Years:  1965, 1971  
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Bob Crane, Richard Dawson, Werner Klemperer, John Banner
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Until I got the Fan Favorites DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment, out March 6^th, I had never seen an episode of Hogan’s Heroes.  I always thought it was a sort of comedic army show, like Sgt. Bilko, and that everyone would be sort of cartoonish.

     And I was (sort of) right.  Everyone IS sort of cartoonish, except for Hogan himself.  Ben Crane played Hogan as a serious, faintly bemused prisoner of war in the centre of a bonkers world.  HE is pretty well normal.  Colonel Klink is a cartoon, the pompous, vain and stupid overseer of the Nazi war camp.  Even more of a cartoon is Sgt. Schulz, the totally moronic captain of the guard who has very little to offer outside his catchphrase, “I see nothing!”

     What really surprised me, though, is that (at least in the eight episodes chosen for this DVD) the prisoners were actually DOING stuff.  Smuggling a high value spy out of the country.  Helping distract the German high command on the eve of the D-Day invasion.  And in one episode, they actually KILL a whole bunch of Nazis themselves when they replace their fake ammunition with live stuff for their war games.

     At its heart though, Hogan’s Heroes is really another cartoonish war sitcom, showcasing the hilarious side of being captured and kept prisoner by the Nazis.  And after all, if you can`t laugh about a camp set up by Nazis, then what CAN you find funny!

Years:  1955, 1956  
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jackie Gleason, Audrey Meadows, Art Carney, Joyce Randolph
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I have seen only a handful of episodes of The Honeymooners in my life.  You know, when it comes on TV in reruns and I happen across it.  And I’m pretty sure that the only five episodes I have ever seen are included on the Honeymooners Fan Favorites DVD out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment. 

     There’s one where Ralph Kramden and Ed Norton share a TV set and hilarity ensues.  Another where Ralph finds a suitcase full of money on the bus, the one where Norton keeps sleepwalking, a show where Ralph and Ed make an infomercial to sell a do-it-all kitchen gadget, and the one where Ralph goes on a game show and embarrasses himself.  Now, apparently, the fans who voted for their favorite episodes on facebook have seen all the same episodes I have.  In fact, I’m starting to think that there ARE only eight or ten episodes that show up in re-runs.

     It’s neat though to see Ralph Kramden’s progression from the beginning of the show to a few episodes after the beginning of the show.  At first, he threatens Alice with a punch that will send her right to the moon.  By the end, he’s just using hand gestures to show her how quickly she will get there.  What a character arc he had, that Kramden!

Years:  1972, 1973, 1974 
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jack Klugman, Tony Randall, Betty White
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I love the old Odd Couple TV show.  It’s a little dated now, since we’ve seen so many TV shows based on the same basic premise since then.  Frasier and Two and a Half Men and countless other shows owe a big debt to Tony Randall and Jack Klugman.  Their chemistry was fantastic, and it’s showcased admirably in the new DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment, The Odd Couple Fan Favorites, out March 6th.

     There are eight great episodes on the best-of DVD, my favorite being the one where Oscar and Felix team up to go on the game show Password.  Which I guess was pretty big in the 70s.  The show was hosted by Alan Ludden, who guest stars on the episode with his wife at the time, Betty White. 

     What I found hilarious was that they made fun of Betty White’s age.  Her AGE!  Haha, she’s an old woman!  Remember, this episode was from 1972!  That’s right, Betty White was hilariously old FORTY years ago.  Ah, some things never change!

     There are some other guest appearances on the disc, including Bubba Smith who was playing for the Raiders at the time.  The best thing about the Fan Favorites DVD set though, is that at eight episodes, it is all the Odd Couple that you need.

