Who would have believed that one of the world's most enduring if not exactly endearing comedians actually got his start in a serious drama? The film was Run Silent Run Deep, and the actor was Don Rickles. For a couple of years the former nightclub funny man would pursue the world of serious acting. That was until his friend Dean Martin made him a staple of his famous television roasts. Rickles became a standout, and his unusual brand of humor took off like a rocket to the stars. It's those very stars that helped make the man a household name that would bear the brunt of his fast and furious barrage of insults and put-downs. Most of them laughed in return, and soon it became a badge of honor to endure an attack from Rickles. The only thing worse than being insulted by Don Rickles was being ignored by Don Rickles. He earned such names as Mr. Warmth and the Merchant of Venom. What he really earned was the respect of several generations of fans. Today kids and adults alike know him as the voice of Mr. Potato Head from the Toy Story films and shorts. At nearly 90 years of age the funnyman has quite a legacy to look back upon. Now Time Life has given us the opportunity to do a little looking back ourselves with the 8-DVD set The Ultimate Don Rickles.

The set begins with the 6-disc complete CPO Sharkey series. The comedy series only ran two years from 1976-1978. In fact Don was never afraid to rib himself about how short his television run was. He blamed it on the fact that there were other shows on at the same time.

"These rebels, they have no fear, or they have so much they are numb to it. They feel as if they have nothing left to lose, and they hate us who do..."

It's all just a matter of perspective, isn't it? As a history teacher I have taught aspects of that event we all recognize as the American Revolutionary War. Did you know that in a British history book I have it is referred to as the Colonial Rebellion? You see, one man's revolution is another man's rebellion. Everybody is talking about who will be the next James Bond. It seems we’ve been fascinated by the spy genre since the early 1960’s. AMC has added a new wrinkle to the spy game with Turn: Washington’s Spies. When we say Washington, we’re not talking about the city. We’re talking General Washington, George Washington that is. It’s a revolutionary show about a real-life spy ring from America’s fight for independence. And yes, this series lets you see the war clearly from both perspectives.

"And then there's Maude."

In football, there's always a lot of talk about coaching trees. You know the idea. Some great mastermind who saw his assistants go on to have success of their own and who passed that lucky charm down to others for, perhaps, generations. All In The Family would be the television equivalent to a coach with a long tree. There were an incredible number of spinoffs that led to other spinoffs. Archie's neighbors The Jeffersons moved on up to the East Side and had their own several years of success. That show saw maid Florence have her spinoff from that show called Checking In. Meanwhile, Archie's daughter had her Gloria series, and after Edith's death, Archie settled into Archie Bunker's Place. Even the Bunker home had a spinoff called 704 Houser Street when a new family moved in.

I recently reviewed a cinematic production of a different bible story, Noah’s Ark, and I commented on the fact that I have heard that particular story told time and time again since childhood. Now I have been given the opportunity to review another bible story adapted for screen: the story of Moses. I thought that I had heard the story of Noah a lot, but then I began thinking about how many times I have heard the story of Moses. Whether be it through different adaptations of films or the original tale in the Bible, I believe I have experienced a retelling of the tale of Moses more than any other tale from the good book. Fellow cinephiles might recognize a few of these titles: Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments (both his 1923 and 1956 versions), the animated feature The Prince of Egypt, or perhaps the more recent Ridley Scott feature, Exodus: Gods and Kings. The one thing that each of these films has in common is the aforementioned source material.

This specific adaptation, titled Moses, places Ben Kingsley in the lead role. It was his presence that drew me to the film in the first place. However, I was quite surprised to see two other veteran actors, Christopher Lee and Frank Langella (occupying the roles of Ramses and Memefta respectively).  It was a little bizarre that these three actors were the only ones that I actually recognized in the production. Every other actor I had never seen before, creating a strange stage on which Kingsley performs. This strange stage is made even more bizarre with the fact that Lee and Langella are actually minor characters in the film: Although the pharaoh and his heir are the main antagonists in the actual story, the amount of screen time they occupy is incredibly insignificant. As a result, Kingsley’s performance as Moses becomes enunciated, which left him little room for error in my expectations regarding his acting. I must say he definitely delivered on all fronts, but I don’t think I’d prefer him to Charlton Heston in 1956’s The Ten Commandments.

In the last few years, I’ve begun to question the veracity of any of the history I’ve been taught. I’ve been finding big chunks of history that were never included in the textbooks, and it seemed to depend on the point of view of the teller what kind of history you got. The old saying is, “History belongs to the victors”. It’s that sort of thing. Now you can add Drunk History to the mix. This is where people talk about historical event, but only after they have become hopelessly debilitated by alcohol. It’s funny to watch, and, in this case, you already know for sure history is becoming garbled. I’ve already reviewed the Season One and Two sets, in case you want to go back and reread that. They really are very funny, but you wonder, first of all, how much these various comedians really know about history. Then they get drunk, so often they wind up just falling on the floor and sleeping and babbling. But on some level, I get more out of these historical retellings than the dry and serious ones. At least with Drunk History I am forced to think for myself, and if I really want to know, I should research it myself.

Drunk History: Season Three is at a point where they are running out of all the good history to tell, but they still managed to find lots of fun stories. This season deals with people like no-nonsense Harriet Tubman, super spy and future children’s author Roald Dahl, perplexed Milton Bradley, sneaky Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell, little kid Louis Armstrong, and a haunted Clark Gable. The stories are told most often by relatively unknown comedians, but sometimes they up the ante with stars like Paget Brewster (Criminal Minds). But there are stars everywhere with so many stories being told. Some of them are Dennis Quaid (Lucky Luciano), Sam Rockwell (Bugsy Segal), Josh Harnett (Clark Gable), Nathan Fillion (Wernher Von Braun), Topher Grace (Milton Bradley), Kat Dennings (Kentucky Daisy), Giancarlo Esposito (Andre Pico) Ryan Phillipe (Benjamin Hayes), Jack Black (William Mullholland), Colin Hanks (Gordon Cooper and Ernest Thompson Seton), Jason Ritter (Elisha Gray and Robert Woodrow Wilson), Patton Oswalt (Mac Brazel), Henry Winkler (Zenas Fisk Wilber), Greg Kinnear (Thaddeus S.C. Lowe), Stephen Merchant (Abraham Lincoln), Michael Cera and Haley Joel Osment (Newsies), Jahel “Urkel” White (Bass Reeves), Olivia Spencer (Harriet Tubman), Johnny Knoxville (Juan Ponce de Leon), Ellie Klemper (Nellie Bly), Maya Rudolph (Grizelda Blanco), Jason Momoa (pirate Jean Lafitte), Jack McBrayer (President Andrew Jackson), Will Ferrell (Ronald Dahl), Parker Posey (Mary Phelps Jacob), Martin Starr (Alexander Graham Bell), Michael McKean (Carl Laemmle), Chris Parnell (Thomas Edison), Taran Killam (Bobby Fisher), Jake Johnson (Boris Spassky) Jason Alexander (Boss Tweed), Noah Wylie (Thomas Nash), and I’m going to stop because I’m running out of space. There are actually a lot more notable people. There are interviews with writer/directors like David Simon (The Wire) and David Wain (Wet Hot American Summer) and lots of goofy extras. The motif of going to different cities to interview people on the street continues.