Year:  2011
Genre:  Kids, Cartoon, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Tom McGrath, Jeff Glen Bennett, John DiMaggio, Danny Jacobs, James Patrick Stewart, Andy Richter, Mary Scheer, Tara Strong, Nicole Sullivan
Director:  Bret Haaland
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     There’s another Penguins of Madagascar DVD coming out February 14th, from Paramount Home Entertainment, this one called Operation Get Ducky.  See, there’s this egg that Marlene finds, and she brings it to the penguins because they’re birds and ought to know what to do with it.  Apparently, these aren’t the penguins from March of the Penguins, where the males nurture the eggs until they hatch.

     No, these are the Madagascar penguins, who somehow manage to train the egg to be a super-commando before it hatches into a little computer animated baby duck.  The second episode is also about the duck, who comes back to the zoo as a fully-formed little ninja baby, and decides to beat up everyone in the place.  Including the elephants.  Because that’s what you would do, if you were a ninja commando duckling. 

     Of course, after that, the theme of the duck disappears entirely so the DVD can be filled out with six more episodes that have nothing to do with a vicious little duckling.  King Julien gets introduced to April Fool’s Day, Marlene goes outside the zoo for a while and becomes a feral otter, the crocodile comes to live in the penguins’ enclosure for a time, and some hornets keep showing up and threatening to sting everyone’s face. 

     Penguins of Madagascar is as entertaining as ever, and Operation Get Ducky is pretty much the same as every other DVD they’ve put out.  A few tangentially related episodes and a bunch of filler.  The way I figure it, you either like it or you don’t.  And nothing says Happy Valentine’s Day like the gift of a children’s animated DVD!

Year:  2011
Genre:  Comedy, Cartoon, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Creator:  Mike Judge
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Beavis And Butthead Volume Four hits DVD February 21^st from Paramount Home Entertainment.  I’ve always thought the funniest thing about Beavis and Butthead was their commentary on music videos.  But today, there are precious few music videos for them to skewer.  You can watch MTV for an entire day now, and see no music videos at all.

     But then, MTV has an awful lot of shows.  And if there was one reason to bring back Beavis and Butthead (and I will say that I am still not sure there WAS any good reason to bring them back), it’s Jersey Shore.  Oh, sure, it’s funny when they watch Teen Cribs or True Life, or comment on 16 and Pregnant.  But it’s Jersey Shore that really brings out the comic genius in Beavis and Butthead. 

     Even the seemingly innocuous clips from the show, like J-Wow talking about how cool it is that she gets to make pizza in Florence Italy, become absolutely hilarious when seen through the eyes of two high school losers.  Sure, there are still some music videos.  Apparently, MTV still does that.  Sometimes. 

     And there are of course Beavis and Butthead episodes, with plots and everything, like the one where the boys discover that they still get paid while taking bathroom breaks so they spend their entire shift in the bathroom.  But the only really funny stuff comes from Jersey Shore.

     It makes me wish, in a way, the Beavis and Butthead revival had happened a few years earlier, during the time of The Hills and A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila.  The thing is, they don’t watch Jersey Shore every episode.  Sometimes they watch The Ultimate Fighter instead.  Which is fine, but not nearly as good.  So I don’t know if I would recommend sitting through the entire two disc collection.  I can get just as much of a belly laugh from the reality show commentary on The Soup.

Year:  1989
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Tom Bosley, Tracy Nelson, Mary Wickes 
Guest stars:  Leslie Nielsen, several other familiar faces whose names are…less familiar
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment
DVD extras:  Not much of anything

     The Father Dowling Mysteries was a short-lived TV crime drama from the late 80s and early 90s.  The first season comes to DVD February 7th from Paramount Home Entertainment, I assume the other two will follow shortly and then we will all forget about the program for the rest of our lives.

     The show starred Tom Bosley (famous as Howard Cunningham on Happy Days) and Tracy Nelson (famous because her father was Ricky Nelson and her brothers were Gunnar and Matthew of the band Nelson).  Bosley was Father Dowling, a Catholic priest who became embroiled in all kinds of murder mysteries for one reason or another.  Some were plausible – a dying man seeks sanctuary in the church.  Some were not – evil twin.  Yeah.  Evil twin.

