PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

The Man From UNCLE Season 2

The second season of The Man From UNCLE started September 17 1965 and, unlike the first, it was in color. There's a credit for Metrocolor which turns out to be Kodak's Eastmancolor film. I never saw them in color until the some of the movies, made up of 2 episodes each, turned up on cable 4 or 5 years ago. I didn't have a color tv until I moved out of my mom's place and I don't think I watched any of the shows in syndication. I remembered liking the show when it was new but I don't remember anything about it. I watched the first season in December 2011 and mostly liked them. They didn't quite live up to my memory of them but I still put the second season on my NetFlix'd queue. Eventually they showed up. That queue is pretty full. The episodes look nice and there are 3 of them per disc. I watched the 10 disc set over the last couple of months and right from the start I was thinking the tone of the show changed along with the color. It seemed more comical than the first season. I went to the Internet and read that other people have commented or complained about the shift. Sam Rolfe, the creator of the show, left and David Victor took over as show runner. He intentionally made the show more of a parody. So you have to think of then as comedies, and sadly, the comedy is a bit weak at times. I did like seeing all the 1960's tv stars that appear as guests. There are 30 episodes and most have one or two guest stars I've heard of. You might have heard of some of these actors, and if you don't, you could look them up when you get a minute.

In the first two parter Rip Torn plays Alexander in The Alexander The Greater Affair. Rip wants to take over a small Asian country and break all 10 commandments. Good to have a goal, huh. He's well on the way to his goal. Dorothy Provine plays Rip's wife, she only wants him to sign the divorce papers, then she can forget him. Napoleon and Illya use her to get closer to Rip and take him down. Rip's a bad man, he's chained his parents to a rock quarry. Jason Hong plays the Prince of the Asian country that Rip is trying to take over. The episodes were released in the theaters as a 101 minute movie called One Of Our Spies Is Missing. That's included on the Bonus disc for the season. In The Ultimate Computer Affair we've got Charles Ruggles, Roger C Carmel (Star Trek's Mudd) and Judy Carne. She was on Laugh-In for a couple of years and she was married to Bert Renolds for a couple of years. Different couple of years but still quite a feat, huh. Our UNCLE guys have to go to South America to destroy a Thrush super computer. The Foxes And Hounds Affair has Vincent Price as a Thrush agent. He's competing with another Thrush agent, Patricia Medina, for a mind reading device. uncle guys are trying to protect the guy who has it. The show has some high tech stuff but often it's not very bellieveable. They use a lot of the same sets. I've seen the same wall and the same stair well each used in a couple of episodes. Practical, huh.

Remember discotheques? I sure didn't enter any when they were popular and I only like seeing them on tv. Thrush is using one as a front in The Discotheque Affair. Ray Danton, Eric Braedon and Harvey Lembeck guest star. Harvey played moronic biker Erik Von Zipper in some beach party movies and had a regular part on The Phil Silvers Show. He went on to have a pretty well known acting school. I rarely see him in anything but those beach movies. I had seen plenty of Phil's episodes but that was ages ago. Thrush has rented the apartment next to Mr Waverly's office, so they can spy on him. That's one of those plot points that makes me cring. UNCLE has a secret headquarters buried inside a block of buildings. The outside is made to look normal. Part of the block is an apartment building. They rent the apartments to strangers. Not UNCLE agents or workers. Strangers who turn out to be Thrush agents. Seems weak to me. The Re-Collectors Affair is about stolen Nazi art. That's art stolen by the Nazis. They stole a lot. People are still looking for stuff. War turns out to be a good time to steal stuff. You just have to remember to steal where the fighting is. A group is hunting down Nazi's and killing them for their stolen art treasures. Then they sell the stuff back to the owners. Nice, huh. War always brings out the good in people. And by good I mean taking advantage of the situation to take people's stuff. It's good for someone.

Illya becomes Lawrence Of Arabia, at least his son, in The Arabian Affair. Illya is in the Arabian desert looking for a secret Thrush base and Napoleon is working on a case about a soon to be retired Thrush agent. Michael Ansara is the head of a tribe that helps Illya drive the Thrush agents from their land. Illya nearly has to marry his daughter. She'd be real annoying to spend much time with. That's all I'm sayin'. The Tigers Are Coming Affair has the guys in India investigating a Prince played by lee Bergere. I'd just seen him play Lincoln in a Star Trek episode and I had remembered seeing him in many tv shows from the 1960 and 70's. Jill Ireland also guest stars. I'd always see her on Johnny Carson when I used to watch that every night through a lot of the late 1960's and into the first half of the 1970's.

The Deadly Toys Affair has Angela Lansbury, John Hoyt and Jay North amongst the guest stars. UNCLE wants to keep a bright student from joining Thrush which is where his dad works. Awkward. France Nuyen guests in The Cherry Blossom Affair. The guys are stopping a Thrush earthquake machine. That just shows you the real stupidity of the Thrush organization. Earthquake machines are nothing to be monkeying around with. I've seen enough movies to know that. The Virtue Affair has Robspierre, a descendant of the original Robspierre, planning to nuke the French vineyards to turn the drunken French sober. That's sounds bad, huh. No one wants to see their liquor disappear.

The Children's Day Affair has the guys taking out a Thrush boys school for assassins. Warren Stevens guest stars.  The Adriatic Express Affair has Julliet Mills, a train and a deadly virus. The Yukon Virus guest stars George Sanders. The Very Important Zombie Affair has Claude Akins as El Supremo, the leader of a Carribean country, who kidnaps the leader of the opposition party. Easy polictics that. No wonder it's so popular. The Dippy Blonde Affair has Robert Strauss as a Thrush agent. The guys have to investigate a Funeral home that's a Thrush front. There's some sort of ion projector device being made there. Victor Buono guest stars in The Deadly Goddess Affair as a Thrush agent who is trying to move some funds in a drone plane. Our guys are interested in getting their hands on that money. I always like Victor Buono, I used to see him on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson all the time and he guested starred on a lot of tv shows.

The Birds and the Bees Affair has John McGiver and killer bees. The Deadly Ring Affair has a mole inside UNCLE HQ but no guests I know. The Bridge Of Lions Part 1 & 2 has Maurice Evans, Vera Miles, James Doohan, James Hong and Bernard Fox. The story is based on a Henry Sleasar novel. Thrush seems to have an anti aging program. The device has a lid that goes over a sitting person and it's made from Robbie the Robot's head. Our heroes nearly get crushed in a grape press at a winery. The sets used for the mansion Maurice lives in were from the show Please Don't Eat The Daisies. I remember that but haven't seen it in ages. Wonder if it's on dvd?

