The Beginning of the TV Shelf

One of the wonderful things about the advent of DVD is the number of full seasons and full series that have come onto the home movie market, sure there was VHS releases but it just wasn't the same. I have an incredible number of Television on DVD titles, from both sides of the pond. This regular thing will deal more the television stuff I've been watching and making my way through.

A quick catch up with Christmas. I got a few titles. NewsRadio Season Four, Robot Chicken Season Two and Saturday Night Live: The Best of Saturday TV Funhouse (all on R1, these seem unlikely to recieve a British release).

NewsRadio Season Four is the third of the NewsRadio DVD releases and ran the 1997-1998 season, notable for the fact it was Phil Hartman's last. The series is funny from start to finish and the show clearly didn't give a damn about attracting an extra audience anymore so they just had funny. Bill (Hartman) is playing a piano for a number of the episodes. Very funny stuff, now I need to decide whether I should get the Phil Hartman-less Season Five

Robot Chicken Season Two, a show for Adult Swim created by Seth Green and Matthew Senreich as some great little bits but isn't as instantly memorable as the first season. Hogan's Heroes (featuring Roddy Piper and Hulk Hogan) and Captain Planet are probably two of my favourite bits, pretty darn good rather then exceptional as an whole though.

Saturday Night Live: The Best of Saturday TV Funhouse is the brainchild of Triumph the Insult Comic Dog creator Robert Smigel is at times hilarious, the most brilliant animated bits are of course the Ambigously Gay Duo (picture above and voiced by Stephen Colbert and Steve Carell), The Michael Jackson cartoon, Saddam and Bin Laden, The New Adventures of Mr. T, Sexual Harrarsment and You and Shazzang are all hilariously funny. Recommended cause there's also about an hour of extra cartoons.

A couple of DVDs I've been watching since Christmas...

Lost Season Three is a great season after the sometimes clumsy and lacklustre second season. The episode features a lot of memorable twists (including the last scene in the last episode) and some great characters in Ben, Juliette and Desmond (who are all main characters this season). It's like what the first season was: Gripping from start to finish, plus you finally learn how Locke ended up in a wheelchair and many other little things.

St. Elsewhere Season One (file under What I'm Currently Working my way through) is an amazing medical drama (with an often quirky nature) that began in 1982 and featured an amazing cast including William Daniels, Howie Mandel, G.W. Bailey, Christina Pickles, David Morse and Denzel Washington, I'm only 5 episodes in and I'm enjoying it lots. The fourth episode "Cora and Arnie" featuring Doris Roberts and Tim Robbins is the first truly brilliant episode of the series and I very much recommended. On a note Tim Robbins is deliciously vile and I wish one of the doc's would punch him in the face.

30 Things I Love About... NewsRadio

Welcome to the 2nd of the 30 Things I Love series this time is a sit-com I love very much: NewsRadio. The show as been seen very little in Britan it recieved it longest run on the Paramount Comedy Channel in 2000 at one in the morning, the show in my eyes is a lot better then most of the laugh track sit-coms of it's time period (ran from 96 to 99) and those since.

1. PHIL HARTMAN: COMEDY GOD
2. Super Karate Monkey Death Car
3. Jimmy James neverending quest for a wife
4. Bill and Dave give up smoking
5. Jon Lovitz 1st appearance as the mental patient
6. The attempt to cut down the baseball advert
7. The Rat Funeral
8. Bill McNeal's jingles (Hey...Great Question!)
9. Dave talking to Jimmy James whilst in a coma
10. Dave reading from the complaint box
11. John Ritter and Phil Hartman get to share scenes together
12. Matthew's obsession with Dilbert
13. Joe tries to impress Catherine
14. Dave's girlfriend played by Janeane Garofalo
15. The Cane
16. Joey Buttafuoco
17. Bill pretends to be British
18. James Caan's obsession with Matthew
19. The Shaft
20. Catherine tries to find out Bill's birthday
21. The daydreams
22. Matthew's moustache
23. Jimmy loses Bill in a poker game
24. Rocket Fuel Malt Liquor
25. Matthew's "twin brother"
26. Dave gets obsessed with an arcade game.
27. Jimmy teaches Beth negotiation tactics.
28. Bill's autobiography
29. Joe teaches Matthew how to gamble.
30. Dave is a CANADIAN!!!!

