Years:  1969, 1972
Genre:  Kids, Cartoon, Classic
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring (voices):  Johanna Baer, David Carey, Linda Ercoli, Christopher de Faria, Robin Kohn, Linda Mendelson, Hilary Momberger, Stephen Shea, Chad Webber, Bill Melendez, Peter Robbins, Pamelyn Ferdin, Glenn Gilger, Andy Pforsich, Sally Dryer, Anne Altieri, Guy Pforsich, Erin Sullivan
Director:  Bill Melendez
Run time:  166 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang are so familiar to most of us that watching them in an animated movie is not much different than reading the old Charles M. Schultz comic strips.  And since all the jokes and scenarios are exactly the same, it actually IS just like that.  Charlie Brown is bad at baseball.  His team loses all the time, and every pitch he throws comes right back up the middle and knocks all his clothes off.  He can’t fly a kite and trees want to eat his kites and his kites attack him and break all the time.  He gets psychiatric advice from Lucy at her booth for the low low price of a nickel.  Lucy takes the football away when he’s about to kick it.  Linus carries a blanket, Schroeder plays piano, Pigpen is messy.  You know how it goes.

     That familiarity both helps and hurts the first movie on this 2-disc double feature from Paramount Home Entertainment.  A Boy Named Charlie Brown is the first Peanuts feature length film, from 1969.  The familiarity of the story works well, as does the homey feel generated by the now-classic Vince Guaraldi theme music.  Really though, the film is just a series of vignettes – Charlie Brown’s kite, Charlie Brown playing baseball – spread out by some filler animated sequences – Snoopy’s record player playing the Star Spangled Banner, Schroeder playing the Pathetique on his piano – and finally, the actual story, which involves Charlie Brown entering a spelling bee.

     Of course, Charlie Brown will fail at the spelling bee, as he does at everything else – that is, after all, the theme of Peanuts.  But he DOES place second overall, nationally, in a televised spelling bee.  He returns home with the stench of failure all over him, and gets depressed, and hides in bed.  Today, a movie that ends like that would be a success story – if any kids in school made fun of the guy who came in second in the country in a spelling bee, he would just say “oh, yeah, I did lose.  How…did you do in the nationally televised spelling bee?  Oh, you didn’t make it?  You weren’t there?  I see.”  And the movie would be a success story.  Not for Charlie Brown though, of course.

     The second movie in the set is Snoopy Come Home, a surprisingly – no, staggeringly – sad story about Snoopy running off to find his original owner, a little girl who has been hospitalized for some reason.  While the gang pines for Snoopy and worries about where he may be, Snoopy takes Woodstock and his briefcase off on a series of adventures as they try to get to the hospital.  They are kidnapped by a creepy little girl, they sink a raft in a river, they camp out in a giant nest and under an overpass.  Of course, Snoopy and Woodstock don’t speak, so maybe the most interesting thing about the 1972 film is that it operates almost entirely visually.

     For our eleven-year-old, Snoopy Come Home was more interesting.  A Boy Named Charlie Brown is a little more inaccessible for the young ones, although of course he is familiar with the comic strips also, so he found it cool that he knew what was coming next.  Lucy’s gonna take the football away and Charlie Brown’s gonna get hurt!  Just watch!  I was amazed that he wanted to watch these old movies, and even more amazed that he enjoyed them.  And I also admit that I found a good deal of enjoyment in the set as well.

Year:  1969
Genre:  Western, Classic
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  John Wayne, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper, Strother Martin, Kim Darby, Glen Campbell, Jay Silverheels
Director:  Henry Hathaway
Run time:  128 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     True Grit was a competent western.  In fact, it was a pretty good western.  But I must say right off the top that I just don’t think it deserves the acclaim it has received over the years.  Oh, it’s a classic for a reason – there are some good scenes, Rooster Cogburn is one of cinema’s most memorable characters, there are some interesting appearances by a young Robert Duvall and a young Dennis Hopper, “fill your hands, you son of a bitch” is one of the most classic John Wayne lines, and of course this was the movie for which the Duke received his one and only Oscar.

     That being said, the Oscar bestowed upon Wayne here was more of a lifetime achievement award than an actual recognition of his work in this film.  While Cogburn is certainly memorable, he’s not a big stretch for Wayne, who was an easy and natural fit for the role.  Even he seemed a little bemused by his Academy Award, and joked that after a long career with hundreds of films, he had to play a “one-eyed fat man” to finally win.