The Foreign Legion Affair has Illya in the desert. He comes across an abondoned Foreign Legion outpost that's manned by Howard Da Silva who thinks the French Foreign Legion still exists. The Moonglow Affair has Mr Waverly assign Norman Fell and Mary Ann Mobley to work a case together. They get a lot of screen time since this was a pilot for a spin off. They got replaced when The Girl From UNCLE finally got made into a series. Kevin McCarthy plays the villian and he was quite entertaining. The Nowhere Affair has Illya in the American desert with J Pat O'Malley. They are looking for Napoleon who has been captured by Thrush. He's swallowed an amnesia pill and doesn't know who he is.

The King of Diamonds Affair has Ricardo Montalban as a diamond thief. In The Project Deephole Affair Jack Weston plays a gambler and small time crook who helps the UNCLE guys in a case. The Round Table Affair has veteran tv heavy playing a gangster hiding out in a foreign country. He played Frank Nitti on The Untouchables show back in the 1960's. The Bat Cave Affair has Martin Landau and Whit Bissell. Martin plays a Dracula like count who swoops around in an overacting kind of way. The Minus-X Affair has UNCLE scientist Eve Arden turn out to be a double agent. Sharon Farrell plays her daughter. It's a poor family situation. The Indian Affairs Affair has Thrush making a nuke on an Indian Reservation. Ted D Corsica played the chief of the tribe. He plays a lot of different characters in many movies and tv shows. I remember seeing him in many of them. The show has a chase through the countryside and at one point the Thrush guys pull their vehicles in a vague circle and the Indians on motorcycles, with Illya in a jeep, attack.  

That's a lot of episodes, huh. That's why it took a long time to get through them. I think 30 episodes a season is just too many shows. My other complaint about the program is the fights. They are pretty poor, even when compared to some of the other tv shows of the time. The bonus disc has One Of Our Spies Is Missing and two featurettes. One is a short piece on Danny Biederman's collection of UNCLE items. He's collected a huge collection of items used on the tv show. When they shot this some of the items were in the Queen Mary Museum. The other featurette was about the same thing my post was about, the many guest stars on the show. Like a lot of shows I was glad to NetFlix them. I sure don't plan to buy them.

Charlie Chan in 14 Easy Lessons - Lesson 5 - Change Is Inevitable

I'm taking a look at the 5th disc in the Charlie Chan set that I got a while back. It's got 42 Chan films on 14 discs. This disc, like the rest, has 3 films but this set contains the films that end the appearance of. Warner Oland as Charlie and the first appearance of Sidney Toler. Their characters are a bit different but not enough for me to care much. The formula is still the same.

 

Charlie Chan On Broadway was the 15th Warner Oland film playing the Honolulu detective. It came out on October 27 1937 and Charlie is joined by his #1 son Lee (Keye Luke) for a spot of detecting in New York City. We see the Chan men on a ship, heading for New York, when a sneaky gal puts something into Lee's dresser. She follows Lee and his dad to the same hotel. The police throw a nice dinner for Charlie. The sneaky gal tries to get her package back but Lee catches her trying to get into the Chan hotel room. There are some newspaper folks and gangsters running around. They want the package which turns out to be a diary with all sorts of juicy facts. The sneaky gal winds up murdered. Charlie starts digging into the murder and there are the usual antics. Harold Huber plays a New York police inspector. He's in a couple of the Chan movies and plenty of other films of the 1930's and 40's. He often plays a crook. Lee gets tossed into jail briefly. He's always acting on impulse and getting in trouble. Charlie puts him down pretty often. Charlie figures out who the murderer and everything is pretty much a-ok. About average for the series.

 

Charlie Chan At Monte Carlo is the last of the Warner Oland Chan films and it was released January 21 1938. Keye Luke plays Charlie's son Lee. It would be Keye's last Chan film for 10 years. Oland would start a new Chan film and then walk off the set in a dispute with the management of the studio. Oland passed away shortly after and the film was reworked into a Mr Moto film. Weird, huh. In CCAMC Charlie and Lee are traveling to Paris and they've stopped at Monte Carlo. Harold Huber plays the Monte Carlo chief of police. He's good for a laugh or two. That night Charlie and Lee plan to travel by taxi to the train at Nice. HTey leave and the taxi breaks down. The Chan men decide to walk and leads them to a dead guy in a car. The police pick them up and toss them into jail. Harold gets them out and asks Charlie to help with the investigation. There are some shady businessmen and their shady women and some other creeps interested in a million dollars worth of bonds. Charlie has a lot to dig through before he uncovers the truth. Of course he does and it's all about average.

  

Nearly a year would pass before Charlie Chan in Honolulu came out on January 9 1939. It premiered at the Hollywood theater Grauman's Chinese in late December. Sidney Toler was selected to play Chan and Victor Sen Young plays Jimmy Chan. Victor would appear in 18 Chan films over the next 10 years and later he would play Hop Sing on Bonanza for over a decade. Layne Tom Jr returns to the series but now he's playing #5 son Tommy Chan. CCIH opens with the Chan family having dinner with his huge family. The honorable son in law comes over to announce that his wife is at the hospital and the baby is due soon. There's a commotion and everyone runs off. Tommy is the last one out the door and he catches the phone. It's the homicide bureau and they are looking for Charlie. Tommy passes the message on to Victor, hoping to get involved with some brotherly detective action. Victor tells Tommy he can't go along and goes down to the ship instead of telling his dad. Tommy sneaks onto the back of car that Victor drives down to the ship and then sneaks aboard the ship. The police catch up to Charlie at the hospital and Charlie heads out to the ship. There's the usual suspects and a dead guy. There's a goofy animal trainer and his tame lion for comic relief. I don't get much enjoyable CR from Eddie Collins who plays the animal trainer. If Eddie was made up of his acting ability the lion would eat that ham in a second. Eddie's jokes aren't anywhere near as good as that lousy joke. It's sad for me, havin' to watch him. I did like George Zucco as the odd scientist who has some brains in his luggage. Toler's Charlie is a good replacement for Warner Oland. The series continues with it's winning formula and I'll continue working through the stack of films.

Science Fiction Sunday 204

     

Bem is the 2nd epsiode of the 2nd season and the first show on the 4th disc of the Star Trek Animated DVD set. It first aired September 14 9174 and it was written by Gavid Gerrold. It's the show that introduced Kirk's middle name Tiberius. The Enterprise is on a series of missions with Commander Bem. He's from the planet Pandro, new to the Federation, and he's there to observe the Star Fleet in action. He goes down on the mission to a newly discovered planet and starts screwing around. His body can seperate and the landing party doesn't know. They get captured by some primitive natives. They stay in the cages for a while. Eventually Bem reveals his seperate bits and helps them out of the cages. He spills the beans, it was all part of his test, Captain Kirk passes with flying colors.

