Category — 1990s

All that talk about my Arrested Development love and excitement yesterday led me to an inadvertent game of “One Degree of Jeffrey Tambor,” and the subject of today’s post: The Larry Sanders Show.

Larry remains one of HBO’s best original series of all time to this day, even though it ended ten years ago. It sticks in the communal craw of us Larry fans that the complete series isn’t available on DVD yet, but the two DVD sets they relased last year, The Complete First Season and the irritatingly incomplete Not Just the Best of the Larry Sanders Show, are better than nothing.

I’ve worked a couple of jobs in late night television, so this series has an especially special place in my heart, and friends might find me laughing a little too hard at some of the jokes. Plus, there are loads of funny celebrity cameos, with one of the best pictured above.

Anyway, somehow I never got around to buying those DVDs when they were first released, so at least now I know what I’m asking for this xmas!

I came across a random picture from “Beetlejuice“, the cartoon spun off from the amazing Tim Burton film, and realized I watched that show every Saturday morning. I don’t even think I liked it at first, but after awhile it was a staple of my television cartoon menu.

In the tv series, Lydia and Beetlejuice are besties who hang out all the time seeing how Lydia is anti-social. She would much rather hang out with the dead than living people. The gothic duo would travel to the “Neitherworld” whenever Lydia had the time. Lydia was such an awesome character in the movie, who wouldn’t want to watch what chick does in animated form? She’s like quintessential anti-social, kinda goth, really smart girl character before MTV gave us my favorite cartoon nihilist, Daria.

“Beetlejuice” ran for four seasons, starting out on ABC for three years and then finishing up on Fox for its last season. If you’re feeling nostalgic for late-eighties/early nineties animation, the Blu-Ray edition of the Beetlejuice dvd contains a few episodes of this series. And if my memory serves me correctly, I think The N airs episodes every blue moon or so. Beware, the cartoon was made for kids, so it’s somewhat lighthearted in comparison to the movie. No word when the actual tv series will be on dvd yet.

I’m a big fan of the animated series, “Home Movies”, so it delights me to no end that they released a special 10th anniversary dvd box set.

This dvd set is all kinds of awesome! It comes with a “Home Movies” clapboard like Brendan, Jason, and Melissa use on the show,  a canvas bag AND a 52 track cd that contains all the original songs from the show. And of course, it includes all four seasons’ original dvd sets with the all the original bonus features and commentary. The “Home Movies” box set costs between $90-129.99, so this may have to wait for christmas time or whenever I get an awesome dvd discount coupon in my inbox.

I am always ready to rant about how much “The Simpsons” sucks now, relative to how great it was during, say, seasons 3 through 8. This stems not from an inherently fickle nature, but from my deep love of this show during the golden (sometimes pronounced “Conan“) years, and genuine grief over the decline in quality as the seasons have dragged on.

To the credit of the current writers and producers, it’s still better than “Two and a Half Men” a lot of other crap that’s passing for comedy, these days.

Tonight they’re airing the 734th “Treehouse of Horror” Halloween special. For some reason, Fox has seemed incapable of airing “The Simpsons” Halloween special within a logical time frame for the last seven years or so, airing it either way too soon or way too late.

But, this is the closest they’ve come in ages, so if you have any pumpkin beer  and tiny candies left, you may as well polish them off tonight at 8pm eastern and pacific. It’ll get you nice and buzzed for “True Blood,” “Dexter” and “Mad Men,” later on.

Yeah guys, let’s get sick!

“South Park” is back on Comedy Central with a new season, and is as shocking as ever. It’s hard to believe this show has been on for 12 seasons, and I don’t really like to think about that because it makes me feel crotchety.

It seems like only yesterday I was laughing over Cartman’s first rendition of “Kyle’s Mom Is a Big Fat B$%ch” with friends during my 10th grade health class. Those were the days.

Well, Cartman is as much of an A-hole in the new episodes as he was then. Worse, even. And, if last season’s Emmy-winning “Imaginationland” episodes are any indication, Trey (Parker) and Matt (Stone) have definitely still got it.

I’ve had my jaw hanging in disbelief a few times during this season already, and as an equal opportunity offender myself, that’s fairly hard to accomplish. I can’t wait to see what else the guys have planned.

Tune in Wednesdays at 10pm eastern and pacific to catch the new episodes, or on Thursdays at 10pm to catch an encore reairing before new episodes of “The Sarah Silverman Program” at 10:30pm. If those times are no good for you, get a DVR, for crying out loud. It’s 2000-freaking-eight.

Fret not, you DVR-less quasi neo-ludites, for Comedy Central reruns “South Park” almost as much as “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report,” so there are plenty of other times to catch the episodes you may have missed. But, I’m not looking that up for you.

[Picture source: www.SouthParkStudios.com]

In an uncharacteristic bout of good judgement, I’ve decided to continue avoiding the wasteland of bad television this weekend, taking refuge in some old favorites from the “TV– No Wait, DVD” genre.  Last weekend, I got my cartoon fix with some “Clerks” The Animated Series,” but today is going to be all about “Freaks and Geeks.”

The most cursory internet search of “Freaks and Geeks” will undoubtedly provide a bounty of blogs praising this show– and likely some pornography too, so make sure you have “Safe Search” turned on, kiddies.

