Sooo looooooooooong, Dennis…and not a moment too soon.
Continue reading ‘Dennis the Menace’ (Season 4): Dennis is an older menace in boomer sitcom’s final seasonAll posts by Drunk TV
‘John Steinbeck’s East of Eden’ (1981): Epic miniseries is Jane Seymour’s finest hour
“I’ve done things that would turn your blood to spit.” Cathy Ames
I know, I know. Months ago, I promised to review all of the miniseries that were featured on NBC’s “miniseries series,” Best Sellers. And I did. I even bought a bootleg DVD of the one that’s impossible to find—that’s how committed I was to the project. I only had The Rhinemann Exchange to go. Well…I’ve watched it. I have the notes. But I’m telling you: it’s so goddamn boring I’m not sure I can face writing a review of it. We’ll see. I don’t want to talk about it. Let’s look at a different mini. Come on—give me a break, okay?
Continue reading ‘John Steinbeck’s East of Eden’ (1981): Epic miniseries is Jane Seymour’s finest hour‘Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie’ (1993): A familial look back at the fascinating, complicated couple
I hadn’t realized that this past April was the 35th anniversary of the passing of Lucille Ball, television’s greatest comedienne. Probably because that former standby of media information—the old “TV listings”—hadn’t reminded me. Since traditional linear network TV is now essentially a niche joke—the last form of mass communication that actually helped unify our popular culture, as opposed to the internet and streaming, which have completely Balkanized it—I seriously doubt there was any kind of effort on the part of her old network, CBS, to commemorate her death while celebrating her legacy (maybe they did something on MeTV…do people still have cable?).
Continue reading ‘Lucy & Desi: A Home Movie’ (1993): A familial look back at the fascinating, complicated couple‘Studio One’: A look back at TV’s early LIVE anthology. Was this the ‘Golden Age’?
You know…when you finally come to, and find yourself unaware of the day or date, or the precise county or state in which your body currently resides, but completely aware that your ribs are all stoved in, three fingers on your craps-throwing hand are busted, your front teeth are loose, your head feels like a basketball is being inflated inside it, and that you’re laying in someone’s pool of something…you start to reminisce about earlier days, better days—, indeed better times—when you could put two coherent sentences together and take a leak without pissing blood. Even writers have “golden ages,” gentle readers.
Continue reading ‘Studio One’: A look back at TV’s early LIVE anthology. Was this the ‘Golden Age’?‘Christmas in the Pines’ (2021): Real-life married couple tests their chemistry on screen
Leave that Christmas tree alone. We got plenty of sap right here.
Continue reading ‘Christmas in the Pines’ (2021): Real-life married couple tests their chemistry on screen‘The Lawrence Welk Show’: Classic episodes are a glimpse into a past that has vanished
You can take the boy out of the bubbles…but not the bubbles out of the boy.
Continue reading ‘The Lawrence Welk Show’: Classic episodes are a glimpse into a past that has vanished‘Christmas in the Rockies’ (2020): Romance, lumberjack games, & WWE chicks for the win
Flying hatchets. Running with chainsaws.
These people will do anything for $50,000. But in this economy, who can blame them?
Continue reading ‘Christmas in the Rockies’ (2020): Romance, lumberjack games, & WWE chicks for the win‘Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom’: Thrilling & educational, Marlon Perkins paves way for ecology & conservation
Hey―we care about the planet here at the DrunkTV HQ. But we don’t wear diapers and tampons about it, that’s all. We don’t want to get taxed for it, or eat ground-up bugs so cows won’t fart, or drive an electric lawn mower instead of a kick-ass V-8. We like the Earth…we’re just not pussies about it. That’s why we like ultimate outdoor chad Marlin Perkins and his Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom series.
Continue reading ‘Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom’: Thrilling & educational, Marlon Perkins paves way for ecology & conservation‘Greatest Heroes of the Bible (Vol. 3) – God’s Power’: Your Easter Sunday viewing is here, and it’s…good enough!
Forgive them, Father, for they know not this is Schick Sunn Classic entertainment.
Continue reading ‘Greatest Heroes of the Bible (Vol. 3) – God’s Power’: Your Easter Sunday viewing is here, and it’s…good enough!‘Psycho IV: The Beginning’ (1990): Anthony Perkins returns in pay cable sequel
Entertaining, casually lurid unofficial “official” prequel/sequel to the iconic Hitchcock horror/suspense classic.
Continue reading ‘Psycho IV: The Beginning’ (1990): Anthony Perkins returns in pay cable sequel‘The Oklahoma City Dolls’ (1981): Skip the Super Bowl. Watch THIS instead!
