Quit jerking viewers around

In 1979, a perfect storm of comedic filmmaking commenced to produce "The Jerk." \nSteve Martin, the ultimate funnyman of his era, teamed up with Carl Gottlieb, whose modest writing credentials include the "Jaws" series and "The Bob Newhart Show," and Michael Elias ("The Mary Tyler Moore Show") to create the script of the endearingly stupid Navin R. Johnson (Martin) whose adventures take the viewer seamlessly from laugh to laugh, with a couple cute songs mixed in. Movie and TV legend Carl Reiner directed as Martin and Bernadette Peters, the First Lady of Broadway, played the lead roles.\n"It was never easy for me," Navin begins. "I was born a poor black child."\nWhen Navin bolts his adopted home to "be somebody," he hitches a series of rides -- the discerning eye will catch Rob Reiner as one of Navin's chaperones -- and finds himself in a gas station where he works the pump for owner Harry Hartounian (comedic somebody Jackie Mason) and never forgets to send money back home. He meets a not-so-nice circus lady who promises to give him some other "jobs" and tattoos his name on his rump. After a series of fortunate events -- inventing a gadget called the "Optigrab" and meeting the sugary sweet Marie (Peters), Navin winds up headfirst in the lap of luxury. He is finally somebody.\nMartin's comedic genius is on full throttle the entire film. "The Jerk" is one of the best comedies ever made, and one of my favorite movies. A quote from the movie, "he hates these cans," is on my e-mail signature. If I was just reviewing the film, I would make my five strokes of the pen and there you'd have it -- an A+.\nSo I'm dumbfounded as to why Universal Studios didn't take the DVD re-release more seriously. A gaffe (bad math, sloth?) turned the 25th anniversary edition into a 26th birthday release, and the lack of preparation smacked me in the face when I consumed this DVD. There are no linear notes, no tangible chapter list, no little booklet -- only a flyer advertising other (likely rushed) DVDs. \nAnd the "special" features stink like a rotten mayonnaise sandwich wrapped in cellophane. Original content is sub-sparse, as in the original trailer and that's it. There's a hideous reexamination of Martin's "cat juggling" scene (not funny), a cheesy and annoying ukulele lesson, which ruins Martin and Peters' beautiful rendition of "Tonight you belong to me" (not cute) and some production notes that seem to scroll on for eternity (not enough). Add some Dolby 5.1 sound and there's your DVD, devoid of any valuable content outside the invaluable film itself.\nI would have enjoyed a commentary track by one of the bevy of worthy folks associated with this movie -- Martin, Peters, Reiner, Gottlieb, someone. As an avid fan, I would have liked some more original extras, if not deleted scenes then cast photos from the set. Instead Universal has left me utterly disappointed. The perfect storm of comedy movies was packaged into a disaster.\nI hope the 31st anniversary edition isn't so destructive.