‘Worst To First: The True Story Of Z100 New York’ DVD Review – A Breezy Portrait Of An Underdog Ascension

The true story of the legendary Z100 New York radio station – following the colorful characters that started the station in the early 1980s, and how they used unconventional and outlandish methods to go from New York City’s worst-rated radio station to #1.

For in-depth thoughts on Worst To First: The True Story of Z100 New York, please see my colleague Kelly Kantrowitz’s review from its theatrical debut here. 

Video Quality

Worst To First: The True Story of Z100 New York comes to DVD with a strong 480p transfer that presents the movie well considering the format. This film is a mixture of new talking head interviews with large amounts of archival footage interspersed throughout, which provides different levels of visual quality. The recent interviews obviously look noticeably better than inconsistent archival footage, especially with some vintage news clips that are very chunky. Overall, the quality of each source seems to be derived from the best elements available to the creative team. Skin tones look natural and details hold up fairly well in close up. Colors are a bit flat and black levels are subject to a bit of crush and compression artifacting. The image is a bit soft in certain situations with noticeable haziness under less favorable scenarios. We would have much preferred a Blu-Ray presentation, but the image is strong and quite pleasing given the format limitations. 

Audio Quality

The DVD comes with a Dolby Digital 2.0 track that does everything it needs to do just fine. Dialogue is pretty clear throughout with only occasional moments where sounds from the clips muddle the clarity of the subject’s words. There is not much that is going to liven up the soundscape outside of some musical cues and light environmental noise. This track appears to be free from any damage or other issues that would lessen your enjoyment. This presentation is about as good as the source material will allow. The film is presented with English SDH subtitles for those who need them.

Special Features

• Audio Commentary: DJ Scott Shannon and Director Mitchell Stuart provide an amusing commentary track in which Stuart gets some great additional anecdotes from Shannon including background details on how he first met various artists, the experience of reliving this period in time and more. There are stretches of silence, but mostly it makes for a good listen. 

• Deleted Scenes: Six scenes totaling 54 minutes of unused material is provided here which is almost like having an entire additional movie. Topics include the assembling of the Zoo Crew, the process of booking guests, the “radio wars” and more. Given the brevity of the main feature, there are elements of these scenes that may have been nice to see in the finished product. 

• Trailers: The minute-and-a-half trailer is provided for Worst To First: The True Story of Z100 New York. There are also trailers provided for It Takes Three and After The Murder Of Albert Lima. 

Final Thoughts

Worst To First: The True Story of Z100 New York is a breezy look at a New York institution that gamely charts the rapid ascension as told by the people on the ground. The very short overall runtime leaves you wanting just a bit more depth on certain topics, but in general this is both an informative film for those unfamiliar with the station and a joyous look back for those who hold a special place in their heart for it. Kino Lorber and Gunpowder & Sky have released a DVD sporting a decent A/V transfer, but a Blu-Ray would have been greatly preferred. Where the DVD shows its strength is in the large amount of extra footage that fans will really appreciate digging into. If the subject interests you even in the slightest, it is worth a look. Recommended 

Worst To First: The True Story of Z100 New York will be available to purchase on DVD on December 6, 2022. 

Note: Images presented in this review are not reflective of the image quality of the DVD.

Disclaimer: Kino Lorber and Gunpowder & Sky have supplied a copy of this disc free of charge for review purposes. All opinions in this review are the honest reactions of the author.