     

In The Practical Joker the Enterprise passes through a space cloud and the ships computer gets crazy. It starts playing practical jokes on the crew until they go back through the cloud. Kind of a weak episode, there are some Romulans to spice things up, but it seems weak.

     

Albatross has the Enterprise stopping at the planet Dramia to deliver medical supplies. The authorities arrest Doctor McCoy for murder. They say he was part of the innoculation team that worked on virus outbreak on Dramia II 19 years ago. They claim that most of the people on the planet died from that innoculation. Doesn't sound too good for Doctor McCoy, huh. It seems like a serious topic for a saturday morning cartoon. I guess it's why those kids are growing up so so fast. The Enterprise goes to Dramia II to investigate. They find a survivor who was cured by McCoy. Then the ship's crew gets the virus and Spock has to break McCoy out of jail to find a cure. Turns out the doctor wasn't at fault. I saw that coming but I didn't see an albatross. Oh, well.

     

How Sharper Than A Serpent's Tooth has the Enterprise meet another of those powerful aliens who used to be worshiped by ancient humans. This time it's the Aztecs and Mayans that had visitors from space. This time the alien has a ship and he beams Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Ensign Walking Bear over to his ship. He creates an image of an ancient city and tells them they have to figure out the puzzle to send him a signal. Aliens are weird, huh. They figure out and the appears expecting all their worship. It's not coming and then he's just another powerful alien who needs his butt kicked. Kick obliges and the Enterprise is off for some other misson. Not too bad but another one that uses a familiar plot device.

     

In The Counter-Clock Incident the Enterprise is delivering the ship's first Captain and his wife to a diplomatic conference on the planet Babel. The ship is pulled into a super-nova while helping another ship. They enter a negative universe and the crew grow young. The older couple, now in their 30s, take charge and return the ship to the right time. Not a bad episode either but nothing special. It was the last episode of the series.

 On average the shows were enjoyable and fun to watch. The animation remains poor through the series but it's consistant. Some of the stories are better than others, some I find too much like episodes of the series. There are some good aliens that animation can supply where live action can't. Not all of those were winning designs but there was a nice variety. I'm glad to finish up the set. I did find that Curt Danhauser is continuing the series. I haven't watched much of any of the shows he's made so far. There are two episodes and it's taken him a while to make them.

Friday Night Movies 397

Greg got a copy of the Alpha Home Entertainment release Attack Of The Mushroom People for a dollar. Alpha's a low budget dvd company that puts out mostly public domain material. This is a short, 44 minute, horror film made by a 16 year old guy. It's supposed to be a 1950's sf fillm, black and white, cheap effects, bad acting etc. It's set in the future when there is some sort of global warming issue and octopus creatures are taking over people's minds. Most of the actors are teens and they aren't very good. The director, Joshua Kennedy, is also in the movie as the lead character. He's a guy who was supposed to be off at a war and now he's come home. Looking like he's 14 isn't helping the part any. People on the internet seem to like the movie more than any of us watching tonight did. It seemed mostly like the other reviewers were impressed that a 16 year old did a pretty good job of putting together a short movie and that the story had a lot of references to the horror film genre. He does have a story, music, effects, in jokes, and he puts the movie together in a way that mostly gets you through to the end. It's just not that interesting to watch. There isn't much about the movie that I can recommend. If I wanted to watch badly made movies I want to watch ones made by professionals. More for the horror film fan that feels he really needs to see every horror film. The dvd has a short film called Frankenstein Vs Hitler. It's another parody, presented as a silent film. There are some slight changes to the Frankenstein novel, Dr Frankenstein is a woman, the monster has a radio for a head and he fights Hitler. At 19 minutes it was a bit to long and we were fast forwarding to get it over with. Not a disc I would need to have but I guess it's nearly worth a buck. At least it's short. Greg says he's going to put it out for 3 bucks at his store and see if some unsuspecting soul buys it. I know it's not going to be me.

Greg also brought the BluRay of Twins Of Evil. I know I hadn't seen that, so I was interested. It's a 1971 Hammer film about vampires and witch hunters. These two twin young ladies go live with their uncle after the death of their parents. Peter Cushing plays their strict puritanical uncle who leads a group of men who hunt down and burn witches. They seem to enjoy their work. There's a lot of shouting and meetings. The local count is an idle whore monger and well connected to the Emperor. The local witch hunters back down when they find him having a naughty time with a woman they suspect is a witch. The naughty twin gets hot for the count about the same time as the he gets turned into a vampire. The count turns the naughty twin into a vampire and things don't go so well for them. Peter and the witch hunters grow a back bone and go hunting for the count. They almost kill the good twin but a good guy saves her. The naughty twin and the count get no mercy. The twins are played by Mary and Madeleine Collinson, who were in a Playboy centerfold togther. They are pretty but only the naughty one takes her clothes off. I was wondering what the other sister might look like. Oh wait. I read that the Collinson girls had their voices dubbed which explains why they seemed odd when they were talking. The sets are great, they were also used in the 1972 Hammer film Vampire Circus. The story is pretty good, occasionally it seemed to jump ahead, or veer off to the side without warning. I felt like there were missing details in the narrative. There's a lot of running about and screaming, some fair bit of gore, and a fairly good ending. I don't know that I need the dvd now that I've seen it but it was entertaining to watch.

Charlie Chan In 14 Easy Lessons - Lesson 4 - Events Are Dangerous

Charlie Chan At The Race Track opens with Charlie giving some policemen a demonstration on how blood drops look when they fall in different ways. Warner Oland plays Charlie Chan in his 12th film as the Chinese detective from Honalulu. The movie was released on August 14 1936 and it's set in the world of horse racing. While Charlie is giving the other policmen their lesson his son Lee (Keye Luke) comes busting in with a tip on Avalance. That's a horse in the Melborne Derby that is owned by a man Charlie and Lee know. There's only a short time to go before the race and Lee collects bets. The cops tune in the radio when he gets back. The jockey fouls another horse and even though he says he didn't do it intentionally he's barred from working for 2 years and the horse is disqualified. Turns out he did it for cash. The guy who pays him off only gives him $2 grand instead of the $5 G's he was expecting. The horse owner is killed by his horse while he was sailing to Honalulu. On the ship Charlie discovers it's murder. Remember the blood demo? That was what tipped Charlie off. The blood was faked. Charlie sails with the ship and Lee Chan signs up as a crew member so he can help his dad. There's the usual chatter as Charlie moves amongst the suspects and usual clue finding. Charlie gets shot and is laid up until the ship lands in Los Angeles. Threats have been made against Avalance and the new owners. Charlie and Lee get kidnapped and escape. Of course they uncover the gang that's behind the murders. They were making money by betting on races they fixed. A pretty good one.

