Friday, August 26, 2005

DVDs You May Want

Well, the first one's easy: The third volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection comes out in late October but can be ordered now. It contains sixty more classic Warner Brothers cartoons...and I figure they can do at least five more of these collections until they have to start dipping into the ones that were unworthy of the studio's rep. The set also contains a bunch of documentaries, audio commentaries and oddments, including a TV pilot called Philbert that the studio did in 1963 combining animation with a live-action sitcom. If you have the slightest interest in WB cartoons, you're reaching this very second to click on this link to order.

Warner Home Video has brought out a "sampler" DVD containing six episodes of Welcome Back, Kotter, a TV series I wrote for in what seems like another life. As I understand it, the DVD was assembled as a special item for Best Buy but it can also be ordered, as can everything else on this planet, from Amazon. If you want to do so, click here, though I don't necessarily recommend it. If you liked Kotter, you'll want to wait for the inevitable "complete" collection...and no, no one there has said there'll be one yet but look at everything else they're bringing out. They're probably waiting until John Travolta has another hot movie. Moreover, the six episodes they chose are odd selections — two from the first season, two from the second, two from the third and none from the fourth. (One of the second season episodes, and the only episode on the set that I worked on, is from a series of episodes about the pregnancy of Mrs. Kotter. The other ones in that storyline are not included.) Still, if you love the show and can't wait until it's back in the TV Land rotation, be my guest.

Lastly, Rhino is putting out complete sets of most of the Sid & Marty Krofft shows of the sixties and seventies, but they also have samplers like Saturday Morning, which contains the pilot episodes to H.R. Pufnstuf, Lidsville, The Bugaloos, Land of the Lost, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, The Lost Saucer and Far Out Space Nuts. Again, I would think a true fan of the material would skip this and go for the sets, several of which are already out or announced. But if you want it, don't let me stop you. Click away. At least, you won't have to worry about purchasing something I wrote. I did a lot for the Kroffts but I worked on none of these shows since they all starred people who could speak English.

• Posted at 4:19 PM · LINK

Fawlty Offer

Here's a test to see if you're a real fan of Monty Python. Will you take advantage of this opportunity?

• Posted at 9:29 AM · LINK

Today's Blondie Crossover

It's in Shoe.

• Posted at 8:39 AM · LINK

Mel Welles, R.I.P.

Mel Welles, who created the role of florist Gravis Mushnik in the 1960 cinema classic, The Little Shop of Horrors, has died at the age of 81. Mr. Welles worked both in front of and behind the camera in dozens of movies and TV shows but the one people always asked him about was the quirky black comedy directed by Roger Corman in, depending on which account one believes, two or three days. (My understanding is it was two full days plus about ten hours of night shooting.) This was the original version which served later as the basis of the musical comedy. (Interestingly, Welles played the role of Mushnik in a few local productions of the musical not long ago.)

I suppose everyone reading this has seen Little Shop of Horrors but there was a time back in the late sixties when it was the private "find" of a select group of us. It ran often on local television, often in the wee, small hours of the morn, and sounded so unappetizing in TV Guide that few tuned in. But some of us had seen it, come to love it and incorporated select lines of dialogue into our vocabularies. Later, as Jack Nicholson became a bigger star, the film got more attention due to his small, weird role in it. I believe it was one of the first movies released on home video that anyone had ever heard of...and it was about then that its cast members, including Mel Welles, began being hailed for being part of film history.

More can be learned about the career of Mr. Welles over at his website. [BEWARE: Loud, annoying music on the opening screen.] I think it's kinda neat that people are often survived by their websites. Buddy Hackett's is still up, happily proclaiming — as it did before he left us — that Buddy is retired and taking a nap. And at Rodney Dangerfield's site, you can still e-mail him. Maybe we should all bombard him with insults. I think Rodney would appreciate being heckled in the afterlife.