Where was I? Oh, yes. “Freaks and Geeks” is about high school kids in Michigan during the 80s, centering around a sister and brother who fall respectively into the social castes of– you guessed it– freaks and geeks. They laugh, they live, they love. This series was on NBC in 1999, and like so many other great shows, simply didn’t catch on quickly enough for the network suits. So, they yanked it. Good job, guys.

“F&G” was one of Judd Apatow’s greatest creations though, so it herewith gets the official Television Revival thumbs up. Plus, it’s got Seth Rogen, James Franco AND Jason Segel, so if you liked Pineapple Express and/or Forgetting Sarah Marshall, you’re going to lurve this. So rent it, or buy it, or do whatever it is you do to watch new stuff that is actually old stuff that is good. End of dispatch. I’m off to buy another box of wine.

[Picture source: NBC]

Tuesday night of this week, the CW ushered in a new addition to the Spoiled, Rich and Vapid 30-Year-Olds Playing Teenagers in High School genre, with their “reimagined” and revamped “90210.”

In the interest of full disclosure, I will admit it: I Tivo-ed it. Worse yet, I then watched it. This is not my first, nor will it be my last, extremely regrettable decision.

Long story short, if you find “Gossip Girl” to be a little too well written and complex (you know, with their super sophisticated “OMFG” campaign and all), then the new “90210″ just may be the show for you. Well, “90210″ or Teletubbies.

Kelly and Brenda– that is, Jennie Garth and Shannon Doherty, respectively– both make appearances in the first episode, and considering neither has anything better to do, they’ll have recurring roles. I’m guessing Tori Spelling is in a padded room somewhere.

So, if you’re planning to stick needles in your eyes this Tuesday night, watching “90210″ just may substitute as a strange, new torture for you, my dear little masochist. I, on the other hand, will be picking up the old “Beverly Hills 90210″ on DVD to remind myself of why I hated this show the first time around.

I’m officially adding “Talespin” (1990-1994) to my list of favorite Disney cartoons. I never watched these episodes in order, but if Baloo was on the television set, I was definitely glued to the screen.

“Talespin” follows the adventures of Baloo, the loveable sloth bear pilot of the Sea Duck, his protege, Kit ‘Li’l Britches’ Cloudkicker, and Rebecca Cunningham, the manager of their air delivery company. They make deliveries from their home base in the ficitonal Cape Suzette. Eventually, in almost every episode, Baloo winds up into trouble with either the Air Pirates led by Don Karnage, the Thembrians, or Shere Khan’s gang.

Fueled by nostalgia, I scoured the internets and discovered that two episodes of “Talespin” were actually banned after airing originally on The Disney Channel. What harm could little ol’ Baloo do to impressionable young minds?! Apparently enough to ruffle Disney’s feathers, especially if you have plots involving Thembian terrorist bombs and a not so PC depiction of a Japanese-esque island called Panda-la! It’s speculated that you can see the blacklisted eps in Canada or if Toon Disney accidentally shows them again.

I wouldn’t count on those episodes to be released on dvd. Nevertheless, you can buy “Talespin” Volumes 1 & “Talespin” Volume 2 today for less than $25 bucks. Supposedly, a volume 3 is in the works.

Warner Bros is reviving The WB on the internet. You can now stream classic shows like “Felicity”, “Buffy”, “Roswell”, “Angel”, “Smallville”, and many other tv shows that the network aired before it morphed into the The CW with UPN.

The WB network existed from 1995-2006 and was host to a multitude of television shows. They excelled with their children’s cartoon programming and guilty pleasure teen dramas like “Dawson’s Creek” and “One Tree Hill”. Nevertheless, my favorite shows were the sci-fi/horror tinged shows like “Angel” and “Roswell”. Still, The WB really did have something for everybody whether it be sitcoms, dramas, reality shows or even the local LA news.

It’s inevitable that the revival of The WB will only drudge up one the biggest mysteries in life that J.J. Abrams purported on “Felicity”. Who is the better guy: Ben or Noel!

My heart says Noel because he was so nice and followed her around like a puppy. On the otherhand, though Ben started off as a jerk, he did eventually man up and show her how much he loved her. After this much time, it’s still so hard to choose…

Source: Pop Candy

Felicity DVDs
Angel DVDs
Smallville DVDs
Roswell DVDs
Dawson’s Creek DVDs

Do you remember “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” on Nickelodeon? I remember watching that show when it premiered in 1991.

“The Tale of the Thirteenth Floor” episode clip:

It was like a wonderful jumble of tv serial theatrics reminiscent of “The Twilight Zone” and themes from the Goosebumps book series. Didn’t you just get chills when they threw that dust onto the fire?! Granted, as an adult re-watching these episodes, some of the thrills have gone. Still, I think “Are You Afraid of the Dark?” was a pretty decent original kids series.

Each week they had new characters and stories to tell, sometimes with a twist of horror, other times more science fiction based. This serial format helped keep this tv show on air for 5 seasons! That’s a pretty big feat for a darkly themed kids show. Definitely longer than what most primetime sci-fi shows get these days! Look at “Moonlight” for example. Mick St. John’s dashing looks and vampire charisma couldn’t keep it on air past one season.