<font color=blue>BLUE HARVEST!! INDY JONES!! <br>ROCKFORD!! CHEERS!! EXTRAS!! <br><I>Herc’s Season-Box DVD Vault!!</I></font>

I am – Hercules!!

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<font color=red>BANACEK!! DROOPY!! ROCKFORD!! TICK!! LSH!! SAMURAI JACK!! M*A*S*H!! MUPPET SHOW!! <I>HercVault!!</I></font>

"There's an old Polish proverb that says, 'It's harder for the spider to catch the fly, than for the fly to catch the horse.'"


I am – Hercules!!

I’m also a big fan of the show’s supporting cast, which featured 23-year-old Christine Belford as the superhot rival investigator Banacek often bedded and always outwitted, and Murray Matheson as Felix Mulholland, a rare-book dealer who could be relied upon to know the few things Banacek did not.

First-season guest-stars included a 24-year-old Margot Kidder as well as Khan associate Madlyn Rhue, Jessica Walter, Stefanie Powers, Stella Stevens, Broderick Crawford, Paul Gleason, Roger C. Carmel, Kevin McCarthy, Brenda Vaccaro, Pernell Roberts, Gregory Sierra, Penny Marshall, Mike Farrell, William Schallert and Ted “You Rang?” Cassidy.

These originally ran from 1972 to 1974 as components of NBC’s Wednesday Mystery Movie wheel, so there are only eight TV-movies in each season. One hears this set (very disappointingly) does NOT contain “Detour To Nowhere,” the show’s pilot. And seemingly no extras. On the upside, $22.49 is a pretty sweet price for eight movies.

The season premiere, written and directed by series mastermind Stephen Cannell, introduced James Whitmore Jr. as nerd P.I. Freddie Beamer, who assumes the vacationing Rockford’s identity. Cannell wrote 4.14, “The Attractive Nuisance,” about a guy who falls off Rockford’s roof then sues. He also wrote the two-part 4th-season finale, “The House of Willis Avenue,” which served as the second pilot for the “Ritchie Brockelman PI” series co-created by Cannell and “Hill Street Blues”/”L.A. Law” mastermind Stephen Bochco. (Despite the talent behind camera, the series – starring future Adam Sandler collaborator Dennis Dugan – only lasted six episodes.)

“Sopranos” creator David Chase kicks in the scripts for:
4.5, “Dog and Pony Show,” about an ex-mental patient who thinks a top government spy is being held in a hospital against his will;
4.7, “Quickie Nirvana,” about a hippie who receives thousands from her corrupt employer;
4.8, “Irving The Explainer,” directed by James Coburn, about Frenchmen and Germans who come to Los Angeles in pursuit of a priceless painting; and
4.12, “The Queen of Peru,” about tourists who make off with the stolen diamond hidden in Rockford’s barbeque grill.

Cannell and Chase co-wrote two episodes:
4.17, “Dwarf in a Helium Hat,” about a gangster who sets off a perilous series of events when he dials Rockford’s phone number by mistake.
4.20, “The Prisoner of Rosemont Hall,” about an investigation of an Arab prince that turns deadly.

Isaac Hayes returns in 4.4 for his third and final appearance as Rockford’s irritable ex-cellmate Gandolph Finch. Gerald McRaney turns up as district attorney in 4.10, “Hotel of Fear,” about cowardly con man Angel Martin going into the Witness Protection Program. Larry Hagman’s in 4.11, “Forced Retirement,” about an undersea shenanigans involving a friend of Jim’s fabulous lawyer, Beth Davenport. Larry Linville stars in 4.13, “A Deadly Maze,” about Rockford becoming the unwitting subject of a behavior experiment. Finally, in 4.16, “The Paper Palace,” Rita Moreno won an Emmy for her first of three appearance as the oft-victimized Rita Capkovic.

Must-have TV, I say.

The shorts follow the adventures of a lethargic, seemingly timid but improbably mighty basset hound who never exhibits any outward emotion. (He was voiced by Bill Thompson, who played a very similar character, Wallace Wimple, on the phenomenally popular NBC radio proto-sitcom “Fibber McGee and Molly.”)

Avery was a colossal, industry-altering force between 1935 and 1941 at Warner’s animation unit, where he played a leading role in evolving Bugs, Daffy and Porky’s personalities. He quit in a huff, balking at studio interference, and landed at MGM, which provided Avery bigger budgets and, more importantly, greater creative control.

Droopy is the most famous and perhaps the most purely entertaining of Avery’s signature MGM characters, and helped demonstrate what the animator could do with fewer constraints. It is very very cool that we can own every “Droopy” cartoon Avery ever made (plus a “Droopy” documentary) for less than $20.

