’ cartoon strip, mailing list, and humor books, I warmed up to Dilbert (from 4 to 4.5 stars) as I watched the TV show, one DVD at a time. At first Dilbert seemed a bit diffuse but my sustained look found a script packed with nerdy nuggets and solid voice talent (esp. Larry Miller as the Pointy-Haired Boss). Not only do we get standbys such as worker bee Dilbert (Daniel Stern), lazy Wally (Gordon Hunt), bitter Alice (Kathy Griffin), sadistic Catbert (Jason Alexander), and esp. cynical Dogbert (Chris Elliott) but cameo characters (such as “Judge ‘Stone Cold’” Steve Austin) and many transitory characters too. We also see Dilbertian examples of the duplicity of upper management, the stupidity of middle management, the integrity and unpopularity of engineers, the vapidity and conceit of marketing weasels, the promise of technology, and the gullibility of humanity at large. Season 1 has 13 episodes on two discs: Episode 1, The Name (Tasked with naming a product he hasn’t designed yet, Dilbert heeds Dogbert’s advice for a successful launch of the Gruntmaster 6000), 2, The Competition (Dilbert is wrongly fired as a spy, then hired by the leading competitor, where his workplace nirvana slides into chaos after he introduces marketing), 3, The Prototype (Dilbert and Alice must join forces to stop their ideas from being stolen by the legendary Lena), 4, The Takeover (Dilbert and Wally join the corporate board after Dogbert manipulates the stock), 5, Testing (Wily masked engineer Bob Bastard product-tests the Gruntmaster 6000 as Alice falls in love), 6, Elbonian Trip (Alice and Dilbert try to free left-handed Elbonians from right-handed sway as Wally becomes a prophet), 7, Tower of Babel (A shopworn cold bug in Dilbert's office mutates, also mutating his coworkers, and Dilbert must design a new office), 8, Little People (Dilbert discovers a tiny race of literally "downsized" former employees with a dry-erase marker addiction), 9, The Knack (Perhaps the most classic episode, Dilbert loses "the knack" for technology when he ingests management DNA and consigns the world to the Dark Ages), 10, Y2K (Dilbert is tasked with Y2K-proofing the company’s ancient mainframe), 11, Charity (Dilbert is forced to coordinate the Associated Way charity drive), 12, Holiday (Dilbert hates unproductive holidays so Dogbert lobbies Congress to replace all holidays with Dogbert Day), 13, The Infomercial (Dilbert must save a hapless Texas family from the untested Gruntmaster 6000). (Part 2 of 2) Season 2 has 17 episodes on two discs (not presented in the order they aired): Episode 14, The Gift (Dilbert learns his long-lost father has been living in the mall’s food court for ten years), 15, The Shroud of Wally (Dilbert’s near-death experience affects a multilevel marketing audience, turning Wally into an object of worship), 16, Art (Dilbert creates a digital work of art and destroys all appreciation for the classical works), 17, The Trial (Dilbert is framed and sent to prison by his boss, where his engineering smarts help him take over his cell block), 18, The Dupey (Dilbert designs a toy that becomes sentient and seeks independence), 19, The Security Guard (Dilbert swaps jobs with the security guard), 20, The Merger (The PHB decides to merge the company with another but chooses one run by brain-sucking aliens), 21, Hunger (Dilbert creates an artificial food to solve world hunger but not even starving people will eat it), 22, The Off-Site Meeting (After a treelover sues the company, the PHB selects Dilbert's home for an off-site meeting but the home is destroyed then replaced thanks to obnoxious neighbors), 23, The Assistant (Dilbert is made a manager and given an assistant so Alice takes Asok as her own), 24, The Return (Dilbert buys a top-shelf computer online but can’t find a human behind the company; Jerry Seinfeld is Comp-U-Comp and Eugene Levy is the guard), 25, The Virtual Employee (To claim an empty cubicle for storage, Dilbert and gang create the mythical employee Tod, who all speak of as reverently as God), 26, Pregnancy (Dilbert's customized model rocket collects, um, DNA from space aliens, cows, hillbillies, nanobots, and a sperm bank for engineers then returns to rectally impregnate Dilbert, who cozens up to maternity), 27, The Delivery (Dilbert defends his fetus till birth; Steve Austin is a custody judge; Citizen Kane and Superman references abound), 28, Company Picnic (At the annual company picnic, Dilbert and Juliet are awash in Romeo and Juliet references during the Marketing [Montague] and Crapulate [Capulet] softball game), 29, The Fact (Dogbert builds rumors of Chronic Cubicle Syndrome into a book franchise), 30, Ethics (Dilbert is tasked to create the national Internet voting network and falls in love with a female “lobbyist”; meanwhile everyone drinks and votes as the powers that be select their candidate). 4.5 stars.