DVD has almost caught up with “South Park,”  , the best half-hour comedy on television. The show’s 9th season hits DVD today and its 11th season hits Comedy Central Wednesday.
The ninth season is famous for “Trapped in the Closet,” in which Stan becomes the new leader of Scientology and offers an acting critique that causes Tom Cruise and John Travolta to take refuge in a closet together. But the same season saw Mr. Garrison transformed into Mrs. Garrison, Kyle get a “negroplasty,” Gerald Broflovski transformed into a dolphin, Cartman operate a hippie extermination service, the boys tangle with the Chinese mafia, Kenny save Heaven from the armies of Satan, Cartman lobby to remove the feeding tube that is keeping Kenny alive, Stan Marsh fight other dads at Little League games, the kids convince Cartman that he’s dead, an erect Jimmy mistaken for a pimp, “Talent Shows Are For Fags” performed, Cartman demand that Kyle hand over his “Jew gold,” a cross-dressing Butters infiltrate the girls, Mr. Slave take up with Big Gay Al, Mr. Garrison protest gay marriage, the “ginger”-hating Cartman transformed into a redhead, a whale rocketed to the moon, Stan take issue with Alcoholics Anonymous, and a statue of the Virgin Mary bleeding out of her hinder.
Fun for the whole family!!
Speaking of “South Park”? The great Pam Brady - who co-wrote episodes of “South Park,” the “South Park” movie and “Team America: World Police” – created a highly entertaining but little-seen sitcom for Fox last year titled “The Loop.” Its first season (the second season starts in June) also hits DVD today. So you might want to give it a gander as well.
Fun facts about “Hawaii Five-0,” whose first season streets today:
* Appropriately enough, Hawaii Five-0’s 1968-69 first season held down the “Survivor” timeslot, Thursdays at 8 p.m., where it took on “The Flying Nun” and “Bewitched” on ABC and “Daniel Boone” and “Ironside” on NBC. “Five-0” didn’t last long in that slot, skipping all over CBS’ schedule during its 12-year run.
* “Five-0” was the main claim to fame for creator Leonard Freeman, who used to write for “The Untouchables” and “Route 66.”
*In autumn 1968, when the series premiered, Hawaii had become the 50th U.S. state barely nine years earlier.
* Unlike the Untouchables, the Five-0 state police force never existed. In 1968 Hawaii was the only U.S. state without its own statewide law enforcement agency.
* “Magnum P.I.,” the Hawaii-set CBS show that launched right after “Five-0” left the air - and utilized much of the earlier show’s production crew and equipment – contained dialog referencing the Five-0 agency, thereby setting itself in the same universe.
* The fellow appointed by the Hawaiian governor to head Five-0 was Steve McGarrett, a former Navy officer. McGarrett contended mostly with mobsters and psychos, most memorably a Zodiac-esque Vietnam veteran sniper with hooks for hands, but McGarrett's archrival was Wo Fat (Khign Dheign), a rogue intelligence agent from Red China. Dheign was so good in the role CBS even gave him "Khan," his own private-detective series.
* McGarrett was played by Jack Lord, who was also the first of eight actors to play CIA man Felix Leiter in the James Bond films. (Jeffrey Wright is the most recent Leiter, having played him in last year’s “Casino Royale.”)
* Two years before landing “Five-0,” Lord reportedly came close to landing the role of Jim Kirk in “Star Trek,” but wanted to produce the sci-fi series and own a piece of it as well. Desilu balked.
* The real name of Jack Lord, born 64 years before the publication of “The Hunt For Red October,” was Jack Ryan.
* Until “Law & Order” happened along, “Five-0” was the longest-running cop show in history.
* “Five-0” boasts the greatest title theme in TV history, composed by one Morton Stevens. It’s even better than the title theme for “Clone High,” which is saying something.
The series’ pilot movie, “Cocoon,” is included in the new first-season set, as is a 45-minute retrospective built around James “Danno” MacArthur, the only surviving key cast member.
