Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 14th, 2009
The show was created by the team of Link and Levinson, who later gave us the detective in the rumpled raincoat, Columbo. It was groundbreaking in so many areas. While it might not be remembered today as one of the top detective shows, there can be no argument about the impact Mannix had on the genre. A decade later one of my favorite television detectives, Jim Rockford, would borrow rather heavily from Mannix. Like Rockford, Mannix was getting beat up a lot. They both had the same sense of style, wearing rather ugly sports jackets. Neither was afraid to bend the rules, or the law, when necessary. Again like Rockford, Mannix often falls for the wrong girl at the wrong time. Mannix was good with a gun and equally adept with his fists. The show received a ton of controversy from the start for the amount of violence it employed. Tame by today’s standards, Mannix was quite aggressive for its time. The joke was that the show’s producers mandated a fight or car chase every 15 minutes whether it was needed or not. I’m sure that wasn’t true, but nonetheless the show opened the floodgates for the detective shows that followed. In this first season, Mannix worked for the enigmatic detective agency, Intertect. They supplied him with the latest in modern technology and with his cases. His main company contact was Lou Wickersham, played by Joseph Campanella. Now Mannix is on his own and begins to resemble more and more these detectives that would eventually follow in his tire tracks.
Season 2 sees a lot of changes for Mannix. He has left Intertect, and gone now is friend and boss played by Campanella. Papa Brady, Robert Reed, joins the show as a police contact for Mannix, Lt. Tobias. Ward Wood played another police contact, Lt. Malcolm. Gail Fisher would join the cast as his faithful secretary and confidant, Peggy Fair. There are a lot of parallels between Peggy Fair and Perry Mason’s Della. Both were completely loyal and were instrumental sounding boards. Campanella showed up a few times in this season but was eventually completely gone from the series. Mannix relied more on his fists and his gun now than he did his brains, and the show became more of an action show than it had been.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on January 13th, 2009
Most people know the Chipmunks for three characters: Alvin, Simon and Theodore. This trio was known for a voice that sounded like too many rpm’s at the old record machine. However for the purposes of this disc, the six episodes featured were focused on a trio who was the equivalent of the Chipmunk “B” team. Their names were Brittany, Jeanette and Eleanor. They were known as the Chipettes. These are their stories. Dun Dun. (Cue Law & Order music).
Brittany, Jeanette, and Eleanor were actually introduced in the very 1st half-hour of programming for the Chipmunks during their run in 1983. Originally the two groups both lay claim to the name “Chipmunks”, but they grew to like each other and become on and off again friends and something more. Eleanor was just like Theodore, they both loved to eat and cook. However, Eleanor stood up for herself and was more athletic. Jeanette was an easy pair up with Simon. Both were book smart but Jeanette was clumsier and more of an introvert than Simon was. Finally there was Brittany who as vain and self centered as one Alvin Seville. Together they made the Chipettes and were ready to take on the same adventures as their counterparts and participate in a few more.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on January 9th, 2009
Gitane Demone was one of the lead singers for seminal deathrock band Christian Death before going solo in 1989. This 2-DVD set is a record of her various solo efforts, tracking various incarnations, most notoriously (and most prominently featured in the release's packaging) being the fetish performances for the likes of the DeMask club and Skin Two magazine. Present here is a mix of television interviews, one video, and a raft of live footage.
Given the necessarily raw, semi-underground nature of the material (more one the picture and sound quality below), this is not really a release for the previously unconverted. The fuzzy picture and muzzy sound is not likely to draw in viewers who don't already have an investment in the subject. That said, the interviews are interesting, with Demone, in most articulate fashion, clearly situating herself within various scenes and phases of her life, and explaining how all this has affected her art. As for those who are fans, this is a very valuable record of a decade of performances.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on January 9th, 2009
These Comedy Central Roasts are a bit of a crapshoot. I laughed my rear off during the William Shatner Roast. Unfortunately, I didn’t even crack a smile watching this one. It’s not like Saget’s a funny guy to begin with. Throw in a room full of other not-funny folks, and you get a real snore fest.