     Nelson was his faithful nun sidekick Sister Stephanie.  Or Steve, most of the time.  Her character is one of the silliest in TV history, and almost every morsel of enjoyment I took out of the Father Dowling Mysteries came courtesy of the totally bonkers nun character. 

     I found it totally hilarious when she beats the local tough-kid gang members in a game of basketball to get them to do something for her.  Or when she defeats pool sharks by sharking them at pool to get information.  She of course can also win a bicycle race, break into a house and a car and a safe if need be, and handle firearms. Oh, she has more talents – but you’ll just have to watch the show!

     Sister Stephanie, you see, was “saved” by Father Dowling once.  How, I’m not sure.  The Saving Of Steve is never really explained.  But we get hints as to her past – she may or may not have been a prostitute, she was definitely a pickpocket and a thief, she grew up in the tough neighbourhood, and was likely a drug addict of some kind.  (The show is about the church – it was a little too sanitized to really go into detail about that sort of thing.)

     At any rate, it’s clear to me that Steve was one of those people whose life was spiralling downhill at such a fast pace that she had two choices – either convert to a religion of some kind, or blow her own head off.  She chose the religion, apparently because it allows her to lie and cheat and steal and do all the things she was already doing – but now it’s in the name of God!

     The first season opens with a two-part episode starring Leslie Nielsen as an elected official embroiled in a murder-adoption-bribery-mafia scandal.  The church and Father Dowling are tangentially involved at best, but that doesn’t stop him from investigating.  By the end of the season, Father Dowling’s evil twin brother has shown up to mastermind a jewelry heist.  And I thought – once you play the “evil twin” card, where can you go from there? But apparently, there are two more seasons that show they managed to go somewhere!

Years:  1972, 1973
Genre:  TV series, Drama
Country:  United States
Languages:  English
Starring:  Mike Connors, Gail Fisher, Robert Reed
Guest stars:  Martin Sheen, Burgess Meredith, Abe Vigoda, William Shatner, Anne Archer, Marion Ross, Robert Reed, Jessica Walter
Theme music composer:  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, Mannix Season Three, Mannix Season Four, Mannix Season Five

     As you can see from the picture above, very little has changed in the world of Mannix for the sixth season.  The DVD cover of all six have featured basically this exact same picture…a pastel background and Mike Connors looking at me.  Then six bullets.  You know, to reinforce that this is season SIX.  For those who can’t read, but can count.

     The sixth season itself is indistinguishable from the previous five, in that Mannix takes on a series of investigations – from finding a little kid’s stamp collection (which is probably plausible for a private investigator) to going undercover in a mob organization (which probably isn’t).  No matter what case he takes, though, one thing is for certain – Mannix will be shot at.  Even when attempting to recover a stamp collection, he will have shots fired his way.

     So the only thing that will set Season Six apart from other seasons is the guest list, which is highlighted by Martin Sheen, who appears as an amnesiac war veteran being conned into a heist by some nefarious characters.  This episode came just before Sheen became a major star – a year before his star turn in Terrence Malick’s Badlands and eight years before his definitive role in Coppola’s Apocalypse Now. 

     Other stars who appear in the sixth season, like Marion Ross and Jessica Walter, have appeared in previous seasons of Mannix, then there’s William Shatner who used to show up in every single TV series ever created.  And Burgess Meredith and Abe Vigoda.  So…not a stellar guest list this time around. 

     I like Mannix, and I find myself rooting for him not to be shot in most episodes.  And sure, it’s the same thing episode after episode, season after season.  But there’s something to be said for knowing just what you’re gonna get, and liking it.  Which means there’s something to be said for Mannix.

Year:  2011
Genre:  Kids, Cartoon, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Bill Fagerbakke, Carolyn Lawrence, Clancy Brown
Director:  Paul Tibbitt
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Another week, another Spongebob DVD release.  On January 3^rd, that DVD is Spongebob’s Frozen Face Off, from Paramount Home Entertainment.  This time, the little yellow square guy sets off on a cross-country race against all the other characters on the show.  For some reason this takes place on sleds, in snowy wintery blizzard conditions.  Are they even trying to pretend they remember this show takes place under water any more?