Charlie Chan At The Opera came out December 5 1936 and now Charlie is gettin' his detecting on in the Opera world. Warner Oland is Charlie and Keye Luke is his #1 son Lee. Boris Karloff is an opera singer who has been living in an insame asylum for the last 7 years. He doesn't know who he is and neither does anyone at the asylum. A newspaper picture brings back his memory. He remembers his unfaithful wife and her lover trying to kill him by leaving him in a burning theater. Now he's out for vengence, opera style. Boris slinks around the opera house. He scares a seamstress and that's fun. He makes himself known to his ex-wife. There's a fair bit of of opera, written by Oscar Levant, but not enough to be too annoying. It's so obvious that Boris is dubbed. There's a pretty girl with nice legs who dances. We get a fingerprint lesson from Charlie. Boris substitutes himself for the singer of the opera and sings with his ex-wife. She faints at the end of the act when he stabs her in the play. Everyone thinks she's been stabbed but she will be killed while she's in her dressing room. A man tells Charlie how wire photo's work. I like the little informative techno pieces they put in the series. Gives you a chance to see how the things you have heard about actually work. Boris introduces himself to his daughter and she faints. There's a nice scene with Boris and Charlie. He asks Boris to sing again and he does. When Boris pulls his knife at the end of the act a cop shoots him. He'll be ok and after Charlie catches the real killer he helps reunite the two. It's a good entry in the series and an interesting setting. Boris is always fun to watch.

Charlie Chan At The Olympics has Charlie's son Lee (Keye Luke) going off to the Olympics. A special plane with a robot pilot is stolen while on a test run. Charlie and Charlie Jr (Layne Tom Jr) are going on a fishing trip and they find the special plane. The robot pilot is gone. Charlie gets involved and chases the suspect Miss Roland. We get a bit of a geopraphy lesson as Charlie plots a course on a map from Honalulu to Hamburg. The amount of time to get there is slow compared to today. A ship takes 9 - 10 days and while a plane is faster it's still pretty slow. From the Islands to LA is 18 hours, 13 more across the USA, 61 hours in the Hindenberg to Germany. What? Yep, the Hindenberg of Oh, The Humanity fame. While floating across the ocean Charlie passes a ship and it's the same one Roland is on. Charlie's son Lee is also on the ship which is hosting a lot of Olympic atheletes. Charlie and the German police come to interview Roland and she's gone. She'd hidden the stolen robot pilot in one of the athelete's luggage. Charlie beats the crooks to the girl and gets back the device. There's more running around and a fight. Charlie hides the device and the crooks kidnap Lee. He brings the device to the crooks and it's got a transmitter in it. They are about to kill them when another party comes for the device. They figure out it's fake. It's touch and go but you know Charlie is going to get out of that. Sure enough the German police arrive just in the nick of time. Charlie catches the murder, the case is solved, and Lee wins his swim event. Another happy ending with the case solved and the crooks in the can.

That was the fourth disc in the 14 disc set. The movies are all about 70 minutes long. Typical of the era. The story keeps moving, there isn't much by way of wasted time on screen, most everything advances the plot. Even though there is a sameness to the films but I've always like series fiction and I'm still enjoying them. I'll try to watch another one soon.

It's Garry Shandling's Show Season 2

The addition of the Library as a place for more dvds to watch has caused me to rearrange my NetFlix queue a bit. I'm finally getting back to It's Garry Shandling's Show. In the past two dozen years I have seen this series several times. I first saved them to tape off of tv, the show first aired on Showtime and then on Fox, then I burnt those tapes to dvdr 6 or 7 years ago. They are watchable which helped keep me from buying the Shout Factory dvds which I am waiting to get cheaper. The sets got a $160 list and usually it's higher than the $101 that it lists for on Amazon as I write this. I NetFlix'd the second season of It's Garry Shandling Show to catch the extras on the discs. There are commentaries and some Outtakes. Not many of either for the 17 episodes in the season, which come on four discs, and aired between October 25 1987 and March 18 1988. Garry plays a version of himself that lives in a condo in Sherman Oaks. The condo was decorated like his own condo in the real Sherman Oaks. Larry goes about his sitcom business and something or other funny happens every now and again. Here's the rundown of the season. I'm making myself an episode guide.

Who's Pappa is the opening show of the season and it starts with a baby shower for Jackie. She's the wife of Pete Schumaker, Garry's pal, who's all distraught and mopey. Pete tells Garry that he thinks that the baby isn't his. He wants Garry to ask Jackie if it's Pete's baby. Some pal, huh. Pete's way to needy for me but Garry takes the job and immediately gets Nancy involved. She's Garry's platonic girl friend and next door neighbor. She knows that Jackie was fertile the weekend the baby was conceived and that Jackie and Pete were in different cities. Jackie was in Chicago to go to her high school reunion so Garry flies to Chicago, in his own balsa wood plane, to see Jackie's old flame Donald, the man Pete suspects. Donald had a crush on Jackie and it was rekindled at the reunion but nothing happened. Pete just forgot they had a quickie at the airport. Nancy asks, "Who could forget about that?" and I agree. That Pete's an idiot sometimes.

No Baby, No Show is all about waiting for Jackie's baby to appear. Garry is all excited because they are going to have the baby on the show. Jackie isn't on the same schedule as the show and nothing is happening. Garry is trying to find something to do to entertain the studio audience. The show turns into a talk show. Leonard, the annoying neighbor shows up followed by Tom Petty. Grant Schumaker arrives from school dressed in his Fiddler On The Roof costume and he sings If I Were A Rich Man. Nancy shows up. Jackie goes into labor while Garry is talking to his next guest Susan Anton. Garry calls for a doctor and Doc Severinson pops out of nowhere. After the baby boy is born the camera cuts to the baby's prespective. After Garry introduces everyone to the baby Doc and Tom play the closing credits. There's a nice commentary with episode writer's Garry Shandling and Alan Zweibel.

The Fugitive has David Paymer guest. He plays a friend of Nancy's named Richard Kimble. Garry feels a disolve coming on and winds up in the Post Office with the shows announcer Dick Tufeld. Garry spots a wanted poster for Richard Kimble and it turns out that Richard is a wanted man. He says he's innocent, it was a one-armed man, so Garry and Nancy hide him from Lt Gerard. The police have them covered but they escape through the open side of the condo. Garry accidentally pulls Richard's false arm off just before Gerard catches up to them. It turns out Richard is totally guilty. Off he goes to jail. Some older folks might remember the old TV series The Fugitive. It's one series I haven't really wanted to revisit even though I enjoyed them as a kid. I'd rather watch this silly parody again.

