Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 1st, 2010
Before SpongeBob SquarePants, before The Family Guy, before South Park, before even The Simpsons, there was Mighty Mouse. This revival of the Terrytoons character was a short-lived, but creatively vital series that ran in 1987-88. It wasn't an adult show, like many of its spiritual successors would be, but it was something that hadn't been seen in the world of television animation in a long, long time: it was witty, smart, and expected its audience to be smart, too (and that includes smart kids, at whom the series was ostensibly aimed). However G-rated the show was, it also featured just the kind of manic humour and inventiveness you might expect from a collaboration between the man who brought Fritz the Cat to the screen (Ralph Bakshi) and (among others) the man who would shortly give us Ren and Stimpy (John Kricfalusi). If some of the look of the series is by now familiar (half of the offerings on Nickelodeon share its background design), this is, as Kricfalusi points out on one of the commentary tracks, where that look begins. The show might not have survived long, but creatively it cast a long shadow indeed, and having the entire wonderful series in one spot is a terrific treat. As far as the creative possibilities for TV animation are concerned, Mighty Mouse surely did save the day.
The menu features some pretty ferocious aliasing, which had me worried about the cartoons themselves. Fortunately, that concern was misplaced. The shows looks great, with only the occasional, very minor grain to deal with. The image is very sharp, and the colours equally strong. The series looks as good as, if not better than, it did on the day of its broadcast.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on February 1st, 2010
Sterling Silliphant, in the latter days of his career, gifted the world with the deliriously schlocky screenplays to the likes of The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, and that apotheosis of the Expensive Badfilm, The Swarm. So it is sometimes hard to remember that he also penned the script of In the Heat of the Night and some 74 episodes of Route 66. I confess to a being a complete newcomer to the series, and though I was rather baffled at first, I was also struck by the quite beautiful prose being spoken. Anyone who thinks highly literate scripts are impossible (or just about) on network TV should cock an ear (and an eye) in the direction of this series.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 27th, 2010
The time is the 1930s, the setting Africa, as Mussolini attempts to recreate an Empire through the colonization of Abyssinia. An officer and poet Elio (Al Cliver) returns from the campaign with the spoils of conquest, one of which is Abyssinian princess Zerbal (Laura Gemser, of D'Amato's Black Emanuelle films). The erotic heat in his home is already pretty torrid, what with wife Alessandra (Lilli Carati) carrying on with secretary Virma (Annie Belle). Zerbal's arrival upsets the emotional apple cart, passions flare, and the supposed slave starts to exert more and more influence over the putative masters.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 25th, 2010
Small Wonder ran in the mid eighties on various little networks across the nation. It ran for four seasons and a total of ninety six episodes (4 from the magic number). True to Shout Factory’s form and modus operandi, they have released a boxset of the first season. I remember seeing a few episodes when I was a kid but this might be one of the times when my memories aren’t as good as I think they are.
Ted Lawson (played by Dick Christie) is a robotics engineer. He has an idea for a domestic servant but his boss just doesn’t seem to buy into it. So he brings his project home and works on it. In the meantime, he seemingly ignores his wife, Joan (played by Marla Pennington-Rowan) & his young son, Jamie (played by Jerry Supiran).
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 20th, 2010
As a kid, I was subjected to all sorts of soap operas whether it be during the day or during the night. During the day, it was a steady stream of Young & The Restless or General Hospital. At night, it was two shows as well. The first was Dynasty, which could better be described as a Joan Collins vs Linda Evans wrestling match. Then there was Dallas: J.R. & Bobby at the forefront of oil, cattle, deceit, and general debauchery. How sweet it is.
The twelfth season of Dallas starts with the eleventh season cliffhanger. J.R. Ewing (played by Larry Hagman and Nicholas Pierce (played by Jack Scalia) get into a fight in J.R.’s penthouse. Nicholas Pierce happens to be Sue Ellen’s (played by Linda Gray) new boyfriend. Except that she is still married to J.R. Anyhow, in the struggle Nicholas goes over the balcony rail and falls to his death. Sue Ellen then picks up a gun and shoots J.R. several times before phoning the police to call in a double murder.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 5th, 2010
Few television situational comedies have produced the stable of A-list stars that this one did. Every one of these cast members were relatively unknown at the time that Taxi was taking fares on our television sets each week. Not so today. The cast was so remarkable that it is here that I decided to spend much of my review. The episodes were often funny, even more often hilarious. But after all of these years, it is the characters that are most remembered by the fans. Yeah, we all have our favorite moments. Many of them in this release. And I’ll get to those moments, but first:
Playing the hard-nosed and lecherous dispatcher for The Sunshine Cab Company was Danny DeVito. He spent most of his Taxi days sitting in a cage barking orders and insults with equal frequency to the crew of drivers in the garage. Each of them had dreams beyond the yellow sedans, and Louie took great pleasure in watching them try and ultimately fail to achieve their dreams. Of course, DeVito went on to star in a boatload of feature films and never looked back.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on November 16th, 2009
This is the fifth of seven seasons, so we are well into the series. Its groundbreaking nature (an unmarried, professional woman as a central character) has obviously long since ceased to be a novelty, and the show is, by this point in its existence, what one might call a fixture. This is merely by way of observation, and not a criticism, because the writing remains as strong as ever, and the show has stood up well to the test of time. Not every joke is a winner, of course, and there are plenty of situations whose outcomes are visible a mile off. So name the sitcom for which this isn't true. But it was the characters more than anything else that won audiences over, and the terrific chemistry of eccentricity and camaraderie is very much in evidence here. A good example of that camaraderie is in “The Outsider,” where a consultant is brought in to boost the ratings, and disrupts the easy functioning of the newsroom by imposing all sorts of unpopular changes. The wrap-up, which emphasizes humanity over ratings, is typical of the show's philosophy and spirit.