     I don’t know.  It seems that not only have they forgotten that the Spongebob lives in a pineapple Under The Sea, they have also run out of ideas completely.  Every episode seems to involve Plankton trying to steal the Krabby Patty formula, again.  Even the race through the frozen mountains is an episode involving Plankton stealing the Krabby Patty formula.  This makes me a little sad.  I love Spongebob, and I don’t really want the show to end, but this does sort of feel like the death knell of the series. 

     After all, how many cartoon series have featured a huge cross-country race in their final season?  Scooby-Doo, Popeye, Yogi Bear, and hundreds of others have signaled their upcoming cancelation by pitting all their characters against each other in a no-holds barred race across dangerous terrain, featuring back-stabbing and rampant cheating and other shenanigans.  Hundreds of them.  It may, sadly, be time to say goodbye to Spongebob.

     Until then, of course, Spongebob will be releasing a new DVD twice a month or so.  The only artist more prolific than Neil Young appears to be Spongebob.  If you were a hardcore fan of both, and had to pick up every Neil Young release and re-release and compilation and concert, and you had to pick up every Spongebob DVD as well, you’d go broke.  Then again, if you were a huge fan of BOTH Neil Young and Spongebob, you would more likely be spending all your money on weed.

     I think I’ll keep track of both this year.  Which will release more things on Tuesdays, Neil Young or Spongebob.  So far Spongebob has the lead, with one DVD in one week of 2012.  1-0 Spongebob.  To be continued…

Years:  1979, 1980
Genre:  TV series, Cop, Drama
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Jack Lord, Kam Fong
Creator:  Leonard Freeman
Run time:  19 hours, 51 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

        The twelfth and final season of Hawaii Five-O comes to DVD January 10^th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  The show was clearly on the way out from episode one, as Danno is now gone and with the exception of Jack Lord as Steve McGarrett, the whole cast has pretty much changed.

     As always, there are some fairly interesting guest stars, like Jeff Daniels who shows up for an episode about remote controlled planes being used to rob a museum.  But since this is the very last season, of the original run of Hawaii Five-O, it’s all about one episode, the very last one, where McGarrett finally catches Wo Fat. 

     Of course, if this were today’s Hawaii Five-O, there would be six lead-up episodes during the season and a gigantic three-part finale to close out the whole deal.  Not in 1980.  The big series finale is one, stand-alone episode, where McGarrett disguises himself as an internationally renowned Nobel Prize winning scientist in order to infiltrate Wo Fat’s compound and prevent him from obtaining some kind of weapon of mass destruction.

     In the end, the final confrontation involves no explosions, no real gunfights, no car chases and no ticking time bombs.  It’s just McGarrett and Wo Fat having a good, old-fashioned fist fight.  Then instead of killing him, McGarrett makes the arrest, even without Danno around to “book him”.  In the end, the final season of Hawaii Five-O is probably the weakest of the whole series.  But it’s still a lot of fun, and hearkens back to a different age of television. 

     It occurred to me, watching Wo Fat and McGarrett in their fist fight, that no one does good fist fights any more.  Watch any of today’s shows, and the characters have to be superhuman badasses.  Which means that when, say, LL Cool J fights someone on NCIS: LA, he can’t have a real fight because he’s too badass.  He’s a SEAL, you know.  So when he has to fight, he just does some move and knocks the guy out and breaks his arm.  It’s over. 

     I blame Steven Seagal.  You’ll notice that in his movies, he never got into a fist fight, like Bruce Willis did.  He just beat people up and never got touched.  Even when he finally tracked down Bobby Lupo’s killer Ritchie, he just threw him into a series of glass objects until he got tired of it and put a corkscrew in his eye.  Now, many movies and a ton of TV shows follow that lead.  It really makes Hawaii Five-O feel even more old-school than it actually is!

Year:  2010
Genre:  Kids, Cartoon, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Tom McGrath, Jeff Glen Bennett, John DiMaggio, Danny Jacobs, James Patrick Stewart, Andy Richter, Mary Scheer, Tara Strong, Nicole Sullivan
Eye candy:  Nicole Sullivan (Marlene, if you will)
Director:  Bret Haaland
Run time:  73 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     On January 10^th, Paramount Home Entertainment releases Operation Blowhole, the latest DVD from the Penguins of Madagascar.  There’s a lot of content on the DVD, not all of it the Penguins of Madagascar series, but you’ve really got to navigate around the disc a lot to find it.

