10:32 AM CST on Friday, December 16, 2005

By CHRIS VOGNAR / The Dallas Morning News

The 40-Year-Old Virgin ($29.98) was the rare summer comedy greeted with both critical hosannas and ringing cash registers. Now comes the DVD, which finds unexpected gold in one of the most tired special-feature categories around: the deleted scenes.

If you've seen Virgin – and chances are good that you have – you can tell there's a lot of improvisational madness flying back and forth. It's one reason the dialogue is so unpredictable. You're never sure what anyone is going to say from moment to moment, especially in the large ensemble scenes that find our middle-age hero, Andy (Steve Carell), accepting all manner of advice on how to get off the schnide.

Mr. Carell, who made his name on The Daily Show, gets and deserves most of the credit. But the cast is stacked with riffing specialists, especially Seth Rogan, Paul Rudd, Romany Malco, Gerry Bednob (as Andy's clueless henchmen) and Jane Lynch (as the predatory manager of the electronics store where they all work).

If you want the optimum laugh-per-minute ratio, get the unrated version. Then check out the deleted scenes, in which the cast probes the outer limits of its improv abilities. Mr. Bednob brings down the house with a footlong list of sexual euphemisms. Mr. Rudd and Mr. Rogan, also a co-producer, indulge in an extended version of the "you-know-how-I-know-you're-gay?" riff. And that's just for starters. This is comedy without a net. More important, it's a classic case of collaboration between writer and director Judd Apatow and his cast, who all contribute without trying to steal the show.

The gang from Bad News Bears ($29.95) could have used some of the Virgin magic. I had an allergic reaction to this remake when I saw it earlier this year; it probably didn't deserve the "F" I gave it. A "C-" is more like it.

Here's the thing: It's fun to watch Billy Bob Thornton guzzle beer, get grumpy and swear. But in a watered-down PG-13 movie? With a bunch of obnoxious kids? It's enough to make you hold a séance for Walter Matthau.

Bad News Bears is a lazy comedy that comes off more offensive and tedious than the raunchier Virgin. Its one joke – foul-mouthed little leaguers! foul-mouthed coach! – ends up covered in a coat of feel-good sap. In the end, it feels like naughtiness for the sake of naughtiness. And it's not even very naughty. There's only one positive possible byproduct: Director Richard Linklater is sure to sink his profits into something worthy of his talents.

Finally, we come to a model of gleefully bad taste that doesn't even need a four-letter vocabulary. There's nothing particularly deluxe about the "deluxe edition" of The Producers ($19.94); the only previously unavailable feature is a trailer for the new remake. But if you haven't seen it, now's as good a time as any. Zero Mostel's Max Bialystock is one of cinema's greatest comic creations, a lecherous huckster who's a hit with the old ladies (and their money). Gene Wilder is the zaniest straight man this side of Bud Abbott. And the movie, which won Mel Brooks the screenwriting Oscar for 1968, still feels fresh as "Springtime for Hitler."

E-mail cvognar@dallasnews.com