Though there is nothing wrong, as such, with the picture on display here, let's just say that this isn't a set to haul out in order to show off the capabilities of your big-screen TV. The picture quality is that of the original broadcast, essentially. So there's some flicker, some grain, and the image is a bit soft. The colours are decent, if tending a bit towards an overall tinge of brown.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on November 10th, 2009
I was entirely too young to remember even the syndicated run that my mother was watching in the late 1960’s. Under more normal circumstances that would not matter as I could introduce myself to this world with the DVD release. That was before 1987, and the release of Brian De Palma’s classic film. Honestly, I simply can’t watch these episodes without thinking of that movie. For an entire generation that film has defined these characters and that time. It’s unfortunate, really, because this 1960 series had a lot going for it, particularly when you look at what else was on television at that time. Never before had such brutal violence in such a starkly real world graced the black and white sets of America. When I read articles about the controversy surrounding these depictions, I am forced to smile a little. By today’s standards these shows are quite tame. Still, the flurry of protests the show spawned were quite real. Italians were also vocal in their belief that the show went too far in portraying nearly every bad guy as being of Italian descent. I have to admit some of these accents make Father Sarducci sound good. Complaints went as far as the US Attorney General. My, have things changed. I am also of Italian heritage and gladly sit down to an hour of Tony Soprano, eating it up about as fast as a bowl of tortellini and gravy. While there are still those of us who feel racially exploited, most of us embrace the mob mythology of The Godfather and Goodfellas. We can accept the difference between reality and fantasy. And so I watch these episodes as if I were some remote viewer, not only from a different time but a different place.
The Untouchables took on a perhaps too convincing appearance of reality. Remember that the audience was made up of folks who grew up getting their news from newsreels at the local theater. It was a stroke of genius to have real life news reporter Walter Winchell narrate the series. Everything from that narration to the gritty dark photography carried a documentary style feel to every minute of the action. You can only imagine why too many Americans thought it was too violent. The show wasn’t too violent. It looked and felt too realistic. Robert Stack literally becomes the persona of Elliot Ness. The show was also based on a book that was co-written by Ness himself but was highly fictionalized by the time it reached millions of homes each week. In truth Ness’s team didn’t exist long after bringing down Capone for tax evasion. In the series the team becomes a strike force of sorts against an entire mug book of criminals real and imagined.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 29th, 2009
“Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality. But, there is, unseen by most, an underworld, a place that is just as real but not so brightly lit, a darkside.”
I have been waiting a long time for this release. Tales From The Darkside. Not since the likes of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits has there been a really good sci-fi/horror anthology until 1984’s Tales. Not to say that each episode was a winner. In fact, most were pretty weak and relatively lame, but when this show was good, it was very good. These tales weren’t any ordinary specter spectaculars, but were told by spectacular story writers, directors, and producers. Look at just this first season and you’ll find some of the top names in the field involved in one way or another. You’ll see the likes of: Stephen King, Tom Savini, George Romero, Robert Bloch, Frank De Palma, and Harlan Ellison. The tales often came with a twist or at least a big finale in the end. Much like a train’s headlight in a long tunnel; you might have seen it coming from a mile away, but it’s hard to avoid the impact.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on October 29th, 2009
As a child growing up in the 1970’s I remember quite vividly the Saturday morning cartoon experience. It’s what we all lived for. We’d wake up early and pour out a bowl of sugar and milk, reaching for some cheap toy that was buried in the cereal box like Blackbeard’s own chest of gold. Then we would entertain ourselves with zany characters, superheroes, and action filled adventures until the noon news programs would begin and it was time to take our playtime outside. It was a far more innocent age, and we didn’t have video games to play. These were our video games. If they appear simple and at times crude, perhaps they were. But these were something of our very own. Watching them today, they don’t hold the same kind of magic they did then. That doesn’t mean it isn’t fun to revisit those days from time to time. It wasn’t the cartoons that were always special. But, Saturday morning … man, that was something special.
These cartoons are mostly Hanna Barbera shows which dominated the Warner archive from that era. No question this group contains some of the most recognizable characters from my childhood. Certainly, there some of the very well known titles from Bugs to The Roadrunner. I’m glad to see a few other characters added here like El Kabong and Atom Ant. It’s a very eclectic collection, to be sure, so you should find a little something for everyone.
