The Collection Chamber: COMEDY CENTRAL'S SPORTS SHORTS

A World Series of Stand-up Comedy!
Today's funniest comedians turn your computer into a comedy club and you into the emcee! From baseball to bunjee, hockey to hoops, the joke's on jocks and the games they play!

Features a Unique Video Screen Saver!
Tired of toasters or floating fish? Now you can create a customized screen saver using your favorite comedy routines. Your computer has never been funnier.

Loaded With Laughs!
No waiting in line! No crowded, smoke-filled rooms! No cover! No minimum! Just a simple click and a marathon of laughter begins!

Fun and Easy to Use - No Joke!
Comedy Central's Sports Shorts is so much fun and so easy to use! At home or in the office, point-and-click comedy is yours on demand.

Special Giant Video Window Puts You Where the Action Is!
Showcased for the first time in an oversized video window, the all-star line-up includes 54 of today's hottest comedians, including:
Adam Sandler
Frank Santorelli
John Coponera
Janeane Garofalo
A. J. Jamal
Norm MacDonald
Tom Rhodes
Bill Scheft

~ from the back of the box

Comedy Central's Sports Shorts (1994) is one of those multimedia curios that could only have existed in the early years of CD-ROM entertainment. Being a collection of grainy video bites bundled together, it would be a total monetary black hole were it to release today. But, a little over 30 years since its original release, going back to it feels like your sifting through an archaeological find of stand-up comedy's greatest finds.

To appreciate this disc, you have to remember where Comedy Central was in the early '90s. Long before South Park truly put their name on the map, the network lived and died by its stand-up shows. Everything else seemed to be re-runs from the 50s or earlier (think Laurel and Hardy or The Benny Hill Show), with very few original programs. What they did have was Short Attention Span Theater which ran from the very birth of the channel up until the first month of 1995. It featured a bunch of quick, punchy sets from rising comics and established stars stitched together to make a half-hour of telly. With jokes being no more than a minute or two, this show was tailor-made for a multimedia CD-ROM presentation. And what we got was Sports Shorts.

Skits are organised into themes. Click on your favourite comic to play the clip (left).
There's some fine British representation on the disc too. Well, one fine one. Well, it's just David Baddiel (right).

Sports Shorts is, at its core, a simple multi-page DVD menu years before DVDs existed. Unlike a lot of these types of packages, there us no attempt at interactivity beyond the clicking of hyper-spots on menus. Not a single mini-game or trivia quiz is in sight. The clips have been sorted into categories, each one a different sport that represents the overall theme. Choose your comedian, and be rewarded with a tiny window of highly compressed video. The hardware limits of Windows 3.1 (and early-'90s Macs, which seemed to be its primary market) are on full display. We have postage-stamp screens sizes, pixelated imagery, and audio so raspy it sounds like everyone has a cold. The developers clearly prioritized squeezing as much footage as possible onto one disc (over 60 clips totalling a little beyond 80 minutes), leaving no room for anything else. It's a barebones disc, but to be fair, it was always about bringing a taste of TV to your computer.

The disc's true value comes from its lineup, a mix of Comedy Central regulars, rising stars and famous faces. British comedy mainstay David Baddiel lends some cross-Atlantic cred, while Janeane Garofalo delivers some star power. And hovering over them all is Adam Sandler, who was still best known for his stint on SNL before Billy Madison would catapult him into superstardom the very next year. His appearance - much like the others - is brief, but it certainly showcases his talent.

You'd think the archive would offer something new, but all it is is some old newsreels and another

link to the index (left). The credits page highlights the oh-so-90's graphic design (right).

While Sandler's mocking of basketball would hit harder if you knew what he was talking about, Garofalo's featured skit is a little more universal. A favourite of mine since her turn as The Bowler in Mystery Men, she relatably rants about gym culture. By her account, locker-room talk is much different for the fairer sex, being obsessed with food. It peaks with a surreal mini-horror movie about a birthday cake treated like a cursed object. "This cake is not staying in this house!" she exclaims, exasperatingly quoting one of her friends. Classic Garofalo.

In the end, Comedy Central's Sports Shorts is sure to have you snort out a guffaw or two. Sure, you can find higher-quality full-screen clips on YouTube, but I couldn't find a single upload of any of the clips found here. At least those I tried to look for. Not even a playthrough of this CD-ROM. This alone makes this compilation a must-play to many, or must-watch as the case may be.

To download the game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses the DOSBox-X build of DOSBox running Microsoft Windows 3.1 to get the game working on modern systems. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.

File Size: 415 Mb. Install Size: 624 Mb. Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

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