|
Published on Tuesday, February 28, 2006 - 4:09am |
|
NEWSRADIO 3.x!! Herc's Super-Exciting Season-Box DVD Vault!!
If I had a nickel for every email that asked when the next "NewsRadio" was coming out on DVD, I’d be the proud owner of a great many nickels. And for good reason: This long-dead series is far funnier than any “three-camera” sitcom in production.
“Newsradio” was masterminded from beginning to end by Paul Simms, who came out of two of the other all-time great TV-comedy franchises, NBC’s “Late Night With David Letterman” and HBO’s “The Larry Sanders Show.” Simms’ key writers on “NewsRadio included fellow “Late Night” vet Joe Furey and “Saturday Night Live” alumnus Lewis Morton, who went on to “Futurama” and “Undeclared.”
The series launched in 1995, and appears to have been modeled on NBC’s just-departed megahit “Cheers,” with its central on-and-off workplace romance. Simms created the show with the intention of casting Dave Foley as the romantic lead, Phil Hartman as the mean guy and Andy Dick as the stupid guy. A dreamy 30-year-old Maura Tierney (the 40-year-old version now gets top-billing over at “ER”) plays Foley’s romantic interest.
My favorite supporting character is arguably the series’ most original: wily, eccentric and lovelorn multimillionaire WNYX station owner Jimmy James, on whose whims the other characters’ lives seemed to hinge. James was assayed by the great Stephen Root, who went on to covet a stapler in “Office Space” and launch the recording career of the Soggy-Bottom Boys in “O Brother Where Art Thou,” (among many, many other things).
The the third-season DVD set appeals to one’s love of a deal. Twenty-five episodes at $27.99 comes to about $1.12 per installment. The set includes featurettes, a making-of doc, a blooper reel, and commentaries on 10 of the episodes.
Herc’s Popular Pricing Pantry
Short and sweet! The TV-on-DVD reduction of the week is the first season of “The Sopranos,” which was $74.99 a week ago (and has sold for north of $80 in the recent past) and – at least for the moment – is all the way down to $45.96. One can only assume this has something to do with the show’s season premiere on HBO in less than two weeks …
TV-on-DVD Calendar
Selected season-sets of Herc’s All-Time Favorite TV Shows on DVD! Behold the comparative value:
| |