La De Da

I've been ill for over a week and it's so annoying, I feel completely rundown but have still tried my best to do work stuff when I can. Watched a lot of television series because it's been easier to digest when I'm coughing and sneezing everywhere.

Here's the pick of the bunch...

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT: I genuinely believe this is one of the funniest sit-coms of all time, watching the first season over the week moving swiftly into the second season. I can't decide if my favourite character is Tobias or Gob, both are brilliant.

""Illusion, Michael. A trick is something a whore does for money... Or Cocaine."

THE OFFICE: The American version, I wasn't a fan maily due to my love of the original series at the beginning but the show grew into it's own and the characters (though based on their own British counterparts) became their own.

Just an excuse to show a picture of Jenna Fischer!

NEWSRADIO: I also genuinely believe this is one of the funniest sit-coms of all time. I know that is mainly due in part to Phil Hartman (and too a lesser extent to Stephen Root), the laughs are so good, it compensates for the suckiness of Andy Dick.

Other shows I've dipped in out of include Quantum Leap, Amazing Stories, Three's Company, Ren & Stimpy, All in the Family, The Critic, Beavis and Butthead and How I Met Your Mother.

*The reason for the Fantasy Island picture? Just add it lying around on my computer, why? because Herve and Ricardo are the men.

What I've been watching...

Keep thinking I've been and posted on here when I haven't. STUPID STUPID ME.

Here's some stuff I've watched lately.

The Stepford Wives (1975) left me somewhat underwhelmed, it's good for the first part of the film, but I couldn't help but drift off after a while, there's good moments in there but it's nothing special.

The Last Tycoon (1976) was the last film from legendery Communist Witchhunt sell-out Elia Kazan and the only film to feature Robert De Niro and Jack Nicholson, the play ping-pong together no-less, recommend as the film is very interesting, cast also includes Robert Mitchum. Not the best work for anyone involded though.

Watched a fair bit of TV shows lately rather then films, here's some of the shows.

NewsRadio. Decided to re-watch the first two seasons (29 episodes) and got through them very quickly. This show is very, very funny mainly thanks to Phil Hartman (R.I.P.) and Stephen Root, this is the sort of sit-com that proves the laugh track sit-com doesn't deserve to die. Might have to starting rewatching the third series.

Punky Brewster. On the second series at the moment. I think Soleil Moon Frye gives one of the best child performances on a television comedy, she as very realistic movements and emotions that real kids have, good cast, the show is very watchable.

I've watched odd episodes of the original Twilight Zone and All in the Family, and gonna start a rotation thing with Three's Company, Happy Days, In Living Color and Columbo (also Punky and Family and any other show I feel like adding to the rotation)

I'm gonna do a life post later...

NewsRadio Seasons One and Two If I say the words (or is that word) NewsRadio too many people, they'll just look at me with a blank expression. It's no surprise really it's only really been shown at one in the morning on Sky's Paramount channel in the U.K, luckily for me I had a bout of insomnia when Paramount went through the first three seasons (they never had the rights to the last two seasons), and this is the perfect ensemable sit-com which some of the most incredibly sharp writing. I should start by talking about the performers, his show belongs to the late Phil Hartman as rapidly insane news anchor man Bill McNeal, his delivery his perfect, (Note: the fifth season recorded after his death, didn't have the same magic as when Hartman was in it), Stephen Root as station owen Jimmy James, would in many another sitcom be the best thing in, another performer with such natural perfect delivery. Dave Foley in the lead role is good fun, Maura Tierney (now of ER) is his love interest, there's Andy Dick, with his perfect timed pratfalls and Khandi Alexander, Joe Rogan and Vicki Lewis round of a cast that doesn't have a bum note. The 28 episodes in the first and second series (6 in the first, 22 in the second) quickly gel together and it's amazing our early in the series, the characters become fully rounded. The third episode Smoking, is an excellent episode (and an excellent example of how comfortable they cast where with each other so early) about Bill McNeal trying to quit smoking and Dave trying to give up caffeine, and finishes with the odd message, don't bother trying to give up your addictions your only going to fail, other classic episodes on this set include The Cain (another Bill centered episode), Rat Funeral, Goofy Ball (the Goofy Ball of the title is voiced by Judd Apatow, who went onto to create Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared, which I'll get too in later posts) and it's fair to say many more of these episodes. The show is very funny, and it's utterly bewildering that this show never got a decent U.K airing (it could have been on Channel 4 on Friday Night), but I can't recommend this show enough. *****