     The three central episodes centre around Dr. Blowhole, the evil dolphin nemesis of the Penguin commando team.  Dr. Blowhole, voiced by Neil Patrick Harris, is a lot of fun.  Like an evil dolphin super-villain version of Doogie Howser.  But again, as always, the penguins work best in small doses, and three back-to-back-to-back episodes of them fighting a dolphin is no small dose.  It’s a big dose.  I like Dr. Blowhole, and I like the multiple musical numbers they throw in here, but one at a time, please. 

     On the Operation Blowhole DVD, there are a lot of extra episodes, of this show and others.  That’s good, because some of those Blowhole episodes have appeared on other DVDs before.  There’s a total of 73 minutes of content on this DVD, some of which is a bit tough to find. But it provides some good variety, and the kids should really enjoy all of it.

Year:  2011
Genre:  TV series, ”Reality“, Garbage
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  The worst people in the world
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I spent much of my Christmas vacation lying on my favourite chair and not moving around much.  I wrecked my back, you see, carrying a giant box of fire logs on a tiny patch of ice.  So having lost much of my ability to move, I was fairly stationary.  But antsy, because I hate not doing stuff.  So I perfected Word Mole on my wife’s blackeberry.  Then I watched the entire PBS documentary series on American Presidents…again.  Then I ruined Christmas.

     Now, I must say I didn’t ruin eveyone’s Christmas.  Just my own.  See, I had just received the fourth season of Jersey Shore, sent to me by Paramount Home Entertainment for Cynical Cinema.  And I put it in my DVD player.  And I watched it.  The first episode was about the Jersey Shore gang travelling to Italy.  Snooki and Deena seemed a little confused about which country was the one shaped like a boot – it was either Italy or Europe, they figured.

     So they douchebagged their way to Italy (by way of Europe, no doubt), and got unpacked.  I had worked out a little beer cooler beside my chair, which helped me get through the plane ride.  In much the same way, it appeared that alcohol had helped Snooki and Deena through the same plane ride, as they kept falling down in the airport with stacks of luggage around them.

     Things started to get interesting/perplexing during Beer #2.  Mike “The Situation” confided to Ron that he and Snooki had been intimately involved a few weeks earlier, and then drunkenly professed his love to Snooki herself.  This confused me.  What rational person, drunk or otherwise, would ever admit to having had sex with Snooki?  And even more so, who would ever make an attempt at a relationship with this sloppy drunken troll?  None of this made any sense.

     Then I got to thinking.  Maybe there was another explanation.  Maybe the producers of the show decided there hadn’t yet been enough drama, and asked the Situation to do something stupid to create some.  But that didn’t make sense, because in the next episode Ronnie and Sam started getting back together.  So that must have been what the producers asked the cast to do in order to create drama and fights.

     Then I thought, cynically, that the Situation was just trying to increase his own fame – see, he and Snooki are the two biggest names from the Jersey Shore cast, and if they became a celebrity power-couple, like they combined forces to become the Snookuation or something, they could make more money in the offseason.  But that seemed unlikely.  Deena’s drunken move to have sex with some blond girl in episode three was more obvious as an attention-grabbing move.

     On episode #4, beer #4, I started to think that maybe I was approaching this all wrong.  Maybe the Situation IS as dumb as he appears.  And maybe he believes that Jersey Shore is actually reality television.  And maybe he thinks all reality TV is like Survivor.  And perhaps he thinks that, like on Survivor, you have to be the biggest douchebag in the gang to win the $1 million?

     I noticed that a lot of the cast members say “right now” or “at this moment” a whole lot.  Like, they will say “I’m just not equipped to deal with this right now”.  Or “I’m just an idiot at this moment”.  It seems to me if they could just remove those two expressions from their vocabulary, they would unwittingly be speaking a whole lot more truth.  I began to sink into a deep depression.

     It then occurred to me that every girl the guys were picking up was American, living in Italy.  The dirty booty call chick, the two slutty blonde twins, all of them!  I once told my buddy Kent that he would never have sex with a girl who spoke English, because she would be able to understand what he was saying, and he would never get laid.  He married a Japanese woman.  It’s the opposite for the Jersey Shore idiots – they can only pick up American girls, because they are the only ones who know these morons are celebrities, and this might get them on TV! 

