What did you watch this week in classic TV on DVD(or Blu)? (8 Viewers)

[ChrisALM]

For me, one of the reasons I enjoy Flipper is the Florida location filming. I grew up in the Clearwater Florida area, and much of the outdoor photography, reminds me of the Florida I grew up in, and it's beautiful. Today, I recognize how much is captured in the series' photography; the laid back lifestyle, the more innocent times.

I watched the original run of the series, and always liked it. I was surprised to see it released on DVD, and purchased seasons 1 and 2. When the Blurays were announced, I knew I'd end up with all the seasons on bluray, which I now have. So, I double dipped on two seasons and got the third season on Blu. What a nice place and time to revisit!

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Over the past week, I watched the following episodes, featuring Beverly Garland as guest star:

Mannix, 1.17 and 1.18 "Deadfall, Parts 1 & 2" - Digging these season one Intertec episodes. This two-parter had a very intriguing first episode and a more padded-out, less satisfying second, but still packed in plenty of drama, action and fisticuffs.

Soldiers of Fortune, 1.27 "The Lady and the Lion" - This show remains one of the best blind buys I've ever made. As with M Squad, the prints are not the best, but the series is so dang entertaining, and the interplay between leads John Russell and Chick Chandler so memorable, that it transcends the so-so transfers, and I'm grateful to Timeless for releasing it. This ep featured a lot of sharp dialogue, which Chick Chandler esp. seemed to relish.

Danger Man, 1.27 "Bury the Dead" - I might be in the minority but I rather prefer the taut 30-minute Danger Man episodes, though I do miss McGoohan's British accent. Aside from the comely Ms. Garland, this one also featured Robert Shaw and Patrick (Doctor Who #2) Troughton.

The Loner, 1.23 "Incident in the Middle of Nowhere" - This is decent episode of what is, overall, a very good, sober western series. Benefits from a strong performance by Peter Mark Richman.

Yancy Derringer, 1.15 "The Fair Freebooter" - Another excellent western series, though this particular, mostly comic episode features very little action compared to the norm (Yancy's silent and very deadly sidekick, Pahoo, doesn't even kill the usual 3 or 4 bad guys this time out.)

The Wild Wild West, 4.21 "The Night of the Bleak Island" - Very enjoyable riff on The Hound of the Baskervilles, with a fun guest turn by Hitchcock fave John Williams, filling in for a recuperating Ross Martin.

Enjoyed watching The Wild Wild West so much, I immediately spun another episode from the tail end of season 2, "The Night of the Wolf." While The Wild Wild West had a definite formula (weird mystery or menace is introduced, James West investigates, gets in at least 3 or 4 fistfights and kisses a pretty girl or two, with an assist from Artemus Gordon in at least one disguise), the show managed to mix things up enough to stay interesting throughout all four seasons, IMO. I particularly like those episodes which have some Gothic or apparently supernatural angle...the series could really lay on the spooky atmosphere when it wanted to. Both "TNOT Bleak Island" and "TNOT Wolf" are good examples of this. It was fun to see Joseph Campanella, who makes a nice foil for Mike Connors in the first season of Mannix, play a creepy Rasputin-like bad guy in the latter ep. I remember watching The Wild Wild West religiously in syndication on KCPQ Channel 13 after school, and am delighted with how well the show holds up. The only thing that slightly dates it, really, are Robert Conrad's shaggy hair and sideburns in the final season.

Finally, a friend kindly gifted me some spare TV on DVD sets in excellent condition, including season one of The Equalizer. I remembered the pilot to this series very fondly, so watched it tonight for the first time since it premiered, back when I was senior in high school. It was still pretty effective, esp. the haunting Stewart Copeland theme and riveting title sequence. Strange to think that star Edward Woodward was only a few years older than I am now when he filmed it.

