Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 8th, 2009
"Hello, there. I bet you're already saying to yourself, 'Oh, I've already seen this one. Another holiday special narrated by some new teen star between takes on their oh-so-popular new sitcom series. Well, I'm here to tell you, not this time, because I'm not a star. Well, not yet at least. And, this ain't about how so and so saved Christmas for all the good boys and girls..."
I would have loved to have been in this meeting. Someone walks into a studio executive's office to pitch his idea. After describing his new Christmas special concept, he pauses, just for a second, just for the right amount of anticipation. "Here's the clincher", he says manically. "William Shatner will be the voice of Santa Claus."
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 8th, 2009
Things are tough all over. It seems that even the television networks aren't immune to the growing trend of cutting back. Fox decided that the answer was Bogota, Colombia. No, they didn't turn to the cocaine market. They all tried that in the 70's and we ended up with Joannie Loves Chachi. This time Bogota is an option for producing new television shows. The idea is that you can take an American cast, with a token Brit in this case, and ship them off to Columbia to do the show on the cheap. The good news is that you can hire crew for six bucks a day. The bad news is that the show ends up looking like it cost about six bucks to shoot. I suspect that the hombre who came up with this wonderful idea for Mental had a better understanding of mental illness than the average bear.
Dr. Jack Gallagher (Vance) has been hired by his ex-lover Nora Skoff (Sciorra) to run the mental health department at Wharton Memorial Hospital, where she is the hospital administrator. Gallagher might be bright, but he has some rather unorthodox methodology. He tends to put himself in the place of the patient. To see what they see. Attempt to feel what they feel. It's the kind of practice that ends up having him introduce himself to his new staff by stripping buck naked when an intake patient is seeing alien reptiles and has stripped down himself to prove he is human. The tactic might have calmed the patient and defused a volatile situation, but it didn't endear himself to his new colleagues.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 7th, 2009
We all know what a classic A Charlie Brown Christmas still is. It's a fact of life that when you have a hit there is a tendency to continue to reach for that lightning in a bottle over and over again. That is certainly the case with the Peanuts specials. The results have been mixed, and while I won't say that these recent specials aren't quality stuff, I doubt there is anyone out there who believes that the same quality of heart and charm has existed in the series since the 1970's. When Charles Schulz died, it was agreed that no new material was to be allowed with these characters. Every special since that time has had to use dialog and stories already published in the cartoon strips. Now, that's not as limiting as you might think when you consider the strip ran for bout 50 years. That leaves a lot of untapped material out there to keep the specials running, and run on they do.
I Want A Dog For Christmas is a unique episode in that it does not really center much on the main Peanuts gang. Charlie Brown himself is reduced to a background character here. The star of this show is Rerun. The character was added as a baby brother to Linus and Lucy back on Mother's Day in 1972. His exposure in the shorts has been limited, to say the least. So, it is actually refreshing to have the character carry the load for this 2003 effort.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 7th, 2009
"Have you ever been told of that fateful year when Christmas almost didn't happen? It was everyone's worst fear. There was no one to take Santa's big sack of toys and deliver the presents to the world's good girls and boys. But this Christmas season didn't begin with any trouble or fuss. It began with some singing, as all Christmases must."
The 1960's and 1970's saw an entire genre of holiday specials produced by the prolific studio of Rankin and Bass. The most popular of these specials is probably Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer. But there were many others that were released in a 10-15 year period. They all had a few things in common. They used stop motion puppets and sets to achieve their animation. Yes, the same magic that sent King Kong up the Empire State Building drove Rudolph on that foggy night to lead Santa's sleigh. There was a decidedly plastic appearance to the characters, and they were certainly distinctive. Within seconds of watching one of these specials you were able to identify it as a Rankin and Bass production. In the years since, stop motion has almost gone the way of the dinosaurs with very few practitioners working in the art form today. Tim Burton has been the most successful of late. And we can't help but owe a huge debt of thanks to Willis O’Brien and Ray Harryhausen for perfecting the craft. And so our childhood was amused by these annual favorites only surviving in chopped up syndicated reruns today.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 7th, 2009
This series from Comedy Central began as a low budget film hosting show in a small television station in Minnesota. It was the brainchild of Joel Hodgson. It ended up running for 11 years and a feature film version.