     When the two hot blonde twins came back to their house to have sex with several of them, I asked my wife to bring me some cyanide.  It turns out we didn’t have any.

     Finally, mercifully, the first disc was almost over.  The pain was about to end, since I was definitely NOT going to get up and put in the second disc.  Episode #4 was almost done, and beer #6 as well.  By now, every person in the house hated the Situation.  This created a dilemma for me.  So…do I now like him?  Is the enemy of my enemy my friend…or my enemy?  I felt like Wesley Snipes in Blade II.  The beer and painkillers helped me think this way.

     Then just as I was about to stop the first disc, the Situation and Ronnie started a fight!  A fight that was going to take place…in the next episode.  On the next disc.  And…I got up.  And I put in the next disc.  And my back screamed at me.  My brain screamed at me.  My wife screamed at me.  My self-esteem screamed at me.  Even my beer started to think I was less of a man.  And it was right.

Years:  1966, 1967
Genre:  TV series, Comedy
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Lucille Ball
Directors:  Maury Thompson, Jack Donohue
Run time:  11 hours, 59 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     The official fifth season of The Lucy Show comes to DVD December 6th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  This is, for those of you born after 1970, or those who haven’t heard or read my reviews of the first four seasons, that show Lucille Ball did after I Love Lucy, the one that wasn’t quite as funny or as classic or as well received as her first sitcom.

     In the fifth season, there are some really great moments.  Most of them involving other actors.  In the first episode, George Burns shows up and asks Lucy to be his partner for his new routine.  For some reason she turns him down and decides to stay where she is, for the sake of her boss at the bank Mr. Mooney.  I guess because the whole show was predicated on Lucy annoying Mr. Mooney.  At the bank, on a submarine for some reason, at the zoo, at a golf tournament, everywhere he goes. 

     If only there were some episodes that DIDN’T involve that same exact premise, that would be super!  Well, there are a couple.  Like one with ventriloquist Paul Winchell.  And a couple with Carol Burnett and Vivian Vance.  There’s even an amazing episode featuring John Wayne, the Duke himself, which for me almost makes the entire DVD set worthwhile.  But the episodes with the guest stars are too few and far between, and I got tired of Lucy and Mr. Mooney long before I got to John Wayne.

Year:  2011
Genre:  Kids, Cartoon, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Bill Fagerbakke, Carolyn Lawrence, Clancy Brown
Director:  Paul Tibbitt
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     More than nine hours of Spongebob hilarity are packaged together on the Complete Seventh Season of Spongebob Squarepants, out December 6th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  Nine hours of Spongebob, 50 episodes!  And it even contains three, four…maybe even FIVE episodes that I have yet to see!

     Let’s see…there’s the episode where Plankton dresses in Sandy’s fur so he can steal the Krabby Patty formula…seen that one…there’s the one where Squidward gets a new neighbour who plays the bassoon and falls in (nonsexual platonic) love…seen that one…

     Patrick learns karate…yep…Spongebob invents a hot dog krabby patty then regrets his invention…Spongebob gets a job as a kitchen sponge model (GREAT episode)…Squidward tries to take Spongebob’s place at a dance audition…Squidward tries to clean up enough garbage to get a statue built of him like Squilliam…seen ‘em all! 

     The thing is, I have already watched The Great Patty Caper, Blast from the Past, Spongebob’s Last Stand, and Legends of Bikini Bottom this year.  In fact, just two weeks ago I saw Spongebob Hallowe’en, Spongebob Christmas, Spongebob Miscellaneous Holidays and Tales From the Deep.  Now, if youève managed to avoid buying all of THOSE DVDs this year, then Spongebob’s Seventh Season is a great pickup!  Cause it’s Spongebob.

Year:  1959
Genre:  Western, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  James Arness, Milburn Stone, Amanda Blake, Dennis Weaver, Ken Curtis
Creators:  John Meston, Norman MacDonnell
Run time:  8 hours 43 minutes
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     I guess Gunsmoke can’t always follow the same formula.  It’s can’t always be some bad guy who rides into town looking to kill someone, and Marshall Matt Dillon gets in his face and dispenses some old west wisdom and then the guy doesn’t listen and the marshall shoots him.  But SOME of that formula really works.  I do like to watch James Arness shoot folks.  Folks who just won’t listen to reason, or folks who just plain have it comin’.