 

[morasp]

Another week of great shows. The thing that stood out to me this week on the older shows was how much effort was put into the musical score for one TV episode. It really adds to the enjoyment and having the DVD makes it easier to hear the individual instruments.
Tuesday
Frasier 2/6/18 6:13 The Show Where Woody Shows Up
Woody from cheers comes to town and hooks up with Frasier. They both get tired of each other and are afraid to tell the other. Finally at the end they come clean and have one last beer together and toast Cheers. As usual very funny stuff. Very good picture and sound, not quite as good as Cheers.

Wednesday
According To Jim 2/7/18 Blow Up
Cheryl takes a sexy portrait for Jim on valentines day. When his friends tell him he is boring and probably fell asleep watching TV he shows it to them and Cheryl finds out. In one scene that cracked me up he is playing go fish with his girls and they catch him cheating funny stuff.
Diagnosis Murder 1:13 Lily
Dick Van Dyke is so talented. When Jack's old friend, now a call girl, dies Dr. Sloan helps him prove it was murder instead of a drug overdose. Gerald McRaney guest stars. This one had a neat twist at the end.

Secret Agent Thursday
F-Troop 1:2 Don't Look Now , One of our Cannons is Missing
Great show great cast. Sargent ORourke loans the cannon to the Hekawis for a tribal ceremony. When General Grant shows up for a surprise inspection corporal Agarn impersonates him to try to get it back.
Wild Wild West 1:10 The Night That Terror Stalked The Town
Dr. Lovelace kidnaps West and creates a double of him. When it's time to execute west he dresses the same as the double and Lovelace can't tell them apart.

Star Trek Friday
Mad About You 2:14 The Late Show
I picked season 1&2 up with a coupon from Ollies for $2. I laughed so hard hard I decided to buy the whole set. The picture quality is good not great but it was pretty funny and since it's not on any of my streaming channels or antenna channels I ordered it.
Star Trek Enterprise 1:10 Fortunate Son
A cargo ship get's attacked by pirates and the Enterprise rescues them. The pirates look a lot like the alien in Predator. I keep thinking use the transporter but it's so new they still don't like using it.

Saturday
The Golden Girls 2:2 Ladies of the Evening
I had seen this one before and remembered the general story but didn't remember the jokes. The funniest scene was in the cocktail lounge when they get mistaken for call girls. A cameo appearance by Mr. Burt Reynolds.
Perry Mason 1:6 The Case of the Silent Partner
You sure get your monies worth on the older shows. This episode was over 52 minutes. I kept waiting for the court room scene but Perry solved it without having to go to trial. He actually get's Lt. Tragg to help him solve the case by arresting several of the suspects so they would have an alibi.

Sunday
The Adventures of Superman 1:3 The Case of the Talkative Dummy
Over sixty years old and still fun to watch. When a ventriloquist' dummy starts taking on a life of it's own Superman helps find out why and solves the recent string of armored car thefts (The whole armored car). This one had a surprise ending.
Cannon 4:2 The Hit Man
It's been a while since I watched this and I was immediately reminded that it's one of my favorite shows. The picture quality is good but not mission impossible quality but it didn't matter. It was watchable and I was way more interested in the content. Cannon goes undercover as a hit man to save a Cardinal. He almost gets discovered several times but uses his wits to get out of it.

 

[Charles Ellis]

This weekend I watched all of Coronet Blue- a show with great potential that got buried alive on CBS. Ever hear the one about the show that sat on the shelf for two years and when it did air as a summer replacement and got good ratings, it was too late to revive the show as the star had signed to a show on ABC? Well, this is the show! It's a color time capsule of Manhattan in 1965, with a lot of future stars in its episodes (Alan Alda, Jon Voight, Billy Dee Williams, Candice Bergen, Susan Hampshire, Vincent Gardenia, Juliet Mills, Sally Kellerman, David Carradine, and Daniel J. Travanti), led with Frank Converse as a man who's drawn from the waters of New York muttering 'coronet blue' and otherwise having total amnesia. The series had him trying to find the truth of his identity.

 

[The Obsolete Man]

More Moonlighting.