     I would agree with the Duke there.  Off the top of my head, I can think of dozens of better performances.  Red River, She Wore A Yellow Ribbon, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, The Quiet Man, the list goes on and on.  And of course, there is the definitive John Wayne movie, maybe the greatest western ever made and (I certainly think) the Duke’s greatest performance, The Searchers.  Any of those movies could have earned him an Oscar, and it would have been well deserved.

     But back to True Grit.  Wayne is solid, the movie is good, and the supporting cast is surprising.  With one major exception – Kim Darby, as 14-year-old Mattie Ross, is the most irritating child character in a movie this side of Edward Furlong in Terminator 2 or that long-haired kid in Dazed And Confused.  She hires Rooster Cogburn to track down the man who killed her father, choosing him for his “true grit”.  Never mind that he’s a sloppy, disgusting, unreliable alcoholic, he has balls and guts and toughness, and that’s what little Mattie wants.  And she’ll guide this buffoon along the trail until the time comes for gunfighting, at which point she’ll just stand aside.  Cool?

     A few little things could have made True Grit better.  A less obnoxious heroine (since Mattie is in the movie as much as Rooster, her annoying persona almost entirely cancels out his compelling persona).  A more interesting bad guy.  More focus on who the bad guy really is.  You know, little things.  And that’s why I’m excited for the remake.

     Obviously, Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing True Grit on Blu-Ray now, December 14th, to help promote their upcoming remake by the Coen Brothers.  (I have no problem with that – I’m excited for the remake too, and I included the new trailer up above.)  The Coen Brothers are, of course, the best film makers working today.  Jeff Bridges, Matt Damon and Josh Brolin are three of the best actors in the world.  I have high, high hopes for the new film.  But the idea of a remake here works only because there is a ton of room for improvement over the original.

     Of course, I think you should watch the original movie as well.  It’s on the shelves now, in Blu-Ray form, and the HD is a solid upgrade.  The best thing about the disc is the special features, which include a feature-length commentary and a quick doc about working with John Wayne.  It’s hard to watch this film again without getting overly enthusiastic about the big theatrical release coming up.

“Mannix…is back in action”

Years:  1969, 1970
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Mike Connors, Gail Fisher, Joseph Campanella, Ward Wood, Robert Reed
Creator:  Lalo Schifrin
Run time:  21 hours 18 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
DVD extras:  Not much of anything
Related reviews:  Mannix Season Two, Mannix Season One

     I like Mike Connors.  I like him as Mannix.  And I like the show.  But it’s still just a private investigator show.  It may have been interesting in the 60s.  In fact, I imagine that it was pretty gritty and advanced for television in 1969.  But so many shows have come since then, and so many private investigators have plied their trade on the small screen, that Mannix just lumps in with all of them.  He’s jsut another private eye, like Cannon and Jake Styles and Mom P.I.  Mannix, Season Three comes to DVD October 27th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

     Thankfully, Mannix is no longer with that ridiculous, massive Private Investigator Firm he was with in the first season.  And he has a good supporting cast, especially Gail Fisher as his receptionist.  In Season Three, he has yet another different car (the car appears to be a pretty big deal, season to season).  This time it’s a Dodge Dart GTS 340 convertible.  For me, that makes little difference in the show.  A car’s a car, as far as I’m concerned.  But I think a lot of people would probably care, so I’m mentioning it anyway. 

     The best thing I can say about Mannix Season Three, other than that it’s a pretty good private eye show, is that the DVDs are not split up into those obnoxious “Volume One” and “Volume Two” editions of each season that are coming out so much lately with other shows.  That means that for Mannix fans, all they have to do is purchase one season at a time.  You know, if you wanted to buy it.  And you might, if you’re a car person or just generally a fan of private investigator television.  I guess I am – I’m still watching Mannix.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

To hear the review

“20 minutes of that sure doesn’t help a headache.”
“I can dig it.”