The real reason fans are shelling out $20.99 is the set’s second and thirds discs, which contain the many, many extras found on the $174.49 complete-series “Martinis and Medicine” collection issued last year.

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<font color=red>SECRET AGENT!! ROCKFORD!! M:I!!! OC!! SCRUBS!! KOTTER!!<I> <br>Herc’s Season-Box DVD Vault!!</I></font>

I am – Hercules!!

A bit of Emmy history:

“Rockford” didn’t get nominated for an Emmy its second season. Outstanding drama series nominees in 1976 were “Baretta,” “Columbo,” “Police Story” and “The Streets of San Francisco.” “Police Story” won.

“Rockford” didn’t get nominated for the outstanding drama Emmy its third season, steeting today. 1977 Nominees were “Baretta,” “Columbo,” “Family,” “Police Story” and “Upstairs Downstairs.” “Upstairs Downstairs” won. (When it came to Emmys, PBS was apparently the HBO of the pre-cable era, and “Upstairs Downstairs” its “Sopranos”).

The following year, 1978, “Rockford” would not only get its long overdue Emmy nomination for best drama series, it would grab a surprise win, beating out “Columbo,” “Family,” and “Lou Grant.” And “Rockford’s” nominations in this category would continue until it left the air in 1980.

But the third season was the first to garner (no pun intended) the series’ first Emmy in any category: James Garner for best actor in a drama series.

End of Emmy history.

The Emmys can be slow to acknowledge greatness, too often favoring familiar veterans over innovative newcomers. And Jim Rockford, beloved for his pragmatic nature, chronic misfortune and understated quips, was not a typical TV hero of the era.

But he was the brainchild of two huge talents. Roy Huggins (1914-2002), having created "Maverick" in 1957 and "The Fugitive" in 1963, had already spent decades as a TV legend by the time he reteamed with Garner in 1974. Having crafted stories for "Rockford" under the pseudonym "John Thomas James," Huggins was newly partnered with 33-year-old Cannell, a veteran of Jack Webb's prolific Mark VII operation. "Rockford" was the first in a long, diverse string of hit crime dramas Cannell would create, a string that would include "The Greatest American Hero," "Ten-Speed and Brownshoe," "The A-Team," "The Commish," "21 Jump Street" and "Wiseguy."

“Rockford,” I’ve been reflecting lately, shares a lot of the same qualities evidenced by “Veronica Mars”: an emphasis on characterization and comedy, brainy but beleaguered private eyes, undertones of social commentary, and a large cast of entertaining recurring players.

The third season gratifyingly returns cowardly con-man Evelyn “Angel” Martin (Stuart Margolin, who won two Emmys for the role) and Rockford’s fabulous lawyer-babe (and sometime girlfriend?) Beth Davenport (the fabulous Gretchen Corbett). Rockford’s friendship with police sergeant Dennis Becker continued to solidify, but season three saw Rockford’s chief police nemesis changed from Lt. Diehl (Tom Atkins) to Lt. Chapman (James Luisi). Season three guest stars included a 30-year-old pre-“Cagney” Sharon Gless (who looked a little like Busy Phillips in those days), Robert Walden, Robert Loggia, William Daniels, Gerald McRaney, Ned Beatty, Ron Rifkin, Steve Landesberg, Jack Riley, Cleavon Little, Louis Gossett Jr., Isaac Hayes, Charles Napier, and future Hill Street regulars Veronica Hamel, James B. Sikkng, Jon Cypher and George Wyner.

Regular writers on season three included Cannell (the hilarious Steve Landesberg-Jack Riley episode “There’s One In Every Port” and the equally hilarious Louis Gossett-Isaac Hayes episode “Just Another Polish Wedding”) and “Sopranos” creator David Chase (the two-parter “To Protect and Serve”).

While a $170 “Secret Agent AKA Danger Man” megaset has been available since 2003, the new Secret Agent AKA Danger Man Complete Collection Megaset 2007, arrives this week with a retail price of only $99.99. Not only is the new set way cheaper, it also contains the 39 season-one episodes the earlier set does not, so you get 86 episodes in all.

Britain’s "Danger Man" spy series has one of the most convoluted histories in TV. Season one consisted of 33 half-hours broadcast in the United Kingdom between September 1960 and June 1961, and six more straggling along between December 1961 and January 1962. Several of these episodes were broadcast on CBS. Season one’s John Drake (Patrick McGoohan) was an Irish-American operative of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The first season was titled “Danger Man” on both sides of the Atlantic.