Years:  1987, 1989
Genre:  TV series, Action
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Richard Dean Anderson, Dana Elcar, Michael Des Barres
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     MacGyver remains one of my favorite shows of all time.  Not so much because of the quality of the show which, in retrospect, was seriously deficient.  For me, it’s more of a nostalgia thing, from the days when I was a little kid and didn’t know any better and thought MacGyver was the coolest guy I could even imagine.

     So the Fan Favorites DVD of MacGyver, out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment, was exciting for me.  No Cuba Gooding Jr., no Teri Hatcher, no Mayim Bialik, three of the most famous recurring actors on the series.  But three of the five episodes are some of my best childhood memories, like the one where MacGyver and his grandfather get trapped in the Phoenix foundation by international terrorists. 

     The only episodes I didn’t really like are the Legend of the Holy Rose episodes, a two-part show where MacGyver is essentially re-imagined as Indiana Jones.  Even when I was six, that was a little too silly for me.  But the highlights of this best-of set have to be the episodes that involve MacGyver’s unkillable nemesis, Murdoc. 

     There’s an episode where Murdoc is chasing MacGyver through the mountains and appears to fall to his death.  But of course he lives, somehow.  And the greatest episode of them all, the utterly silly, totally bonkers episode where MacGyver and Murdoc team up to save Murdoc’s sister from this shadowy, evil and totally insane assassin’s club. 

     They have to crawl through a supposedly unbeatable obstacle course where they are shot at with automatic weapons and left to die.  It’s staggeringly cheesy, utterly implausible and totally awesome.  It’s MacGyver.

Years:  1974, 1975
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Henry Winkler, Ron Howard, Tom Bosley, Marion Ross, Erin Moran, Anson Williams, Donny Most
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I was really hoping that the Happy Days Fan Favorites DVD, out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment, would include the jumping the shark episode.  But it doesn’t.  One of the most iconic moments in television history, and just because it was STUPID, and it RUINED THE SHOW, they left it off the best of list.

     Then again, there was an awful lot of stuff left off that list.  Like, the final eight seasons of the show.  All eight episodes are from the first two seasons, when Fonzie was a secondary character and Ralph Malph and Potsie had a lot of screen time. 

     The first episode on the disc is the first ever episode of the show, where Richie Cunningham gets a date with a girl who has the reputation of putting out.  But then she doesn’t.  There’s a Hallowe’en episode involving a party at a haunted house, and a Christmas episode where Fonzie pretends he’s going to his aunt’s house out of town but the Cunninghams know he is going to be alone and conspire to get him over to their house for Christmas dinner.

     This is all fine, they’re good episodes and I like Happy Days, but are these really the fan favorites?  The pilot, the Hallowe’en episode, the Christmas episode?  It feels like this is a best-of chosen by a focus group rather than actual fans.  Maybe that’s because the fan poll was taken on facebook, and there are only nine people on all of facebook who actually remember the original run of Happy Days.

Years:  1995, 1997, 1999, 2001
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Kelsey Grammer, David Hyde Pierce, John Mahoney, Peri Gilpin, Jane Leeves
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Frasier was always a great show, and eight of the best episodes are now packaged together on the Frasier Fan Favorites DVD out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  I was kind of hoping for a bunch of episodes that reunited Frasier with his old friends from Cheers, like the one where Diane comes to Seattle wither her new play.

     But I guess that since the Cheers Fan Favorites is being released on the same day, there’s not really much point in bringing all those characters back.  Instead, we get what feels like eight randomly chosen episodes –

     Frasier gets sick and Niles fills in for him at the radio station, which makes Frasier paranoid that Niles could take his job.  Frasier gets caught in Daphne’s room a couple of times and they fight.  There’s a radio play, a bunch of episodes where Niles lusts after Daphne, and a huge amount of romantic misunderstandings. 

     Had I not been a Frasier fan for years, I would think that the show was nothing but romantic misunderstandings and people chasing other people.  Actually, I guess it kind of was.