The Schumakers Go To Hollywood when Grant wins a trip to Hollywood for writing a poem about what Hollywood means to him. Garry gets the audience to sing the theme song to his show. Grant and Pete stop over and ask Garry to feed Grant's fish while they are in Hollywood. Grant and Pete meet Florence Henderson while strolling around the famed movie town. Then they buy tickets to It's Garry Shandling's Show. They arrive just in time for Garry to make fun of Grant's room and find the fish has died. Garry writes a suicide note from the fish and then he reads Grant's Lily poem out loud. Grant runs from the studio. He's all upset. There's a really cute scene with Garry, Grant and Pete at the Hollywood sign. Garry breaks it apart and turns it into a Lily Woo sign. That's the name of the girl Grant has a crush on. Dancers appear and Lily shows up during the dance number. She asks Grant to the Sadie Hawkins Dance. Florence Henderson shows up, dances, and gives the fish artificial respiration. It lives, yay! There's a commentary with writers Tom Gammill, Max Pross and Ed Solomon. All have gone on to long careers in TV, much of it tied up with The Simpsons.

Nancy Gets Amnesia starts with a rain storm. Garry is playing Twister with himself when Officer Sweeney, Jason Bernard from first episode of season 1, shows up with Nancy in tow. Officer Sweeney says she has amnesia. Garry is excited as it's their first amnesia show. Garry takes Nancy on a tour of her apartment but that doesn't help. Garry lets Nancy use his flashback booth but it overloads and smoke pours out. Nancy expresses interest in Garry to Ruth. Ruth passes that along to Garry, who ponders on the possibility of a relationship with Nancy in a dream sequence. Stagehand Jimmy supplies the smoke to get Garry into his fantasy. In Paris Garry and Nancy encounter Officer Sweeney singing in French. They wish at a fountain and the fantasy is over, interrupted by Blake Clark playing the Flashback Booth repairman. Turns out Garry needs a B101 adaptor to work on amnesia. Nancy is cured. 

It's Garry And Angelica's Show Part 1 & 2 has Garry on the Love Connection with Chuck Wollery. Garry picks Angelica, who's played by Jennifer Tilly and they go on their date and get some romance going. Garry invites her on the show. Some time passes and the relationship develops. Garry fears commitment and the Goddess of Commitment, Zsa Zsa Gabor, gives him a pep talk. Angelica and Garry commit to a second episode together. Angelica is a bit overwhelmed by the audience. While trying to talk to them she drives Garry's car off the pier. She's ok and so it the car but she learns that she doesn't want that life. She departs and Garry is alone once again.

It's Garry Shandling's Christmas Show opens with Tom Petty and Leonard singing at Garry's First Christmas show. Garry's always wanted to do one of those old fashioned Christmas Shows like he used to imagine as a kid. Dom Irrera plays a neighbor and when Gary's dad's watch disappears he's suspected. That turns out to be embarrassing. Ruth returns and tells Garry she took the watch. They touching moment is interrupted by the arrival of Santa Claus in his underwear. Garry greased the inside of his chimney and Santa twisted his ankle. Santa gives Garry is wish for an old fashioned Christmas Show and then Garry gets a chance to finish delivering all the presents for Santa. It's a delightful episode. The episode was written by Merrill Markoe who used to write for David Letterman.

Killer Routine has Garry go into the studio audience. While telling a man named Norman Grant's "breasts pressed against the window" joke the man dies. Garry is bummed out and he feels horrible. Pete tries to console Garry, Grant doesn't want Garry to come after him, and Nancy wants Garry to do his show at Mr Peck's. Garry doesn't want to but Nancy threatens to grow a beard if he doesn't go. At Mr Peck's Garry sees the audience with cross hairs on them. He runs off stage. Nancy and Ruth call Carl Reiner to come over to cheer up Garry. Carl tells Garry it happens all the time. Sid Ceaser killed 2 or 3 people a week on Your Show Of Shows and Carl and Mel Brooks killed more than 25 people with their Thousand Year Old Man routine. Garry goes to Norman's funeral and his wife is glad he came. She tells Garry Norman was such a big fan. Garry talks to Norman and tells him some jokes. Norman gets to play his harp over the end credits.

Mr Sparks is Garry's neighbor and he's upset when Grant, pulling too hard on the cable wire, creates a hole in the wall between the two apartments. He's even madder at Garry for getting kid to do his work.  Everyone goes to Shandlingland, including Mr Sparks, which is a theme park based on Garry's life. There's plenty of things to do. The Magic Hairdryer ride is the only ride where your hair looks better when you get off. Garry's Haunted Bedroom has a sound proof door. Nancy wants to see Nancy's Dreamhouse and Garry goes along. It's a musical about Nancy's love for Garry. The real Nancy thinks it's the stupidest thing she's even seen but Garry loves it. It's pretty dumb but it gets Garry and Mr Sparks to make up. The episode was written by Tom Gammil and Max Pross who also do a commentary.

The Soccer Show has Garry coaching Grant's soccer team. Garry plays his whistle over the opening theme song. They actually go outside to film the soccer scenes. Pete and another father start a fight in  the stands. Garry is all upset and Nancy tries to cheer him up. Grant comes over and asks Garry to draw him a warm bath. Garry has a huge bathroom with bookshelves and nice painting on the wall. The soccer team comes over and Garry gives them a pep talk in the bathroom. It doesn't go over quite like Garry thought it might and they all quit. Cut to Garry in the bath and Mrs Henderson the librarian brings him a book. His library was a mess before he hired her. The soccer dad's come over to yell at Garry. He calms them down and gives them shit for fighting. The team goes back to playing, the dad's are nice and polite. Garry offers his bathroom to Reagan and Gorbachev for a chance at world peace. 

Our Town opens with Garry taking a walk around the neighborhood, instead of his normal monologue. First he visits Nancy, who also has no wall on her living room. Next it's Leonard's place. Leonard is looking his cat. Garry stops near Eddie's news stand where he hears that Leonard has found his cat and that Grant has a crush on Nancy. On to the Schumakers where Peter and Grant are making a model kit and Jackie is breast feeding their new baby. When Grant leaves, the Schumakers are worried about the distracted Grant. At Nancy's Gary explains that the flowers that came anonymously from Grant. Nancy goes to see Grant in the park and they talk. Turns out Garry got it wrong and Nancy now has to kill Garry. Garry runs away but Nancy finds him so easily at home. Everyone comes over to yell at Garry. The guest is Dom Irrera, playing Nancy's boyfriend. The structure of the show is like the 1940 movie Our Town which is based on the 1938 play by Thornton Wilder. The play is a look at the people in a small town about he turn of the century. It's homey and still popular. One of the guys at work was just in a production recently. He also wrote The Skin Of Our Teeth which won a Pulitzer Prize. I really liked the 1983 version of the play which I saw it on PBS.

