The View From Drew

• Season sets of Scrubs are less than $20 at the BJ's Warehouses in the New York area.
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• Anyone ever been to the Eveready Diner?  We had one open up just five minutes away from my home.  I may have found my new home away from home.
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• Two new episodes of the Rift are now available.  There's a review episode where we grok about Spock and Star Trek in general, and there's a music episode featuring music from those who are geekily inclined.  Check them out at the Rift website - http://www.chronicrift.com.  Take a moment to sign up and hang out in the forums.
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• Have a happy Memorial Day weekend, those of you who celebrate!

Thank also to popfiend for the Christmas gift of the Quark DVD set.  Fridays, starting in Febrary, will  include an episode.

popfiend got me the two disk "best of" set for Christmas.  This was a fixture of New York television through most of the 70's and the early part of the 80's.  Carole Demas and Paula Janis sang songs, told jokes and stories, and interacted with Sherlock the Squirrel (and later Flapper Bird) in this locally produced program that at times rivalled Sesame Street for ratings.  I loved it and continued to catch repeats even as I got older.  As I've been watching the DVD, I thought I'd jot down a few thoughts.

Sherlock the Squirrel was made from a bath mat and now as I watch it, I can see it.

There wasn't remote mics in those days, so you can see the audio wire going up Carole's pants, which was often a problem when she had to move fast, like when she was dragged off by a giant dog.

The pet segments were cool.

The chuckle patch jokes were pretty bad, but as a kid I thought they were funny.
What has eight legs and can't walk? Two chairs.
What weighs two tons and wears peace beeds? A Hippy-potamus.

Storybox - Once again the illusion is shattered thanks to DVD. You can clearly see the strings opening the box that you couldn't see on a grainy television set in the seventies.

I don't remember Flapper as a character, but Sue was telling me how he was her favorite on the show. The second DVD, which features the later episodes, has Flapper's first appearance.

Mikey loves this show, but we can't get past the first two episodes. That's all he wants to watch.

Adric is at his most annoying.  Tegan freaks out way too easily.  The Doctor surviving in space with only a helmet.  Despite all this, this story holds a place in my heart.  I can't explain it.  It's like "Warriors of the Deep".

I'm catching up on episodes of the tail end of the second season of Deep Space Nine as I've got the third season coming up in my viewing schedule.  I'm on the last two episodes and there are bonus features on the disk.  Terry Farrell is interviewed in these features and I swear, she looks so much like Linda Carter - she should have played Wonder Woman in this long planned feature film.  They missed a golden opportunity there.

So Warner Brothers is releasing all the tertiary super hero cartoons from the Superman/Aquaman Hour back in the 60's. These are the ones featuring The Flash, Green Lantern, The Teen Titans, The Atom, Hawkman, and the JLA. Unfortunately, someone in the art department or something didn't check to get their characters right when going over the menu screens and you now get this (Click on the image to make it larger):




Warner Brothers released statement about the snafu is that they hope customers will still appreciate the quality product they have purchased, despite the little mix-up. Oh, if you don't get it, Warner Brothers also owns Hanna-Barbara who has a certain winged hero in their stockade.

October 14th - The Magic Garden comes to DVD!

Anyone living near a BJ's Discount store will find that every season set of Stargate SG-1 is currently available for 17.99 each.

So Eddie sits next to me tonight as I'm watching Lost in Space.  It's the episode, "All That Glitters", a first season episode where Doctor Smith gains the ability to turn anything he touches to pure platinum.  Eddie's watched a few moments of the show with me in the past few weeks, but he usually walks off.  He had asked me were there color episodes as the first season is black and white and I think it puts him off.  Tonight though he sat through the rest of the episode.  He then asked if he could watch the next episode there and then and I told him that I only watch one episode a week.  He couldn't understand why I did it as I had the DVD.  I explained that when I was a kid, we didn't have recording devices for programs and you watched it when it aired.  If you missed it, hopefully you could catch it during a summer repeat (which is what I'm doing now.  Yes, I'm so lame I schedule my summer repeats too.) or if a local station picked it up years later you'd watch it then.  That made watching shows special.  Eddie doesn't think anything of watching six episodes of Spongebob Squarepants in a row.  To me, watching that much of any show in one sitting takes away from what makes it special.  I read how people plow through DVD sets of a show and I don't get the appeal for that. Then again, most people don't get the appeal of the way I do it.  I'm more for the nostagia of the old days of television.  So, I told him he'd have to wait until next week and we'd watch it together.  Who knows, maybe this will lead to a weekly ritual, something he can look forward to like I did when I was a kid.

So, in looking over the DVD, my brother just let the tape run and recorded everything on it, including my God-awful college television production final project - The Twilight Zone - "If This Be My Destiny."  Yes, this had it all, a Lipchick in a slinky black dress, an Andrew with thick, black hair and shirtless, kissing, a bedroom scene, and the immortal closing words, "To paraphrase a famous person, the only constants in life are death, taxes, and The Twilight Zone."

It will not be on the DVD as you'll never see the second season because the Lipchick will walk all the way from the city to Brewster and hunt be down like a Terminator before it happens.  So, I'm afraid I'll just have to save it for those moments in life where I know I'll have a head start, like maybe at my wake or something.   ;)

The hits just keep on coming for me.  My brother showed me the first three episodes of The Chronic Rift he pulled off the original VHS tapes on DVD.  The picture quality and sound are fantastic!  I'll have the entire first season on DVD by the end of the week and then I'll start work on my DVD menus.  I'm hoping to have the first season ready by November.  It will have 28 episodes that ran back in 1989-1990 and features such guests as Peter David and Gary Gygax.  Extras I am planning include easter eggs, text commentary,  (not sure about every episode or selected episodes.  I think that will depend on kradical's availability and memory on each disk.) an hour long special covering the 26th annual Nebula Awards when they were in New York with Isaac Asimov and keynote speaker, Hugh Downs, and a slide show of pictures from the show and scans of articles written about us, including a feature in The Village Voice.

As an added bonus for LJ readers, I'm hoping to post a couple of second season episodes by the end of the week for you to see.  The second season was when we really started hitting our stride.  We had a new theme song and computer generated opening credits of kradical and the Lipchick doing mugshots on a futuristic wanted poster.  We were covering conventions and getting some big name guests to appear.

Sweet!

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Real-Ghostbusters-Complete-Series-Details/10112

Help choose the box art.

The official promo for the DVD release of "The Trial of a Time Lord."


And the other DVD release, "The Brain of Morbius."

Real Ghostbusters coming to DVD.


And it's the complete series (which may come out to around 37-39 disks.)


And Andy Mangels is producing it.  (His He-Man and Dungeons & Dragons sets rocked.)


Life is good.

Discount Outlet BJ's currently has Babylon Five season sets for 19.99.  They also have Little House on the Prairie season sets for 18.99.

EDIT:  This is only at their stores, not online apparently.

seaQuest DSV season two to be released New Year's Day 2008!

Sontarans are to return in series four.

Still waiting on confirmation of rumor that

I may be one of the few who enjoyed it, but Aquaman is coming to DVD!