     Clarence Williams III sure knows how to deliver the line “I can dig it”.  He says it like most people use the word “like”, or “umm.”  It’s like his verbal crutch, and when he has nothing else to say, he “can dig it”.  Which leads to the use of the phrase in many moments that don’t make a lot of sense.  “I think I might have eaten some bad fish.”  “I can dig it.”  “My goiter is acting up.”  “I can dig it.”  “I’m thinking of switching toothpastes.”  “I can dig it.”  I don’t think this is entirely Williams’ fault.  In fact, it probably isn’t his fault at all.  I assume this is the fault of the writers of The Mod Squad, who really wanted to get as much cool-guy 60s lingo into the dialogue of the show, but only knew three cool-guy phrases and varations thereof.  Can you dig it?

     Season Two, Volume Two of The Mod Squad comes out May 26th on DVD from Paramount Home Entertainment, and it (as one would expect) picks up right where Season Two Volume One left off.  It’s annoying to split up these series into volumes, instead of releasing the entire season all at once, but with The Mod Squad it isn’t so bad.  It’s not like there’s some big season-long plot that has to be followed, and each episode stands alone.  This volume starts off with an episode about a guy saving Pete Cochran from a mugging and then mysteriously disappearing.  The scrumptious Peggy Lipton doesn’t show up until the second episode, when she gets mistaken for a rich guy’s daughter and is kidnapped.  The Mod Squad remained a pretty good show through 1969 and 1970.  I can dig it.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

To hear the review

      Thankfully, on Paramount Home Entertainment’s Forever Funny TV Set, there is no Walker Texas Ranger to ruin the mood.  Instead, this is just a solid collection of the premiere episodes or pilots of some of the most classic comedies ever to grace the television sets of North America.  I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Brady Bunch, The Odd Couple, Frasier, Cheers, and Taxi are all represented here.  Now, Paramount also distributes The Beverly Hillbillies, Petticoat Junction, Happy Days and several other classic comedies which might have made a little more sense than Frasier, in terms of old-school classics, but I love Frasier.  So I won’t complain.  Much.  Here are the premieres, in chronological order:

     I Love Lucy (1951): 

     “Happy Anniversary, Ethel.”

     The very first episode of I Love Lucy sees Fred and Ethel fighting over what to do on their anniversary.  Fred (and of course Ricky) wants to go to the fights, while Ethel (and of course Lucy) wants to go to a nightclub.  Soon, the old cranky couple have decided to go sepearately, and Lucy stirs the pot by trying to find dates for her and Ethel.  Of course, this makes Ricky and Fred decide to find dates for themselves, which end up being Lucy and Ethel in disguise and…well, you can guess the rest, I’m sure.  We all know I Love Lucy, we all know it’s hilarious, and one of the best comedies ever.

     The Honeymooners (1955): 

     “You wanna go to the moon?  You wanna go to the moon?”

     Although Ralph Kramden (Jackie Gleason) is constantly threatening his wife Alice with phyiscal violence, he has, to my knowledge, never actually struck her.  At least, not on screen.  But The Honeymooners must at least present Ralph as a potential domestic abuser and a ticking time bomb of rage.  As he and Ed Norton (Art Carney) split the cost of a TV set, and then fight over what programs to watch, I got the sense that Gleason was, at any moment, capable of snapping and commiting a brutal murder.  And I found that hilarious.

     The Brady Bunch (1969): 

     “Dad’s gonna take the girls’ side on everything from now on.”

     I wasn’t aware that when The Brady Bunch began, Marsha wasn’t yet old enough to be smoking hot.  But she was still a little girl in 1969, when the show began with a wedding.  The man, you see, has a bunch of boys.  The boys have a dog.  The woman, obviously, has a bunch of girls.  And the girls have a cat.  Because men like boys and women like girls and boys like dogs and girls like cats.  And they are all going to live together after this big ol’ wedding, and hilarity will ensue!  In the meantime, the little kids say all kinds of cute and smarmy things, paving the way for the 80s and the Olsen twins saying “dude” on Full House.  Thanks a lot, Brady Bunch.

     The Odd Couple (1970): 

     “They think I’m a hypochondriac?  That makes me sick.”

     The people who made the Odd Couple TV show must believe that everyone tuning in already knows the whole concept, either from the movie or the Neil Simon stage play.  And they’re probably right.  I think we all know the idea.  Felix is neat and anal.  Oscar is slovenly and rough.  And they have troubles…the premiere episode of this classic comedy introduces the weekly poker game, the Pigeon sisters who live upstairs, and the angrily tolerant dynamic between Jack Klugman and Tony Randall.

