For people who came of age with 1990s-era Saturday Night Live, the hit late night television comedy show’s theatrical spinoffs from this time period were a decidedly mixed bag. Wayne’s World, releasing in 1992, was of course the big, zeitgeist-defining hit, head-banging its way to $183 million in theaters. Many other films flopped, though, despite varying levels of quality.

Pairings of performers from the series in material not based on actual SNL sketches fared a bit better — though not always. (People tend to forget that Adam Sandler’s Billy Madison and Happy Gilmore, the latter now slated for a sequel, weren’t big hits upon their release.) Amongst the saddest footnotes from the era, perhaps, was the nipped-in-the-bud, chocolate-and-peanut-butter pairing of the effervescent Chris Farley and sardonic David Spade, who starred together in only two movies before Farley’s tragic death in 1997.

The pair’s first big screen collaboration, Tommy Boy, released in March 1995, and while it didn’t exactly light up the box office (it grossed just over $32 million — basically the same as what Black Sheep would nearly one year later), it did open in the top spot at the weekend box office. The duo’s fantastic chemistry was readily apparent, though, and the general consensus was that distributor Paramount had missed a golden opportunity by not adequately promoting its packaging of two hot late night television stars.

Black Sheep, releasing in February 1996, would mark the second pairing of the offscreen friends and complementary onscreen talents. Directed by Penelope Spheeris and scripted by SNL writer Fred Wolf, the story takes as its basic framework a comedic riff on the troubled, “lesser-than” siblings of politicians like Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and grafts it to the same loose-limbed “road movie” conceit that worked so well in Tommy Boy, and of course with Bing Crosby and Bob Hope a couple generations prior.

Farley stars as Mike Donnelly, the good-hearted but rather oafish and gaffe-prone brother of Washington gubernatorial candidate Al Donnelly (Tim Matheson), who is running to unseat incumbent Evelyn Tracy (Christine Ebersole). After embarrassing his brother yet again, campaign managers push for Al to sideline Mike, but Al instead tasks aide Steve Dodds (Spade) with taking Mike out on the road. Various hijinks ensue — the movie is basically a warm, engaging, rinse-and-repeat of situations in which Mike irritates Steve and/or is captured by opposition-research photographers engaging in situations that can be easily misconstrued as damaging. As the campaign unfolds, evidence emerges of a history of election fraud by Governor Tracy — information that could alter the trajectory of the campaign’s final days. Mike and Steve’s efforts to expose the scheme are dealt an unexpected assist by an unstable, irate Vietnam veteran (Gary Busey), initially rubbed the wrong way by Steve but won over by Mike.

Black Sheep certainly doesn’t aim to reinvent the wheel, narratively speaking. But its rich comedic interplay, solid staging, and modest palette (there’s some actual thought put into settings that allow for Farley and Spade to ply their talents) still make for a quite good “hang” movie. It’s the lesser of the two Farley-Spade films, but still a lot of fun. It’s a wonderful showcase, yes, for Farley’s incredible gifts with physical comedy. But it also highlights his abilities in reading the dramatic through-lines of material; Farley never shortchanges the heart and inherent decency of Mike, or any of his other characters. This is the quiet heartbreak of the movie, because Black Sheep affirms the reading that had he lived, Farley would have almost certainly blossomed into a gifted dramatic actor as well.

Black Sheep comes to home video via Kino Lorber, presented in (suitably enough) a black, double-sided Amaray plastic case with a complementary cardboard slipcover that features the same theatrical release cover art on both iterations. Devoid of chapter stops, its static menu screen presents a scant offering of bonus features, consisting of trailers for Black Sheep and a collection of likeminded movies (Tommy Boy, Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, CB4, Half Baked, Career Opportunities and Brain Donors), plus a feature-length audio commentary track with director Spheeris, moderated by film critic and author Simon Abrams.

This is a tall task for Abrams, given all the chaotic energy Spheeris brings to this exercise. With her laugh, a staccato chirp, punctuating many sequences, Spheeris walks listeners through the movie’s estimated 40-day Los Angeles shoot, including bits like Farley largely improvising the opening credits set piece (which also featured her own dog Pablo) and Farley insisting on doing his own stunt and knocking himself out cold running into a tree during an outdoor sequence.

It’s interesting to hear how the movie came together in such an on-the-fly fashion, with Paramount Pictures Chief Sherry Lansing calling Spheeris on a Sunday to secure her official commitment, because the studio had to exercise a contract option on Farley the next day before 9am, or else he was going to be free to star in The Cable Guy.

Given just the way her brain works, Spheeris often uses Abrams’ questions as leaping-off points to free-associate on semi-related topics to what’s actually unfolding on screen. That could mean a few offshoot comparisons to Wayne’s World (which she of course also directed) sprinkled into the mix, but it also includes no shortage of nutty asides and random factoids. Among these, Spheeris notes that Molly Shannon and Rip Torn are the two actors who made her cry during her career (!), and that the inclusion in a musical sequence of Mudhoney, a band with whom she was not familiar, came by way of a boyfriend at the time. Spheeris also recalls Jenny McCarthy spending an entire day sitting in a trailer waiting to shoot a cameo that never materialized, and, in effusively recollecting Busey’s live-wire energy, blurts out, “Gary would come over and hump my leg between takes.”

Claiming she never saw Tommy Boy, Spheeris is also adamant that Farley was not using drugs during the Black Sheep shoot, saying he asked to leave early for AA meetings on a couple days, a request she granted. She repeatedly praises Farley’s vulnerability and compassion, and also ducks reporting (much based on her own past quotes) of conflict with Spade, whom she says “likes to go up against you from time to time, but always has good ideas.” Spheeris (who went on do to do another movie with him, 1998’s Senseless) even credits Spade for coming up with certain buttons, such as a scene-ending cutaway to Steve’s urine-soaked pants after a confrontation with Busey’s character. For more information on Black Sheep, or to purchase it, click here.