Hi, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab...

Okay... it’s time for a contest. And it’s a good contest because it’s a really, really fucking good prize. You win this one, you’ll get a copy of FREAKS & GEEKS: THE COMPLETE SERIES on DVD. And that, believe me, is a very good thing. I’ve just started digging into the box, and I’d already forgotten just how great this cast is, and just how wonderful the writing was, week in and week out. This should have been a monster hit, and instead, it’s now a single box that encompasses the entire run of the show.

If you’ve never seen it, suffice it to say that TV has produced no finer look at the kids on the fringe of high school, the outsiders, the ones who didn’t feel like they fit. Judd Apatow and Paul Feig deserve credit for all the amazing, brave choices they made in getting the show on the air. Feig created it, writing a spec script that became the highly-touted pilot episode, seen here in the director’s cut for the first time, with a great new Kim scene put back in. The discs are packed with extras. There’s at least one commentary on every episode, and many of them have two commentaries. One, for example, features several of the actors who played teachers watching the episode in character and commenting on the rest of the cast. Key cast members are brought in together as groups, like all the parents. Fans are put together with specific members of the cast. There are deleted scenes on almost every episode. And best of all, they managed to clear the legal rights to all the original music from the series so that it could all be included. The soundtrack is a big part of what made this show so great. Van Halen, Styx, Deep Purple, Janis Joplin, Kiss, Cheap Trick, Steve Martin’s “King Tut,” Madness, Kansas, XTC, ELP, BTO, Supertramp, Skynyrd, Boston, Rush, Black Flag, X, Warren Zevon, and a whole hell of a lot of The Who all ground this show in a specific time and place to wonderful effect. It’s also funnier that most “comedies” that are on the air right now.

So you want to win a copy? All you have to do is show my your high school yearbook photo. And we’ll be publishing these, so you need to send me an e-mail stating that the picture attached is actually a picture of you, and you’re giving me the right to publish the winning entries here on AICN. I’m looking for funny pictures, dazzling pictures, John Merrick-style tragic pictures, or whatever you think is going to make an impression. Only four of you will win, and you’ve only got until Monday morning at 9:00 AM PST to enter.

I can’t wait to see them, and I can’t wait for the winners to see this box set. It’s worth the dented dignity that’ll come when I get to caption the winning entries. Bwahahahahaha...