Review: Mike Judge Presents: Tales From the Tour Bus “Bootsy Collins”

Take off yer boots.

Overview (Spoilers Below)

Mike Judge tells us all about Bootsy Collins…not so much specifically on Bootsy’s career, but more like a sequel episode to the “George Clinton” episode and a prequel to the “James Brown” episode airing next week. Turns out, some of the important things that Clinton learned about songwriting as it pertains to funk was taught to him by Bootsy who learned it from Brown while he toured as the Hall of Fame Legend’s backing band. Bootsy eventually got himself fired from Browns’ group due to an acid trip and would later join up with Clinton followed by a myriad of side projects to follow.

Our Take

As mentioned, I’m not sure this “Bootsy Collins” episode quite stands up on its own and probably could’ve been serviced as an addendum for either the Clinton or Brown episodes. I don’t think we really got into Collins’ career as a whole other than the fact that he was backing for two other Funk legends. Yes, his contributions to funk are important, essentially helped to spread around the James Brown template, but I think we could’ve stuck this in as part of the James Brown episode which probably could’ve served as a season premiere that would then be followed by the George Clinton episode because I’m not sure there was enough meat on the bone of a full-on “Bootsy Collins” episode to have made it worth my while.