News Radio: 5/24/2005 (1 Viewer)

[DavidBC]

I was just wondering if anyone could tell me which episode was the one where Bill starts doing political song-parodies in the elevator ("When Johnny comes marching home again - He's gay! He's gay!"). I was like 16 when I last saw that and just thinking about it makes me laugh. I really hope we get more seasons of this!

 

[Tory]

I noticed that too and as I remember there are more things of this nature throughout the series and then on the commentaries they say everything on the show is taken from things actually going on behind the screens and it makes one wonder.

 

[Gabe D]

"The Public Domain": Season 4, episode 3.

 

[Jonathan_Clarke]

That episode is the FUNNIEST one in the entire series.

I remember watching it when it was first run. The energy just kept building and building until one scene where Bill is playing piano by the elevator and Dave runs in frantic and angry. The looks on their faces, the pacing and the way the piano cut them off at the ribs made me exclaim, "My God! They're doing a live action Muppet Show!!"

 

[dan fritzen]

That was a good episode, they all thought there were going to be laid off/fired so Bill does the piano man routine as a second gig. At the end Dave wants Bill to come back and Bill responds, "you want me back now but where were you when I was small time at 9am this morning."

My wife never watched the show but now she watches all the episodes on DVD with me, these are still funny.

 

[Marty M]

My son was looking at the titles of the episodes on disc 3 and noticed that 9 out of the last 10 episodes are titles of Led Zeppelin albums. I certainly had not noticed that when the show aired before.

 

[Justin Bauer]

^^
I also remember reading that the creators name Mr. James after the Beastie Boys song, "Jimmy James."

 

[Gabe D]

There is also an episode in the middle of Season 3 called "Led Zeppelin Boxed Set." It's one of my favorites, where Matthew punches Bill and then thinks he's the new "King of the Office."

 

[Casey C.]

As much as I enjoyed the freewheeling commentaries -- and I'm glad they didn't limit themselves to just commenting on what was on the screen -- there are some annoying things.

-- There appears to have been no preparation, so there's a lot of "Oh, is this the episode where I [something]?" "No, I think this is the one where you [something else]." "Oh, yeah!" -- and also "Was this in the first season, or early in the second season?" "I think it's toward the end of the second season." I wanted to shout at the screen which episode it was.

-- The commentaries were recorded out of sequence, resulting in some jarring references if you watch them in sequence. I think at one point they talk about a commentary being Vicki Lewis' first, but she appears on a previous one.

-- The refer several times to the fact that the show's only Emmy went to Luellyn Harper for costume design but that she wasn't doing the costumes for the show yet -- however, she was in fact the costume supervisor for Season 2.

-- In one commentary, Paul Simms is talking to Maura Tierney about her appearance on "Celebrity Poker Showdown" and someone else warns him about giving away a spoiler about the poker game. Simms says, "It's OK, this [DVD] doesn't come out until February." February!

-- Missed opportunities: Several times when a line of dialogue was obviously dubbed over, presumably to satisfy the NBC censor, it's never mentioned in the commentary (or there is no commentary for that episode). Also, no one ever explains why they started naming episodes after Led Zep albums.

These are nitpicks. The commentaries are great fun and thanks to Paul Simms (or Kent Zbornak, or whoever) for pulling them together.