     But it was a great show about chasing women and then misunderstanding them.  The only problem with a DVD featuring eight of the fan favorite episodes is that it leaves me wanting more.  In addition to wanting the Cheers related episodes, I wanted some with Lilith, which I always thought were funniest.  Then again, the Cheers Fan Favorites covers all the Lilith bases as well!

Years:  1982, 1983, 1986, 1987, 1992
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Ted Danson, Shelley Long, Woody Harrelson, Rhea Perlman, George Wendt, John Ratzenberger, Kirstie Alley, Kelsey Grammer, Bebe Neuwirth, Nicholas Colasanto
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

                So, there’s a facebook poll to choose the episodes of Cheers that are the “Fan Favorites”.  And fans vote, and the eight top episodes are put onto a DVD called Fan Favorites, out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  Eight episodes of Cheers (well, nine if you count the two-part episode about Woody and Kelly’s wedding).  And there is only ONE episode with Rebecca Howe. 

                I guess fans really liked Shelley Long as Diane, much more than Kirstie Alley as Rebecca.  I get that, I much preferred Diane too.  What’s funny here though, is that while there is just one episode with Rebecca in it, there are TWO that centre around Frasier’s relationship with Lilith.  The one where she and Frasier get together after a TV appearance together, and the one where they move in with each other and invite Sam and Diane over for dinner.  Then there’s the pilot episode, the Thanksgiving episode at Carla’s house, the one where Sam fixes Diane up on a date with a murderer, and the one where Harry the con man helps Coach get back some money that was scammed from him.

                It’s all great, of course, because Cheers is great.  But TWO episodes about Lilith, who was a tertiary character at best, and only one featuring Rebecca, who was on the show for more than half its run?  Take that, Kirstie Alley!  Facebook doesn’t like YOU at all!

Year:  2011
Genre:  Remake, Drama, Garbage
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Dennis Quaid, Andie MacDowell, Miles Teller
Eye candy:  Hough, Ziah Colon, Kim Dickens
Director:  Craig Brewer
Run time:  113 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I’m not sure that Footloose was any good in 1984.  And I know that today, it just hasn’t held up well over time, and is as dated as any movie has ever been.  So it would seem like a good idea to do a remake for today’s audiences, who watch Kevin Bacon doing a tractor race and roll their eyes and smirk when watching the original.

     The problem with doing a remake though, is that the idea was a pretty cheesy, bad one to begin with.  And the 2011 version of Footloose does absolutely nothing to change any of the things that made the original lame.  Oh, it’s different alright.  See now, in 2011, instead of a tractor race it’s a race in schoolbusses.  And instead of listening to Quiet Riot’s “Bang Your Head” on his car’s tape deck, Ren McCormack now listens to…Quiet Riot’s “Bang Your Head”.  On an iPod. 

     The premise is still exactly the same – new kid comes to a town where they have outlawed dancing and fun and have imposed a curfew.  He piques the interest of the minister’s daughter and changes the town and blah blah blah. 

     The only bright spot in this remake, out March 6^th from Paramount Home Entertainment, is the ludicrously hot Julianne Hough, who wears totally hot slutty clothes through the whole movie so that Ren can change her into the good girl she’s supposed to be and get her into like a turtleneck or something at the end.

     Everything that was lame and dated about the original Footloose remains intact in the remake.  The same music.  The same small town jerks and small town cool guys.  Ren’s best friend is played by Miles Teller, who seems to have been cast based solely on his remarkable resemblance to Peyton Manning. 

     The worst thing in the movie though has to be the finale.  Of course, the kids finally break out and dance to assert their freedom!  Which is as I expected.  But dude, it’s 2011.  And what are they dancing to?  What music makes them move?  Is it Cee-Lo, or Deadmouse?  No.  These kids celebrate their modern independence and throwing off the shackles of their oppressive parents by kickin it to…Footloose.  A (very slightly) amped up version, admittedly, as done by Blake Shelton.  But it’s still Footloose, and it still sucks.