Save The Planet opens with The Turtles (Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan) singing the opening theme. Garry, Nancy and Pete are excited their old college professor is coming to visit. Kurtwood Smith plays the professor who has some pictures that he's using in a magazine article on the 1960's peace movement. One of the pictures is of Garry's mom Ruth and she's sitting on Abbie Hoffman's shoulders at a Save The Planet Rally. The problem is she's topless. It's buggin' Garry and he has a flashback to the 60's where The Turtles sing a song about Garry's mom taking off her clothes while she dances in a Go-Go dancers cage in a miniskit and boots. It's a bad trip, man. Garry tries to convince the professor not to use the picture but Kurtwood really thinks it's the best picture in the bunch. Garry talks to his dead dad, who talks back, and then he goes home. His mom is there and she's found the picture. She's ok with the picture and it gets published. Garry buys all 3.5 million copies of the issue. They are all in his living room. The Turtles finish the show with a nice rendition of Happy Together.

The Grant Shuffle opens with Garry carrying the Schumaker baby. The winner of the Name the Schumaker Baby Contest Donna Taylor is on the show and the name of the baby is Blue Suede Schumaker. Jackie isn't going to have any of that and there's an argument. Leonard starts hitting on Donna. Grant is unhappy with all the attention that the new baby is getting and he feels left out. Garry lets him tell a joke. It gets a laugh. Grant is thinking he should take a shot at open mike night at Mr Peck's. Garry offers to help Grant. Leonard is still hitting on Donna. Donna doesn't say much of anything but she does tell Nancy off at one point. Nancy so deserved it. Grant gets some laughs at Mr Peck's. Leonard scores with Donna. Five days later Grant is back at Mr Peck's. Donna is still on the show and Leonard won't return her phone calls. That Leonard is an ass sometimes. Grant gets a big surprise when the act before him turns out to be the comedian that Grant stole all his material from. Opps, huh. Grant nearly runs away but Garry gives him a dream sequence and he stays. Garry fills in for Grant at Mr Peck's.

Go Go Goldblum has Garry dine and dash at the Schumaker's so he can get to a party at Jeff Goldblum's house. The Schumaker's wanted to play the home version of Win Loose Or Draw. Garry turns that down but promises to return tomorrow for Grant's birthday party. The Schumaker's are disappointed and after Garry leaves they have some slightly harsh words about their friend. Garry goes over to Jeff's where Bert Convey is hosting Win Loose Or Draw in the living room. Garry tells Jeff he feels bad for skipping out on the Schumakers and Jeff offers to come over to Grant's for his birthday. The next day Garry, at Jeff's, winds up locking the two of them in the walk-in freezer and they miss the party. The guys get out in the middle of the night and visit Grant in his room. They wake everyone up and then call Bert Convey and Nancy over to play Win Loose Or Draw.

Garry Falls Down A Hole has Garry miss the opening of the show. Most everyone on the show is worried and they all come to the condo to look for him. Pete notices his favorite red kite out near the construction area behind the condos. They find Garry, in a hole, which he'd fallen into while flying his kite. Rescue operations take place and Garry is returned to the surface after a short dream sequence. He's in heaven with his dead grandmother. He's ok but he's sad the president didn't call. Leonard tries to get Garry to sign a paper saying he won't sue the condo association. The lesson learned: Don't fly a kite near where they're digging a hole. Good advice, huh.

Mr Smith Goes To Nam opens with Garry opening up a box of Sea Monkeys. He puts them in water to get them growing and there's a knock on the door. It's Gilda Radner. This was after she had been battling Cancer. The first joke is a reference to that. Sadly, her remission was short lived, Garry's show would be her last TV appearance. She's delightful and the audience loves her. Gilda keeps looking in to the camera and playing to the audience. Leonard comes over and tells Garry he can't have sea monkey's, condo rules, nothing with feet. Blake Clark plays Gilda's nurse. He's bringing back all the tapes of Larry's shows and all Larry's appearances on The Tonight Show. Leonard sees him and runs off. Later that night he's out in the condo's backyard, in his pajamas, yelling. Garry and Nancy try to help him. He was having bad dreams that came from seeing Blake, who was in Leonard's squad in Viet Nam. Seeing him brought back Leonard's memories of the war. He feels guilty for something he did. They all go over to Gilda's to see Blake. Turns out Leonard couldn't, and shouldn't, have done anything in Viet Nam. During Leonard's flashback at Gilda's Garry gets shot. Lucky for him the video cassette of the Bible he had in his jacket saved his life. Gilda is still looking in the camera and waving at the audience when the final scene plays out. Everyone is playing Candyland and the closing credits are over the painting of Gene Wilder as Baron Frankenstein. You might remember it from Young Frankenstein. Gene was married to Gilda.

Alan Zweibel wrote the episode, does a commentary, and was a good friend of Gilda's. They worked together on Saturday Night Live. They've been writing partners over the years and they worked out a lot of the material for her appearance on Garry's show. It's one of my favorite episodes and it always gives me mixed feelings. It's a truely great piece of writing but seeing Gilda reminds me of her impending death. I almost don't want to see it but once it's on it's so joyous that I really enjoy it. Partly for Gilda and partly for some of the story telling concepts. When Leonard starts to tell his flashback the corner of the room fills with smoke, the lights go down, and jungle vines fall from the ceiling. Soldiers appear and they do the flashback. When it happens at Gilda's house she chases the actors in the flashback off the screen after Garry gets shot. It's an inspired bit of business in a stand out episode on a stand out series.

Science Fiction Sunday 203

I'm looking at the 3rd disc of the Star Trek Animated series today. There are only 5 shows on the disc and the stories are a good mix. Gene Roddenberry and DC Fontana were Executive Producers on the show and that helped keep the level of the scripts fairly good. Good considering that they stories aimed at kids watching saturday morning TV. The animation on the show is so-so, some average, some below average for tv production in the 70's. No CGI back then. I do like some of the location drawings. The voices of the main cast are the same as the original live action series.

   

The Ambergris Element was part of the 1st season. It was the 13th episode and it first aired on December 1 1973. On the Planet Argo the landing party is attacked in their aquashuttle. Kirk and Spock are knocked out and disappear. The search finally finds them 5 days later floating in the water. They are still alive but they're now water breathers. The two return to the watery world and go looking for the reason they can't live in air anymore. They find an ancient water breathing race that used to live on the surface. Eventually the guys get back to normal. Kind of a standard ST plot. There's a giant sea monster that was kind of fun but goofy.