Up to season 4 now, but that's no great feat since, reading the history of the show, they couldn't ever pull off a full season. They would've made a great HBO show today, since cable loves 16 episode seasons.

I know most people aren't thrilled with anything past season 3, but what can I say... I enjoy Curtis Armstrong and Allyce Beasley.

The theme song change in season 4 sucks, though. Looks like they switched from the original (which was probably recorded specifically for the show) to the single version Jarreau recorded later that became a top 40 hit. Album rerecordings of theme songs just always turn out to be inferior to the originals.... Moonlighting, WKRP, Dukes of Hazzard... you show me a version of a theme song rerecorded for wide release, I'll show you a version that's just lacking what made the original memorable and special.

 

[BobO'Link]

You know... I watched Moonlighting during its original run and own the series on DVD. In spite of really liking it, I don't think I ever noticed a change in the theme song... I may have to dig out my sets and give 'em a listen. From what I've observed over the years, the problem with making a TV theme song into a single is it being lengthened for the format. It rarely works well.

I'm one of those people who don't have much use for S4 & S5 - but I, too, enjoy Armstrong and Beasley. Almost enough to forgive the "sins" of those seasons. It was quite frustrating trying to watch that show in first run.

 

[Flashgear]

The Season 3 Moonlighting DVD has that authoring anomaly on disc 3...where the on screen episode menu only shows the first two ("The Straight poop", "Poltergeist III-Dipesto Nothing") of the four episodes to select onscreen...you have to use the play all function and chapter advance to watch the latter two episodes on that disc, "Blonde on Blonde" and "Sam and Dave"...at least that's the case with my set, all the other discs and Moonlighting seasons feature individual episode selection playability...

I've wondered if that mistake was corrected on later production runs, if any? Do you guys also have this one strange disc?

I agree that Moonlighting is a somewhat torturous experience at times in it's full run...the problematic results of behind the scenes drama and ego driven chaos...only rarely referred to successfully in self sarcasm that became quite tiresome in S3, 4 and 5...although the series does have some absolutely brilliant episodes that redeem it to a large degree...I'm glad to have it, and I wonder why it never received a complete series boxset release in R1? I believe it got an R2 and maybe an R4 complete series all in one release...

 

[Peter M Fitzgerald]

2/6/2018 - 2/12/2018:

Decoy: "Dream Fix" (Episode 5, 1957)
The Beverly Hillbillies: "Pygmalion and Elly" (Season 1, Episode 10, 1962)
The Beverly Hillbillies: "Elly Races Jethrine" (Season 1, Episode 11, 1962)
The Beverly Hillbillies: "The Great Feud" (Season 1, Episode 12, 1962)
The Beverly Hillbillies: "Home for Christmas" (Season 1, Episode 13, 1962)
The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn: "Castle of Evil" (Episode 8, 1968)
Perry Mason: "The Case of the Moth-Eaten Mink" (Series pilot, Season 1, Episode 13, 1957)
Perry Mason: "The Case of the Baited Hook" (Season 1, Episode 14, 1957)
The Andy Griffith Show: "Andy the Marriage Counselor" (Season 1, Episode , 1961)
The Fugitive: "The Witch" (Season 1, Episode 2, 1963)
M Squad: "The Face of Evil" (Season 1, Episode 5, 1957)
Dark Shadows: Episode #676 (1969)

-all on DVD, except for streamed episodes of The Beverly Hillbillies (Amazon Prime) and The Andy Griffith Show (Netflix).

 

[jim_falconer]

I binged on The Fugitive, seasons 3 and 4 over the weekend. I can watch that show over and over again, and still have the same enjoyment as the first time seeing it. What I found interesting this time, was watching the special 'The Color Of Music'. I never realized that the show was not bought into syndication, due to the two part ending shows. But on reflection, that is probably a true statement. How could anyone enjoy the show in syndication, if they catch the last two shows at the beginning of watching it? The producers later said, that decision cost them millions.