     And in the Fifth Season, Volume Two of Gunsmoke, out December 13th from Paramount Home Entertainment, I didn’t get to see ANY of that formula until at least the fifth episode!  First, there’s no murder at all, just a big misunderstanding.  Second, it’s CHESTER who shoots the bad guy.  Third, it’s another misunderstanding involving cattle drivers.  Fourth, it’s MISS KITTY who has to kill a dude. 

     And then finally Matt Dillon actually participates in a gunfight in the fifth episode.  (He kills a guy, but he’s at least sad about it.)  Then it’s back to the misunderstandings as the marshall and Chester end up doing all of a farmer’s chores for him instead of arresting him, for a crime it turns out he never actually committed anyway.

     So if you’re looking for Marshall Dillon to shoot a bunch of people, you can pick up any of the DVD sets from Season One Volume One to Season Five Volume One.  That’s nine sets to choose from.  If you’re looking for misunderstandings, comedic con jobs and for the killing to be spread out a little, Season Five Volume Two will be on DVD just in time for Christmas.

Year:  2011
Genre:  Kids, Cartoon, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Bill Fagerbakke, Carolyn Lawrence, Clancy Brown
Director:  Paul Tibbitt
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     Paramount Home Entertainment releases a 3-disc gift set called Holidays With Spongebob on November 8^th.  Awfully early for Christmas, awfully late for Hallowe’en. 

     Of course there’s a Christmas disc, which contains only one true Christmas episode, where Santa doesn’t show up on Christmas morning and Spongebob goes all crazy, (as Spongebob tends to do).  The rest of the disc uses winter as a substitute for Christmas, and it’s full of snowball fights and Sandy the squirrel hibernating and things of that nature. 

     The Hallowe’en DVD has, similarly, only ONE actual Hallowe’en episode, then fills up the rest of the disc with Plankton wearing disguises, Squidward’s ghost, and Spongebob turning into a snail and taming a seahorse.  Among other, even-less-related-to-Hallowe’en episodes.

     The third DVD has nothing to do with Christmas or Hallowe’en.  Or any other holiday for that matter.  I guess that for some reason they felt like they needed three discs to make this a real box set.  The third disc is called To Love A Patty, and contains seven random episodes including the one where Spongebob crafts the perfect crabby patty then refuses to part with it.

     And that’s it – that’s what you get in the Holidays With Spongebob gift set.  Exactly TWO holiday related episodes, and twenty-four randomly selected episodes with tenuous connections, (if they exist at all), to those holidays.  I think the biggest problem with the box set is the name.  If, instead of calling it Holidays With Spongebob, they had called it Spongebobès Latest Cash Grab, it would have at least made sense.

Year:  2011
Genre:  Kids, Cartoon, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Bill Fagerbakke, Carolyn Lawrence, Clancy Brown
Director:  Paul Tibbitt
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

     On November 8th, the same day Paramount Home Entertainment releases the three-disc Holidays With Spongebob gift set, they are also releasing a single Spongebob disc called Tales From The Deep. 

     It appears that releasing three Spongebob DVDs a month has been SO profitable that they have decided to up the dosage and release four at once.  As I said about the holiday DVDs, there are really TWO holiday episodes and then about 22 random episodes that have nothing to do with the rest. 

     Similarly on the Tales From the Deep DVD, there seems to be no unifying theme at all to the disc, it’s just nine random episodes, most of which I had seen before.  The one where Spongebob tries to get Squidward to eat a Krabby Patty, the one where he goes into Sandy’s underwater biodome for tea, and the one where he and Patrick try to get Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy to come out of retirement have been on many of these compilation DVDs before.

     Then there’s the Valentines’ Day episode.  How come the HOLIDAY gift set had a Hallowe’en DVD, a Christmas DVD, and then a totally unrelated disc called To Love A Patty, when the Tales From The Deep DVD, released the SAME DAY, has a Valentine’s Day episode.  I hate to be cynical here…except that this is Cynical Cinema…but could it be, just maybe, that no one who put these Spongebob DVDs cared at all and it’s just another in a series of increasingly frequent cash grabs with Spongebob’s face on them?