     Taxi (1978): 

     “I’m playing the horse.”
     “Which end?”

Years:  1978
Genre:  TV series, comedy, sitcom
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Danny DeVito, Judd Hirsch, Tony Danza, Christopher Lloyd, Andy Kaufman, Jeff Conaway
Eye candy:  Marilu Henner
Creators:  James L. Brooks, Stan Daniels, Ed Weinberger, David Davis
Run time:  30 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     The first episode of Taxi is a surprisingly sweet one, as Judd Hirsch runs off to attempt to re-connect with his daughter whom he hasn’t seen in fifteen years.  And of course, Tony Danza is a stupid guy and a terrible boxer, Danny DeVito is a tiny little loudmouth jerk, Andy Kaufman is just learning to speak English and acting creepy, Jeff Conway is an actor who gets no roles and isn’t very good, and Marilu Henner is the smoking hot woman who just started working as a taxi driver.  And they’re in New York.  And that’s the show.

     Cheers (1982):

     “A drunk?  A drunk?  Why, Sam was the greatest drunk there ever was!”

     The first episode of Cheers introduces Cliff and his stupid and questionable facts, Norm and his apathy toward his wife, Carla and her scathing wit, Sam and his womanizing, Coach and his idiocy, and Diane.  Mostly, the episode is all about Diane, who has come into the bar for the first time on her way to the airport with her soon-to be husband.  He is an intellectual, of course, and he will ditch her in the bar to go back to his ex-wife.  Of course.  So Diane sits there and annoys everyone in the bar for hours with her snobby holier-than-thou attitude, and eventually ends up with a job there.  And so began Cheers.

     Frasier (1993): 

     “My wife had left me, which was very painful.  Then she came back, which was excruciating.”

     The debut episode of Frasier opens with Frasier Crane on his radio program, explaining succinctly and in a neat little package why he left Boston and Cheers and moved back to Seattle for his own spinoff show.  Quickly, we meet neurotic Niles and space cadet Daphne and of course Frasier’s dad Martin, who moves in with his son in the first episode.  And the dog Eddie, who stares at Frasier.  And Martin’s chair, which drives Frasier nuts.  We don’t get to see Maris, but we know she’s a cold ice queen.  And Roz is sardonic and mean, but has a heart of gold.  Yep.

Years:  1968, 1969
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Mike Connors, Gail Fisher, Joseph Campanella, Ward Wood, Robert Reed
Creator:  Lalo Schifrin
Run time:  21 hours 18 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
DVD extras:  Not much of anything
Related reviews:  Mannix Season Two, Mannix Season Three

     Season Two of Mannix is, in almost every way, superior to Season One.  One of the few ways in which Season Two is worse is in the titles of the episodes.  Season One had some classic, silly titles.  Like, “Skid Marks On A Dry Run”, and such and such.  Season Two can’t manage that level of hilariousness, the best they can come up with is “The End Of The Rainbow”.  Lame.  The episodes aren’t much different than they were in the first season.  They are either formulaic and obvious, in a generic way, or formulaic and obvious to the point that none of the characters’ motivations make any sense.

     The best thing about Season Two is Gail Fisher, who plays Mannix’s assistant Peggy.  She adds some much-needed charm to the show, and also provides a convenient means to introduce new cases for Mannix to crack.  Peggy, you see, seems to date several men, and each one is either a crook out to do something dreadful, or a sweet innocent man being framed for doing something dreadful.  And that way, Mannix can delve into some kind of conspiracy without leaving the office.  His office, in Season Two, is his own – that’s another good thing. 

     In Season One, he worked for a detective agency, a massive Big-Box Detective Company called Intertect.  Now he works on his own.  This is good, because the concept of a Big-Box Detective Agency called Intertect was ridiculous.  He may as well, at that point, have been Batman, with the big supercomputers spitting out the identity of killers and so forth.  It took the cleverness out of the work.  Of course, in Season Two, he occasionally sends Peggy back to Intertect when he needs some data from a supercomputer of some kind.  But at least a privately-owned detective business makes more sense.