 

[BobO'Link]

I finished S5 of The Dick Van Dyke Show. It's been over a decade since I last saw any episodes. It was quite fun revisiting it and I didn't see/hear as many "Ooooohhh Rob!" from Ms. Moore as I thought I'd hear. I found that surprising as they's somewhat a catchphrase of hers from that show.

 

[Doug Wallen]

Barney Miller

Trying to finish season 4.

Thanksgiving Story (4.9)
Tunnel (4.10)
Atomic Bomb (4.11)
The Bank (4.12)
The Ghost (4.13) Nehemiah Persoff Was there a show he didn't guest on???
Appendicitis (4.14)
Rape (4.15)
Eviction: Part I (4.16)
Eviction: Part II (4.17)
Wojo's Problem (4.18)
Quo Vadis? (4.19)

 

[Blimpoy06]

Nehemiah Persoff Was there a show he didn't guest on???

Nope!

 

[Doug Wallen]

Nope!

Especially with regards to "classic" television that I am going through ... Mannix, Streets of San Francisco, Time Tunnel, Hawaii 5-O, and on and on ...

What a great character and character actor.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Especially with regards to "classic" television that I am going through ... Mannix, Streets of San Francisco, Time Tunnel, Hawaii 5-O, and on and on ...

What a great character and character actor.

And three episodes of The Wild Wild West (including the first episode). It seems like the guy was in practically everything. Terrific character actor.

 

[Bob Gu]

The neat thing about Nehemiah Persoff was that he changed his look for every part....beards, hair-style, etc.....But he still looked like Nehemiah Persoff! Of course he was playing a character, not playing someone in disquise.

Disquise-wise Ross Martin in TWWW always looked like Ross Martin.

This week I watched nine episodes of N.Y.P.D. 1967-69, from YouTube. The shows had many famous up and comers as guest players. But what was really fun... some prints had original commercials and I recognized the voice over actors on some of the commercials, Van Johnson, Lloyd Bridges, Hal Linden. Promos for THAT GIRL and N.Y.P.D. itself. The actor that played recurring character Detective Ritchie was in a "Show us your lark pack", commercial.

 

[Dan McW]

Mr. Persoff turned 98 last August.

 

[Jeff Flugel]

Disquise-wise Ross Martin in TWWW always looked like Ross Martin.

Heh. Too true. But Martin obviously relished all his disguises and the chance to play different characters, and there's always a sense of the audience being in on the joke with him, which adds to the fun, IMO.

 

[Doug Wallen]

Barney Miller
Hostage (4.20)
Evaluation (4.21)
The Sighting (4.22)
Inauguration (4.23)

The Streets of San Francisco
The Twenty-Four Karat Plague (2.09)
Shield of Honor (2.10)
The Victims (2.11)

 

[BobO'Link]

I started my "new" (actually a couple of years old) copy of Leave it to Beaver S1 on single-sided discs. It was purchased to replace the problematic DVD18s of the original S1 set.

That's such a fun, nostalgic, series. Kids today just don't know how much fun they could have it they'd put down their electronics and go outside!

One episode where the Cleavers ate outside because it was hot in the house reminded me that most homes during those years didn't have air conditioning (man how we forget the "little" luxuries we have). It was open windows and/or window fans for cooling. You went outside to play as much as anything because it was hotter inside unless you were lucky enough to own an older home with lots of tree shade and big windows to let the breeze through. We had pretty good shade and a few big windows.

I'd play under our huge back porch (it was across the entire width of the house and ~8' deep) which was high enough off the ground to easily crawl under so I had forts and roads built in the dirt. It was open on 3 sides with bushes creating the barriers except for the opening where the wooden steps came off the porch. Unless we got a ton of rain it stayed mostly dry.

 

[Doug Wallen]

Maybe not classic. but part of the VEI, Inc. collection.

Special Unit 2
The Drag (2.7)
The Beast (2.8)
The Wall (2.9)
The Straw (2.10)

This is still some of the goofiest fun I have ever watched. The offbeat humor and chemistry between the leads is still appealing to me. Glad I picked this up from their Black Friday sale.