Mystery Science Theatre is an acquired taste. For me, I’ve really got to be in that certain mood to watch it. That’s the beauty of these DVD’s. You pop them in when you’re ready. The idea is pretty whacked. Depending on the season you’ve got, Joel or Mike is trapped in space on the “Satellite of Love”. Doomed to spend his life watching very bad films, our hero makes the best of a bad situation. He uses his resources to construct a couple of robot pals. There's Crow T. Robot (Beaulieu), Tom Servo (Murphy), and Gypsy (Mallon). As part of an experiment together, they watch the films from the front row, constantly ranting throughout. If you’re like me, you’ve invited a few friends over to watch a schlock festival. The movies weren’t as important as the banter you created while watching. That’s exactly what you see here. The silhouettes of our host and his robots dominate the lower portion of the screen, where they provide alternative dialog and sometimes witty commentary on the action. The two evil station owners/mad scientists send them a new bad film each week to observe their reactions to the bombs. The films are broken up by off the wall skits and fake commercials to alleviate the tedium. This DVD collection is better than some because it includes films from four different seasons to give you a good sample of the overall series.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 3rd, 2009
Just in time for the holidays, the Buddies are back for more cute puppy action. All of the retriever Buddies are back for this one. You are introduced to the “Buddies” right at the start, so it doesn’t really matter if you saw any of their other films. There’s Bud-Ha (Cate), a wise meditational pup. Next up is Mud-Bud (Panitz), an always dirty pup with a fondness for rolling in the dirt. The female Buddy is Rose-Bud (Mumy), who is the girly part of the team all decked out in a bow. Bud-Derball (Flitter) is the normal one of the bunch, followed by the rappin’ pup, B-Dawg (Gisondo).
The North Pole is having a crisis. It’s getting close to Christmas and Santa’s workshop is having a shortage of magic power. Deep in a cave at the North Pole hangs the Christmas Icicle. It is the source of all Christmas magic that allows Santa and his gang to do their thing. It is powered by people having the Christmas Spirit. Lately, not enough people are believing in Christmas, so the icicle is shrinking. Finally, global warming that really is caused by humans. Another problem in the North Pole deals with Puppy Paws (Gordon) son of Santa’s right hand, eh … dog Santa Paws (Bosley). Puppy Paws wants to be like a normal dog and doesn’t want the responsibility that Christmas means to his family. He finds Bud-Derball in Santa’s naughty files and decides that’s the kind of pup he wants to hang with. So he stows away on one of Santa’s express trucks and heads to Washington to meet the Buddies. At first they find Puppy Paws to be a bit of a pain to hang with. But when Puppy Paws is captured by the mean old dogcatcher Stan Cruge (Lloyd) the Buddies go into action to save him. What they didn’t know was that Christmas depends on them freeing Puppy Paws. There’s a side story that has Stan Cruge turning from a mean old Scrooge character to finding his own Christmas Spirit, and helping to bring back the Christmas Icicle.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 3rd, 2009
Spongebob Squarepants is such the cultural phenomenon that anytime an anniversary or a full length motion picture comes into production, the show can usually get a slew of good actors and sports stars to do a cameo. For Spongebob’s tenth anniversary and third tv movie of the series: he decided to bring out a slew of guest stars. The only question that remained was the hour long episode any good or was it the show’s version of week old bread with those really crusty parts?
Today is the day of the eleventy seventh (that’s 117 for you land dwellers) of the Krusty Krab. It was just yesterday when Spongebob had tasted his first Krabby Patty and knew his life’s goal would be to work at the establishment. Spongebob showers, puts on his clothes including his eager face and goes to the Krusty Krab to clock into work. When he gets there, he realizes that the place is surrounded by customers all eager to get in.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 3rd, 2009
Who would have believed that you could do a situation comedy based on Nazi Germany and a group of POW’s in World War II? It wasn’t an easy sell. When Albert S. Ruddy first came up with the idea, it was a contemporary story about a group of guys in a normal U.S. prison. There were a lot of problems, mostly with the idea of making your main characters criminals. Of course, that’s not so much the problem today. But this was the 1960’s, and those kinds of “heroes” were not quite as accepted. Eventually the concept developed to put the characters in a prisoner of war camp in Nazi Germany during the World War II. Remember that we were only 20 years removed from the end of the war and the discovery of the concentration camps and all of the horrid images these things evoked in people. Any smart betting man would have given the chance of getting such a series to air at somewhere between zero and Hell freezing over. And when the show was pitched to CBS, that’s exactly what the execs had to say.
