I think it’s quite possible that the greatest thing to come out of the whole DVD revolution is the re-release of the fondly-remembered TV series. When VHS was king, you’d often only get select episodes from a series, or else the whole series would be released, and if the show ran a long time, you found your shelves littered with a ton of boxes. Anyway, a number of my old faves have been reissued so far (“The Greatest American Hero,” “The Muppet Show,” “Starsky And Hutch,” “SCTV,” etc.), but there are still some that need to be puked up again for further enjoyment. Here’s a quick list of those shows that I want to see again in glorious remastering and 5.1 sound.
“Riptide” – By God, I used to watch this show every week. It came on right after “The A-Team” and was the better of the two shows, in my opinion. Joe Penny, Thom Bray, and Perry King solved mysteries while flying around in that pink helicopter called The Screamin’ Mimi with the big face painted on the front. Bray’s character, Murray often intoned his favorite adjective, “boss” (as in “That’s so boss!”), and he had that goofy robot companion, the Roboz. Totally boss, indeed!
“Exit 57” – Before there was “Strangers With Candy” there was “Exit 57.” It starred Stephen Colbert, Amy Sedaris, Jodi Lennon, Mitch Rouse, and Paul Dinello. Sketch comedy at its non sequitur best. Rouse played a redneck asshole to a T, while one of Dinello’s best characters was a freak who would get beat up and yell “Teach me who the stain is!” Sedaris played a whole host of wacked-out oddballs, while Lennon got to freak out as well. And then there was Colbert who did that thing that is truly Colbert. You know, he was Colbert! Sure, a lot of these folks came back for “Strangers With Candy,” which is a great show in itself, but I never got to see all the “Exit 57” episodes, and the ones I do have are on a crappy old VHS tape. Get with it, already!
“Max Headroom” – One of sci-fi’s best shows in the ’80s. It came after Max debuted on Cinemax or whatever the hell it was with his oddball talk show. This show was much better, and Matt Frewer was groovy as Max and as the TV news reporter who was always out to uncover the truth in post-modern where ever the hell they were. Plus it had Amanda Pays. Damn, whatever happened to her?! Frewer later “came back” on the crappy sitcom “Doctor, Doctor” and last I saw him was in the terrific remake of “Dawn of the Dead.”
“The Electric Company.” Oh hell yeah. Back in the ’70s, you couldn’t get any groovier with learning than with this show. It came on as part of the super triumvirate that included “Sesame Street” and “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.” It was rerun on the Noggin network not too long ago, but then pulled to make way for more “Degrassi.” Yawn. This is undoubtedly the best thing Bill Cosby ever created, and there’s a ton of memories I have associated with it. Spider-Man was on there, sure, but then there was Morgan Freeman as Easy Reader and Rita Moreno as the psycho film director, Skip Hinnant as Fargo North, Decoder, Gene Wilder doing the voice of “Letterman,” and so much more (not to mention the groovy silhouettes with the the first and second syllables of a word flying out of their mouths). In reality “The Electric Company” will probably never get released on any format, but it deserves to be more than just a memory of us who lived with it originally.
“Automan.” No, I jest. Although it’ll probably get full DVD treatment before anything else in my list. Who wants to see any show with Dest Arnaz Jr. in a starring role?