     Then again, it really doesn’t matter.  He could be a construction worker or a graphic designer and the show would be the same, as long as he was a nosy and smart busybody construction worker or graphic designer.  Because almost no one ever hires him by walking into his office.  Just about every case he tackles is one he stumbles across.  Either Peggy is dating a bad guy, and Mannix investigates.  Or he overhears a conversation in a police station where a deaf girl describes a murder plot.  He’s like Jessica Fletcher – always in the right place at the right time to Stop Murders.  And since just about every case he takes is done solely to help one of his friends, or to save himself, I have no idea how he actually makes money.

     I suppose we are to believe that between the cases that are interesting enough to make it onto TV, Mannix is running around finding lost cats, and taking pictures from his car of wayward wives and philandering husbands, and convincing runaways to return home, and whatever else it is that private investigators do for money.  I’m not sure what he would do if some stranger came to his office with a real case.  I suspect that he would immediately question their motives, investigate them, and discover that yes, they were indeed a part of a vast criminal conspiracy.  No one is innocent in Mannix.

     The second season IS considerably better than the first, but I would still like to see a few things happen.  Every episode, as in the first season, involves some smoking hot woman.  I would like to see Mannix sleep with them all.  Or Peggy could sleep with them all.  Either way.  I could also use a little more wisecracking.  Mannix is way too serious, and from what I understand, there is not a private investigator alive who is both serious and successful.  They all crack wise.  Why not Mannix?  (Or Cannon, for that matter?)  Also, I’m a little worried about Mannix and his brain function.  He gets knocked out cold a lot.  Like, twice every three episodes.  I’m certain Eric Lindros’ doctors wouldn’t let him back into the Private Eye game after that.  He can’t possibly be cleared to play.

     All in all, Mannix is improving from season to season.  Peggy is a nice addition, Intertect is a nice omission, and the hot chick guest stars are always welcome.  The Second Season of Mannix came out January 6th, from Paramount Home Entertainment.  I am looking forward to Season Three now.  Perhaps then he will be knocked out less, take actual cases, have sex with the women he should be having sex with, and start to loosen up enough to crack wise.  All of that ought to get him a seven-star rating, at least!

Years:  1969
Genre:  TV series, Spy, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Greg Morris, Peter Lupus, Bob Johnson, Peter Graves, Leonard Nimoy, Sam Elliott, Lee Meriwether
Guest stars:  Barry Williams, Barry Atwater, John Aniston, Diane Baker, Sid Haig
Creator:  Bruce Geller
Run time: 20 hours plus
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
Related reviews:  TV sets: Action Packed, Mission: Impossible Season Six, Mission: Impossible Season Five

     When I was a kid, after a long game of tennis, I saw an episode of Mission: Impossible at my friend Oliver’s house. I loved this show! It was one of the best things I had ever seen on TV! It had everything – espionage, international bad guys, gadgets, and missions! And that theme music! So distinctive, so cool! However, Oliver had some channels that I did not, and I never saw the show again until today. When I grabbed Season Four of Mission: Impossible from Paramount Home Entertainment on May 13th, I wondered if it would be as good as I remembered. After all, my favourite programs growing up were MacGyver and The A-Team, and I can’t watch those now without laughing at what an idiot I must have been to have enjoyed such crap.

     As it turns out, however, Mission: Impossible really does hold up over the years. Of course, over those years it has been the source of some of the worst pop culture has to offer. Those three horrible movies with Tom Cruise. The music has been used as background for the irritating Scientology video, also starring Tom Cruise. The phrase “your mission, should you choose to accept it” has been overused ad nauseum, and the self-destructing message has been a concept taken to asinine proportions. By the way, I DID watch Inspector Gadget as a child, and I could never understand the self-destructing message. The chief would always pop up in a garbage can, a dryer, a potted plant, and hand Inspector Gadget the message. Then, he would be told that the message would self-destruct. And Gadget would throw the message right into where the chief was hiding, and it would blow up the chief. Every time. Every time, it happened! And I would always wonder, as a child – if the chief was so adept at finding these hiding places for himself, in order to give Gadget his mission, why wouldn’t he just pop out of the dishwasher and tell Gadget the message, rather than having to hand him paper and wait while he read it? That always bothered me.

     Season 4 of Mission Impossible is yet another example of when network TV used to be good. It’s like the A-Team, only without the terrible writing, the ridiculous gunfights and the lame acting. It’s like Counterstrike, only less slick and less Canadian. And it is far, far better than those absolutely idiotic Tom Cruise-John Woo movies.