     

The Slaver Weapon was written by SF writer Larry Niven and, at a suggestion by Gene Roddenberry, it's based on his short story The Soft Weapon. The story introduced the Kzinti into the Star Trek universe. There's a Slaver Stasis box on the Enterprise. The Slavers were a race that existed a billion years ago. Long gone they have left artifacts of their existance in the Statis boxes. The boxes react to other boxes and that leads the ship into a trap set by the Kzinti. The cat like creatures have been a thorn in the side of the Federation for a long time. They've fought four wars and the Kzinti have lost all of them. The kidnappers hope to find a weapon in the Stasis box and they luck right out. They want to use it to gain an advantage and get back to taking over the galaxy. They're pretty much dicks. Oh yeah, they'd also eat people if the Federation allowed them to. They tell the landing party they will be eatin' some of them real soon. Well, Kirk and Spock have a pretty good aversion to being lunch so they fight back and nearly get away. The weapon turns out to be a fairly powerful smart gun that helps out. It blows up the Kzinti when they can't tell it what the access codes are. Good thing too. It was a pretty good story and the only episode of the series that had characters being killed.

      

In The Eye Of The Beholder the Enterprise is investigating the disappearance of a science team on the planet Lactra VII. They find their ship orbiting the planet and beam down. Giant super intelligent slugs put the landing party into a zoo where they find the science team. Eventually Spock gets some mind contact going and things get back to normal. The super smart aliens tells Spock, come back when you're smarter, say a few hundred centuries. Kind of a repeated plot device from the original series. It was ok.

      

   

The Jihad has Kirk and Spock join a group of other aliens to retrieve a sacred object stolen from some winged humanoids. Without the holey object the war likin' bird people of that planet would go on a rampage and the leaders don't want that. There's fighting and running around and a woman who's got the hots for Captain Kirk but he's not giving her any action. I guess that's the real difference between the live action Captain and the cartoon Captain. The group find the object and stop the war. Another pretty good episode.

      

The Pirates of Doom was the first episode of the second season and it aired September 7 1974. Spock has a rare disease and the medicine on the way to him gets stolen by space pirates. They Enterprise gives chase and catches up to the Orion pirates. They get the cure and arrest the pirates. There's a bit of stuff going on in there but it's pretty much a standardkind of plot, nothing too special.

So not a bad bunch of stories, all of which could have been helped by having better animation. One more disc to go and it's got 5 episodes too. Next week will come pretty soon.

Friday Night Movies 396

Joe brought the BluRay of Battleship and we watched most of that. Joe warned us of the weak character developement scenes in the beginning of the movie and we fast forwarded through bits and pieces of those. There was a soccer game that went on too long and it got the same treatment. It's rare we push the fast forward button and I really have no issue with it. Not all movies are good 100% of the time. Your finger on the FF button can make a 131 minute long movie a nice bit shorter. That's always good and you know we did not miss anything important. Scientists discover an earth like planet far off in space and they send a signal. Some time later some spaceships come and splash into the sea. One of the alien ships hits a satellite on entry and as the burning ship tumbles through the sky, spewing red hot metal and smoke, it leaves a nice swath of flaming destruction across the Hong Kong skyline. Nice CGI of buildings getting damaged. The aliens set up shop near Hawaii. The US and Japanese Navies are having training exercises in the area. The aliens pop up a huge energy dome that ships, planes, and radio can't pass through. Two US, and one Japanese, destroyers are in the dome. The aliens ships are big and noisey and have lots of transforming and anime inspired parts and weapons. One of the destroyers goes on the offensive and it pretty much gets blown to bits. The Japanese Captain takes them on next and he's sunk. At least there were some survivors from that. The last ship, now commanded by the troubled hero of the story tries a different tractic and doesn't attack. The aliens leave them alone. From the outfit of a captured alien they figure they have trouble seeing in the light. That helps bring the aliens down and the earth will be saved. At least for now. Hopefully Battleship 2 will have some space battles. That would be cooler. The movie is directed by actor/director Peter Berg. His last movie was the 2008 Will Smith superhero comedy Hancock. 

Battleship is pretty loud and there's plenty of destruction. It's in the Bruckheimer/Silver/Bay blockbuster style. Reality is bent to serve the story and the pyrotechnics. The audio is full and rich and every action seems to have a swoosh or roar or a boom associated to it. There's nothing overly original about it but the action parts deliver some entertaining film. There are some good characters, doing some heroic stuff, who occasionally toss out some bad dialog. I didn't care that much for the romantic subplot and some of the other plot points just didn't make much sense. As the story served the action and the style, it didn't matter that the USS Missouri couldn't have had any live ammo on it and it couldn't have taken just an hour to fire up the decommishioned ship from it's current job as a museum. I have no problem with that, I treat it the same way as I would a fantasy movie with elves, trolls, witches and all that magical mumbo jumbo. It does help remind me that it might not always be a good idea to send out signals to space. I know it's too late and we've got a lot of 'splainin' to do for some of the tv and radio that's been beaming out through the galaxy. Hopefully, you and I will be dead before the aliens get a chance to listen and come looking. Keep watching the skies. Call if you notice anything.

I'd been a big fan of the 1967 Seijun Suzuki film Branded To Kill since I first saw it in Jan of 1999. It's a Yakusa picture about a guy who's the #3 hitman in the Japanese crime world. He's played by Joe Shishido whom some Mystery Science Theater 3000 fans will recognize from the Fugitive Alien episode. Joe agrees to help a retired hitman, Kasuga, get back into the business. They go to the Yakusa boss who hires them to protect a guy while he's travelling from one town to another. Along the way they are ambushed and the Kasuga freaks out and is killed. Kasuga kills the #4 hitman and Joe and the client each kill some assassins. The two get away but are soon attacked again. The #2 hitman is killed when Joe torches his hidout. The client shoots #2 while he's running around on fire. Now #1 and #3 are the top hitmen. Joe doesn't know who #1 is but he'll soon find out. After the job is done Joe heads home to his wife. His car breaks down and he gets a ride from a stone faced gal who's got a death wish. She drops him off at this apartment and Joe and his wife have some naked time. There's a lot of nudity in the movie. The Yakusa boss sends Joe to kill some business men and Joe delivers their dooms in some stylistic ways. Some of them are a bit impractical but it's a movie heavy on style. The gal with the death wish turns up with a new assignment which gets flubbed by a butterfly. Things start to go wrong for Joe after that. Eventually Joe and #1 finally go head to head. It doesn't end well for anyone.

     

Suzuki had made 40 films for Nikkatsu before Branded To Kill and his later efforts were getting more and more stylish and abstract. The movie wasn't very successful and the studio had already warned the director about this. Suzuki got fired and he sued. He won a bit of money from the failing Nikkatsu film company. Nikkatsu went on to make softcore roman porno while Susuki got blacklisted and didn't make a movie for 10 years. He worked in commercials and did some tv. You can read more on the link in his name above. The movie is out in the US from Criterion. I have the earlier version but the disc that Sperhauk picked up from the library is a new dual layer remastered film. It looks much better. That's the one to get. It has the short interview with Suzuki from 1997 that was in the earlier Criterion dvd as well as a new interview with him and another with actor Joe Shishido that turned out to be rather entertaining. I'd also recommend Suzuki's Tokyo Drifter. It too has had a new dual layer release. If you check out the link to BTK above you can find Tokyo Drifter on one or another of those YouTube pages. Not everyone is going to like it, but hell, you can say that about any film. For the right person it will be worth sitting through. It could be you.