Be there. Aloha.
So here’s what was going on with “Moonlighting’s” fifth and final season, which arrives on DVD today.
“Moonlighting’s” 14-episode fourth season, which turned out to be all about keeping horny David Addison (Bruce Willis) and pregnant Maddie Hayes (Cybil Shepherd) apart after they finally slept together at the end of season three, concluded March 22, 1998.
On July 15, 1988, Fox released “Die Hard,” forever transforming Willis into a giant movie star.
The final 13-episode season of “Moonlighting” began airing Dec. 6, 1988, almost nine months after season four concluded.
Everyone seemed to understand that ratings were slipping and Willis now had bigger fish to fry, so the series’ infamous “fourth wall” became increasingly disposable. The season opener, co-scripted by series mastermind Glenn Gordon Caron, was about Maddie’s fetus (Willis) conversing with angel, and began with most of the cast welcoming back the audience following the logn hiatus.
In 5.2, Agnes predicts David Addison leaving the show will get it kicked out of prime time and onto cable. In 5.4, Addison defines “impossible” as “22 episodes a season.” In 5.6, David and Maddie argue about how to combat the show’s sagging ratings (Addison's solution is a bold one). In 5.8, Maddie and David are horrified to learn that nobody told Al Jarreau (who sang the title theme) that the show had moved to Sunday nights. In 5.10, Willis wife Demi Moore turns up, and a video-store clerk is spotted tearing down a huge “Die Hard” poster.
Besides Moore, season five guest stars included Virginia Madsen, Rita Wilson, Jennifer Tilly, Ray Wise, Andrew Robinson, Timothy Leary, Tim Thomerson, Grace Zabriskie, and “24’s” Jayne Atkinson.
Pity the wretch who had to seek music clearances for this set. The original episodes included everything from Bryan Ferry and Black Sabbath to War and the Rolling Stones: "Avalon," "Baby Love," "Blue Velvet," "Chapel of Love," "Cisco Kid," "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies," "Downtown," "Dueling Banjos," "The Girl From Ipanema," "Girls, Girls, Girls," "Honky Tonk Woman," "I Only Have Eyes for You," "Iron Man," "I Second That Emotion," "Just My Imagination (Running Away With Me)," "Just the Way You Are," "Little Honda," "(Love Is Like a) Heatwave," "Magic Carpet Ride," "Mickey's Monkey," "My Country 'Tis of Thee," "Sex Machine, Pt. 1," "The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss)," "Shop Around," "Sunny Side of the Street," "Surfin' Bird," "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," "Take Time to Know Her," "That's Amoré," "Theme From Bonanza," "Theme from Jeopardy!" "Theme From The Pink Panther," "Theme from SWAT," "Up, Up and Away," "Volaré," "What a Friend We Have in Jesus," "What a Wonderful World," "Wild Blue Yonder," "Working in a Coal Mine," "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "You Must Have Been a Beautiful Baby."
The season and the series concludes with Addison breaking off a romance with Maddie’s married cousin (two-episode guest star Madsen), the Viola/DiPesto wedding, and the final shuttering of the Blue Moon Detective Agency as staffers wonder aloud what went wrong.
So much was made of Rob Morrow’s exit from “Northern Exposure,” it’s almost shocking to discover that he appeared in nine of the the final season’s episodes, and that only eight episodes of the series were completed subsequent to Dr. Fleishman’s strange final exit.
Discover also that "Aristocrats" mastermind Paul Provenza played Fleishman's replacement, and Teri Polo - who went on to play Ben Stiller’s wife in the Fockers movies and Jimmy Smits’ wife on “The West Wing” - plays the new doctor's wife.
As with all the “Exposure” DVD sets, we get loads of deleted scenes. There are more than 30 minutes worth this time around - including one from “The Quest” in which uberhot Maggie O'Connell reveals to the other Brick regulars the circumstances of Fleishman’s ultimate departure.
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