Somehow they were convinced enough to do a pilot episode. It was too funny to pass up, even with the more sober circumstances. By the end of that first season Hogan’s Heroes was one of the top rated shows on television. Larry Gelbart often credits the success of Hogan’s Heroes as the precedent that allowed shows like MASH to be sold. Suddenly it was okay to find laughter in such places. The show ran for 6 seasons from 1965 to 1971. The cast would remain completely intact throughout the show’s run. The show would also have to hold off a plagiarism suite from the writers of Stalag 17.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2009
I went to my player, the one that’s on top. I turned on the TV I bought at the shop. Then I opened my Blu-ray, took it right from its case, and then there on the tray I put it in place. I pushed one or two buttons to bring it up fast. Soon an FBI warning, then my feature at last. I sat the whole time crouched alone in my chair, watching fanciful images that came to me there. I was certain at once that I’d seen this before, but something was different; it was brighter, I’m sure. The Grinch was the same, he hadn’t changed, not a bit. But the image was clearer now, I had to admit. So, I puzzled and puzzled alone in my seat. Why these colors much finer for such a repeat? Then at last I was certain, yes it had to be so. This must be high definition, what a wonderful show. I know when it ended I felt somewhat sad, but these discs last forever, and so I was glad. So, if you’re a fan of the Grinch and his kin, you must hurry now quickly and watch it again. I promise it will be like nothing you’ve known. It’s for kids of all ages, both little and grown.
Boris Karloff was famous for monsters and ghouls, who’d have thought he’d be perfect for books read in schools? He tells quite a story, a marvelous voice. To play the Grinch and reader he was the most perfect choice. The songs are all there, you know them by heart. Nothing is missing, not one little part. Everyone’s back, Cindy Lou Who and Max. But the Grinch is the star. The facts are the facts. You can sing along joyfully. You know every word. You know every scene even before it occurred. Chuck Jones was the talent behind all the art, as he carefully directed each wonderful part. It was made in 1966. It’s been shown every year, from Tampa to London, Paris, Rome, and Tangier. Kids laugh and they snicker. Some kids even wince; for 44 years now we’ve been watching The Grinch.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 1st, 2009
I grew up on the Peanuts creations of Charles M. Schulz. Most of us have, in some way or another. His newspaper comic strip is one of the longest running and most successful strips of all time. The work has been translated into every language currently spoken on the planet. The images of Charlie Brown, Snoopy, Linus, and the rest of the Peanuts gang have appeared on just about any kind of product imaginable. Our pop culture contains too many references to the strip to mention briefly. For me, it was the television specials starting in the mid 1960’s that brought the gang into my life. The classics are running annually, still after nearly 50 years. A Charlie Brown Christmas and It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown are the most mentioned and certainly beloved by generations of children and adults. I thought I never missed an airing.
This is one of the most endearing and enduring of the franchise. It’s loaded with memories too many to mention them all here. Charlie Brown tries to direct the school nativity play. He finds it hard to get the gang’s cooperation. In his own despair he discovers the true meaning of Christmas. Some of those memorable moments that I will never forget include: The scrawny little tree that Charlie Brown picks out, held up by Linus’s blanket. Snoopy wins first prize in a house light decoration competition. Of course the best of the best comes in the end when Linus recites the story of the birth of Christ. Today most people would be shocked to see a public school putting on a nativity play. Watching this one is a sad reminder of how much these basic principles have been swept away by intolerance and misrepresentation of “Jefferson’s Wall”, that First Amendment separation of church and state. This short, more than the others, is truly a product of its time. It depicts an America that no longer exists.
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