40076 Zombie Car

 
This set was only available as an incentive in September. If you bought $75 worth of stuff you got it for free from the LEGO stores and online. I didn't get one. I've been seeing less reason to spend my money at the LEGO store the last few months. I blew a big pile of cash at Target for some Harry Potter games on clearance about the time this promo set showed up at the LEGO store and that ate up my LEGO budget for 2-3 months. Typically I stop in the store about once a week and spend a little at each visit. The new sets aren't getting me too excited, the Pick-A-Brick hasn't had anything I really wanted, and 3 weeks ago they stopped selling Grab Bags. I was bummed about the last item the most but also sort of relieved. Not having them to purchase means that I won't be accumlating more parts I don't know what to do with. From the comments on blogs it seems that there were people who complained about the contents of the bags. I can see that people would complain about them. The last couple of years the parts from the broken down display sets have been heavily diluted by excess parts from the PAB wall. Instead of a nice assortment of different parts you might get a quarter to half a bag of good parts and then a whole bunch of 4-5 other parts. If you buy a few of the bags you can get an idea of what sells slowly on the PAB wall. I've got a few baggies of 1x1 trans parts that I will never use and it's hard to sell them. I guess I need to talk myself into opening a Bricklink store.

It would be fairly easy to sell this set. It's a 60 piece set and you get a sketchy little car with a zombie chauffer. It's obviously a fantasy item. Zombies don't drive! The car isn't any great shakes, more like a 4 wheel ATV. Other than having another zombie I don't see that there is much reason for me to get this set. Bricklink has sealed sets starting at 7 bucks, so that's around ten with shipping, which makes it really unattractive. The uniform looks pretty good but it has a pretty limited use. Even if I were doing a zombie apocalypse scene I would only use one, maybe two, of the same body. Other opportunities to use the torn up chauffer costume are going to be somewhat rare. The other question is why does he have two colors of hands? That's kind of weird but so are zombies and what people do with them. I was at Brickmania Toyworks last night and got to put zombies out ont he train layout. It's all for the annual Halloween event. Next two saturdays the place is open from 5-9 for  the Halloween program. Lots of new displays and dioramas.

Monty Python - The Other British Invasion

I might have mentioned in the past that I was a huge Monty Python's Flying Circus fan when I was a teen back in the early 70's. There was nothing quite like it in those days. There have been plenty of humorous sketch shows on tv but they weren't so off the wall and absurd in such a concentrated dose. Everything about that show was bent and textured. Dadistic, some said. It's not the kind of show to appeal to everyone, my mother didn't get it, and never cared for it, but that didn't matter. I'd watch the hell out of those episodes and the next day at school a bunch of us kids would repeat as much of the program back to each other as we could remember.  When the group toured in 1975 they came through Winnipeg and I was in the 7th row. It was heaven, they did all my favorite sketches, but the icing on the cake was hanging around after the show. I was in the right place at the right time to get the guys autographs but I had no pen. I borrowed one from Terry Jones, got all their autographs, and returned the pen with my thanks. Over the years my love of Python waxed and wained but I've always had a soft spot in my heart for the group. 

When I found this 2 disc set at the library I was curious and brought it home. There are two 50 minute long documentaries about the men behind the python, each on their own disc. The first documentary is Before The Flying Circus and it covers the guys early lives through the start of Python. The other disc is called Python Conquers America and it deals with the success of the show and it's introduction to America. I was living in Canada back when the series was new and we were lucky to have the show come to us before it got to the US PBS network in the mid 70's. The documentaries have plenty of interviews, interspersed with clips and pictures of their other tv work. Most of them had worked some in tv before they started Python and often on the same show. Several of those shows are available on dvd, some are gone for good. I for one remembered seeing John Cleese on The David Frost Show and would like to see some of those again.

There's a couple of extras on the second dvd of the set. One is a short piece with Terry Gilliam, where he looks at his animated credits for the series, and the other is a sketch that was cut from the Brit series when it was rerun and never replaced. The only existing copy of the sketch comes from a PBS station and it looks right crap. Still you can't get it anywhere else. All in all a nice package and worth taking a look at for the Python fan. I found out some new stuff and the interviews were fun to watch. While it's under 10 bucks on Amazon right now, I just can't see spending money on it myself. I'm not sure I'll need to watch these shows over in the future. Better watch the actual episodes instead.

I'm not a big fan of the A&E marketing strategy and I hate giving them my money. It's a dislike built on time. My take on their marketing plan is they give the customer as little as possible for the highest possible price. Then repackage it with a tiny bit more at a higher price. Actually that does sound pretty good from the drivers seat, huh. Wish I though of it.

A&E put the Python tv show out, starting in 1999, and they did a series of 7 dvd sets that were $25 bucks a pop and rarely discounted. It was 1999, and dvds were more expensive then, but the A&E library of British shows were noticibly higher than other dvd releases. They might be a bit justified for the limited market appeal of some of their material but they just seemed excessive compared to the other dvd producers. They packed the 2 discs sets with little extra material, 3 or 4 episodes per disc, so each season of 13 episodes took 4 dvds. The fourth season was only 6 shows. In 2000, after all the sets were released, they packaged the 14 dvds in a box and called that the Megaset. That was a bit cheaper. So little time had passed, 3 months, from the last release of the individual sets to the Megaset that it seemed like A&E was passing along a big Fuck You to it's customers. I know I paid nearly $100 for the set and I waited a while to get it. Now the 16 disc set is 40 bucks on Amazon. The original 14 disc Megaset got replaced by the 16 Ton Megaset in 2005 and they added a 2 disc set called Monty Python Live. In 2008 they released the 21 disc Collector's Edition Megaset. It had the 16 Ton Megaset plus the three discs of Python's Personal Best. That's an hour for each of the Python's to repeat their personal best material from the original series. Nothing new, just 6 hours of the same stuff you's probably just watched. The other two discs were the two documentaries I watched earlier. That's about 8 hours of material, with less than two hours worth of new material, spread over 5 discs. That 21 disc Megaset is now out of print, but not to worry, you can buy it in chunks as it suits you. I did buy the Monty Python Live set as a seperate set but lucky for me it was on clearance at HPB a while after the start of the last recession. Lots of great dvds turned up cheap in the dark days following the big hose up out east. I wouldn't recommend paying the 16 bucks on Amazone right now. Put that money toward the original series and watch that.