Year:  2010
Genre:  Kids, Comedy, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Victoria Justice, Leon Thomas III, Matt Bennett, Elizabeth Gillies, Ariana Grande, Avan Jogia, Daniella Monet, Eric Lange
Creator:  Dan Schneider
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

The DVD cover of Season One Volume Two of VicTorious advertises FOUR HOURS of content, including the crossover episode of iCarly called iParty with VicTorious.  That’s fine, but had they released the first season in just one volume, it could have been EIGHT hours of content and I wouldn’t have to buy two different box sets.  You know…for my kids…

At least both volumes feature the magnificent Victoria Justice, who I think will be the next huge star when she leaves behind the kiddy shows and Nickelodeon and starts doing movies and grown-up TV.  I like VicTorious, it’s one of those well-packaged shows starring a bunch of triple-threat kids who sing and dance and act and have clearly been groomed since birth to do all three.

Of course, it’s all sanitized for kids, no real issues are tackled, and the show has a polished gleam that prevents it from being deep, or powerful, or great.  But the kids are likeable, the songs are pretty good, and I can look past all the ironic plots – like the episode where the kids do a show for kids dressed up as hamburgers and pizza slices, and complain because they’re above all this kiddy music.  Umm…are you being self-referential and intentionally ironic, or have you just missed the point here?  Or the one where they get cast in a reality show only to discover that it’s not really REALITY at all, and they are simply pawns being groomed for stardom at the whims of producers.  The SHOCK of it all!

The best thing about the DVD IS the iCarly crossover episode (song included above), where all these talented kids get together and seem to be having a really good time.  And both shows are the same exact template really – sanitized, shiny stories starring sanitized shiny children, and despite the lack of substance it proves to be entertaining.  And sometimes that’s good enough.  In this case, I think it is.

Year: 1961, 1962
Genre:  Western, TV series
Country:  United States
Language:  English
Starring:  Clint Eastwood, Eric Fleming, Sheb Wooley, John Ireland, Paul Brinegar
Producer:  Ben Brady
DVD distributor:  Paramount Home Entertainment

Volume Two of the Fourth season of Rawhide comes to DVD November 8th from Paramount Home Entertainment.  It still stars Clint Eastwood, which means it’s still worth watching.  It’s got guest stars like James Coburn, Cesar Romero and Mercedes McCambridge.  And it’s still all about this never-ending cattle drive led by Gil Favor and Rowdy Yates.

You’d think, after four seasons, the cows would have reached their destination.  But then, a lot of crazy stuff could happen on these old cattle drives.  (I know because I saw John Wayne in one of the greatest westerns of all time, Red River.)  In that movie, it took about an hour and a half of screen time to get the beef (or “beeves”, as they call them) from one state to another.  Rawhide could maybe learn something from that kind of progress.  Then again, there is always something that comes up to delay the march.

In Season Four Volume Two, the delays are as varied as ever.  A bunch of hot women destined to be mail-order brides to (presumably) upstanding ranchers are kidnapped by some unscrupulous outlaws who intend to make the women into brides for a bunch of unscrupulous outlaws.  The women are hot, and so need rescuing by Clint Eastwood.  Then some rancher tries to take away (adopt) the trail boss’s children.  Gil Favor (and his two girls) are gonna have none of that.  That one’s creepy, because it initially seems like the rancher is interested in Gil’s super-hot sister-in-law.  But it turns out he’s really after the children.  Then the drive has to pause so they can avert bloodshed between a fort full of soldiers and a Pawnee tribe desperate for freedom.  Not only is Clint Eastwood not around at all for that one, but they also lose one of their key trail hands to military service when it’s all over.  No wonder the cattle drive never gets anywhere on time!

I still like Rawhide, one of the classic TV series that I can put on any time and enjoy.  But the reason to pick up Season Four Volume Two remains Clint Eastwood, who was just starting his film career at this time, with the spaghetti westerns that made him a superstar.  Instead of just another cast member of a better-than-average western TV show in the 60s.  One with the best theme song of all time.  Oh yeah – there’s another reason to pick this up – keep them doggies rollin’….