Okay, now look: if you’re stupid enough to actually watch the Super Bowl this year believing that the fix isn’t in, now that the globalist Uni-Party has paid the curiously asexual PSYOP/singer to “hook up” (rrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiight) with the bone-headed “clot shot” shill, all in service of the eventual President Bumbles endorsement, well…I don’t know what I can tell you. You’re probably beyond reach.
Continue reading ‘The Oklahoma City Dolls’ (1981): Skip the Super Bowl. Watch THIS instead!‘Bonanza’ (Season 2): Popular Western picks up steam, gallops into Top 20
The Cartwrights ride into Season Two!
Continue reading ‘Bonanza’ (Season 2): Popular Western picks up steam, gallops into Top 20‘The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case’ (1976): Anthony Hopkins hams it up in shallow true crime performance
So, wait: Lindbergh willingly sacrificed his kid to Nobel Prize-winning biologist Alexis Carrel in some Abrahamic gesture to provide Carrel a body for eugenics experimentation that went wrong…and then covered it up? That promotion for a new whack-job book conspiracy theory came over my news feed the other day, and sucker though I am for any and all looney conspiracy theories, it immediately reminded me of NBC’s 1976 long, long telemovie, The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case, where the real crime wasn’t the kidnapping, but Anthony Hopkins’ deliciously awful Emmy-winning performance.
Continue reading ‘The Lindbergh Kidnapping Case’ (1976): Anthony Hopkins hams it up in shallow true crime performanceThe Ernie Kovacs Collection: Highly-imitated, TV auteur’s classic moments still hilarious today
When the most talked-about, written-about TV programming these days is a probably-closeted entertainer (rather badly) enacting an utterly phony, NDA-mandated “relationship” with a sports figure so everyone can make more money from the rubes who buy this shit…it’s time to descend into the DVD vaults and pull out something that entertains. That actually matters.
Continue reading The Ernie Kovacs Collection: Highly-imitated, TV auteur’s classic moments still hilarious today‘Mister Ed’ (Season 4): Despite cast changes, sitcom returns to form in funny season
“Bless you, buddy boy; that’s why I love you: you think like a dumb animal.”
Continue reading ‘Mister Ed’ (Season 4): Despite cast changes, sitcom returns to form in funny season‘Bonanza’ (Season 1): Epic Western ropes viewers’ hearts in first of 14 seasons
Bonanza, the single most successful television series of the 1960s (and, at 13 1/2 seasons, second only to Gunsmoke for network TV’s longest-running Western), created and produced by David Dortort and starring Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker, and Michael Landon, has been lovingly and painstakingly restored and remastered for CBS’s and Paramount’s fabulous DVD boxed set, Bonanza: The Official Complete Series. The hefty set—112 discs in four chunky volumes—was executive produced by Andrew J. Klyde, and his results are spectacular: all 431 full-length episodes have been digitally remastered (including the problematic Season 2 transfers previously released) from the original 35mm color film camera negatives, complete with original music…and with a ridiculous amount of incredibly rare, fascinating bonus material included on this set. It’s an astonishing work of television preservation.
Continue reading ‘Bonanza’ (Season 1): Epic Western ropes viewers’ hearts in first of 14 seasons‘Bonanza’ hits DVD – all 431 remastered episodes on 112 discs! Are you ready?
I really do need to remember a seemingly simple yet profound observation from the good doctor, John Dolittle, when he received the unasked-for gift of that fabulous pushmi-pullyu: “How thoughtful of somebody….people are awfully nice.” Such was my immediate response a week or two back when my postman delivered a rather substantial carton containing inside a fabulous treasure: a complimentary Bonanza: The Official Complete Series DVD boxed set!
Continue reading ‘Bonanza’ hits DVD – all 431 remastered episodes on 112 discs! Are you ready?‘Seventh Avenue’ (1977): Third ‘Best Sellers’ miniseries really moves!
Oy vey iz mir did I get myself into something.
Continue reading ‘Seventh Avenue’ (1977): Third ‘Best Sellers’ miniseries really moves!Thanksgiving ’71 on TV: Cricket on the Hearth, Laurel & Hardy, Yogi & Marine Boy – a look back
This holiday TV season, let’s go back…waaaaaaaay back, to a Thanksgiving in a more innocent time, a more gentle time, a kinder time.
Continue reading Thanksgiving ’71 on TV: Cricket on the Hearth, Laurel & Hardy, Yogi & Marine Boy – a look back‘Crawlspace’ (1972): Excellent TV thriller a reminder to not invite strangers into your home
As with any kid—whether it’s your own or some crazed Manson hippie living and crapping in your crawlspace—you eventually just want them gone.
Continue reading ‘Crawlspace’ (1972): Excellent TV thriller a reminder to not invite strangers into your home