You should be warned that this is not a DVD for the kids. I’m not sure how much of this actually aired on Comedy Central, but I suspect it was edited considerably. I think they had a rule that no speaker could tell less than 3 penis or vagina jokes. Apparently jokes involving both don’t count toward that total. Look, I’m not a prude here. I don’t want to see these guys censored. But, doesn’t the material need to be funny BEFORE it’s dirty? Comedians like Richard Pryor have always used this kind of language, but Richard was a very funny guy. Somewhere along the way it must have become an axiom that bad language is funny. One of the comedians said it best. He was talking about Saget, but it was true of them all: “If bad language is a crutch, these guys are quadriplegics.” Another problem I have with this thing is the format. I always thought Roasts were about the guest of honor. These acts spent as much time sniping at each other as they did getting Saget.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 30th, 2008
The series known as Duckman can be explained in one phrase. Guilty pleasure. The series ran on USA during the 90’s before they decided to re-brand themselves as something more serious. Though for some reason they still tend to show the dog show every year. Anyhow, as I remember it came on right before another guilty pleasure of mine from the 90’s, Rhonda Shear and Up All Night. I miss Rhonda deeply, plastic never looked so good. Heck Tupperware was jealous. Duckman was a series like no other; full of debauchery and indecency just like Grandma intended. Grandpa will never be the same. Paramount has brought us forty-eight episodes over seven discs to compose season 3 & season 4. One has to wonder if it will hold up after all of these years.
(*BTW, this review is written in inspiration to Duckman, so if you are easily offended by suggestive commentary and terrible jokes at the expense of others, then perhaps you might want to skip to a recent review of Petticoat Junction. However, if you read my weekly gaming column and are actually entertained enough to read my reviews, then you will be right at home. Enjoy!)
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Michael Durr on December 22nd, 2008
Power Rangers come, Power Rangers go. By the time Power Rangers: Jungle Fury had come into existence, some incarnation of Power Rangers had been around for sixteen seasons. The series however was unique due to two qualities. The first was that it centered on three Power Rangers where as other series typically encountered five. The second differentiating characteristic was that it was written during the 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America strike. Written by non-union writers, would the series still have the appeal that the Power Ranger shows had in prior runs?
The Order of the Claw has selected six students as potential guardians of Dai Shi’s prison. Dai Shi was an evil spirit who roamed across the earth waging a war against any human that stood in his path. The Order was able to secure his spirit and lock it away in a box that would be guarded by those who were up to the task. The six students were paired into three couples and squared off in mortal kombat. Wait, wrong show. Fatalities in a kid’s show could be uncomfortable.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 20th, 2008
To me, the Power Rangers phenomenon was always a hard one to figure. Here we have a kids’ show featuring heroes and villains that look like they’ve escaped from a Ninja S&M Bar. Much like Ninja movies I have reviewed in the past – see my review for Ninja Collection Volume One: 10 Feature Film Set – these six episodes of Power Rangers Jungle Fury: Way of the Master share identical plotlines with subtle variations thrown in here and there for good measure. Looking back, I can’t really register this as a complaint, taking in to consideration the audience it’s in mind for, and the fact that He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was my favorite show as a kid. And honestly, how many of those plots were any different from one another? One dominating villain up to all kinds of vicious G-Rated evil – whatever that involves.
Instead of Skeletor, however, we have the Dai Shi forces and the Five Fingers of Poison. Caught in the midst of it all are the three main Power Rangers – we’ll call them Red, Yellow, and Blue – who answer to some creepy older animal-rights dude. There is also a clumsy friend, who helps out around the Jungle Karma Pizza restaurant, where the all-powerful Rangers work to make ends meet.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on December 18th, 2008
What ever happened to Shawn Mullins?
I often mull over this question whenever I hear him sing, “Ev-e-ry thing’s gonna be all right… Rockabye! Rockabye!” on the radio. The dude lands in the late nineties with this song that has maybe the most unimaginative chorus in the history of pop music, and then he bolts on us, leaving that small remnant to get stuck in our collective heads for the rest of our humdrum lives.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 18th, 2008
This is the second half of the third season of Rawhide. Among the better episodes found in this collection are: Incident On The Road Back. Favor is accused of horse rustling. That means hangin’ in those days. In Incident Of The Boomerang, some cattle are off to the Land Down Under, but one of the men may not be who he says he is. Rowdy is arrested for murder… again. This time he’s accused of killing a deputy who was on his way to warn of an attack in Incident Of The Running
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on December 18th, 2008
The setting for Gunsmoke was the by now famous