In the show's second season, which didn’t happen along until October 1964, Drake suddenly grew an English accent (McGoohan himself was raised in Ireland and England), and worked for the fictional British intelligence agency M9. The show also switched at the start of season two to hourlong episodes. CBS, which did poorly with the first season of “Danger Man,” retitled the second season “Secret Agent” and added the famously infectious Johnny Rivers rockabilly classic “Secret Agent Man” (sort of combining both titles) to a new title sequence.

Seasons two (1964-1965) and three (1965-1966) consisted of 22 and 23 hourlong episodes, respectively.

Season four, the first shot in color, only lasted two episodes, and didn’t see air until January 1968.

Just as “The Prisoner’s” Number Six abruptly quit his agency, so did McGoohan abruptly quit "Danger Man" to create and star in "The Prisoner."

"Danger Man" apparently grew so popular in the United Kingdom that producer Lew Grade gave McGoohan complete creative control over “The Prisoner,” which was in 1967 the most expensive British TV series of all time.

(Note that the two season-four episodes of “Danger Man” were finally broadcast only just as the last few “Prisoner” episodes were airing.)

McGoohan has persistently denied that the unnamed “Prisoner” protagonist is actually John Drake, but these denials may have been issued only because McGoohan did not control the rights to the Drake character, and remains keen to avoid an expensive lawsuit.

The first season of “Danger Man,” spread over the new set’s first five discs, follows the original broadcast order; the second and third seasons discs on the 13 other discs, for reasons unexplained, do not.

All of the episodes on the new set are the British versions, with the jazzy “Danger Man” title credits. The American “Secret Agent” opening is conveniently available as an extra on each of the latter 13 discs.

Watching the American Drake beside the British Drake offers a fascinating glimpse into McGoohan’s early artistic evolution. (And it was early: the first-season credits read “Introducing Patrick McGoohan.”) American Drake is crafty and charismatic, but also terse and functional. British Drake, by contrast, embodies disdainful wit – he’s all about smirks, sly glances and irony-underscoring pauses. During the long hiatus, McGoohan – an Orson Welles protégé during the 1950s - did more than stop biting down on his “r”s; he created an entirely new spy. I’d argue that British Drake had a good deal less to do with American Drake than British Drake had to do with Number Six.

To put it another way, when season-one Drake speaks, we’re watching McGoohan playing a part with which most of us are unfamiliar - but when season-two Drake speaks, we feel like we’re watching the character from “The Prisoner.”

Herc’s Popular Pricing Pantry

II. Lions Gate’s $16 Sale continues:
$15.97 ALF: Season One
$14.97 ALF: Season Two
$15.97 ALF: Season Three
$16.47 ALF: Season Four
$15.97 Boomtown Season One
$14.97 Buffalo Bill: Seasons One and Two
$15.97 Dead Zone: Season One
$15.97 Dead Zone: Season Two
$14.97 Dead Zone: Season Three
$15.97 Dead Zone: Season Four
$14.97 Moonlighting: Seasons One and Two
$16.47 Moonlighting: Season Three
$15.97 Moonlighting: Season Four
$15.97 Saved by the Bell: Seasons One and Two
$16.47 Saved by the Bell: Seasons Three and Four
$15.97 Saved by the Bell: Seasons Five
$15.47 Weeds: Season One
$15.97 Wildfire: Season One
$15.97 Will & Grace: Season One
$15.97 Will & Grace: Season Two
$15.97 Will & Grace: Season Three
$15.97 Will & Grace: Season Four

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<font color=red>Hey Now!! LARRY SANDERS!! WKRP!! ROCKFORD FILES!! <br><I>Herc’s Season-Box DVD Vault!!</I></font color>

ARTIE: You finally got to do a sketch with the great Carol Burnett!
LARRY: It wasn't a sketch. It was a massive spastic fuck-up.
ARTIE: Tomayto, tomahto!

I am – Hercules!!

Good news and horrifying rumors this week regarding “The Larry Sanders Show,” the best live-action American sitcom of all time.

The horrifying rumors are Sony Pictures cannot lock up rights to the highly-integrated music featured in loads of “Sanders” episodes - and we may never see another season-box of the series.

The considerable consolation is Sony just formally announced the April 17 release of Not Just the Best Of The Larry Sanders Show, which for just $32.49 boasts 23 of the show’s 89 episodes and a vast array of alluring extras.

It’s not a season set, but there’s no way to keep us comedy nerds away from it.

The 23 episodes are:
1.1 What Have You Done for Me Lately?
1.3 The Spider Episode
1.13 The Hey Now Episode
2.3 The List
2.6 The Hankerciser 200
2.7 Life Behind Larry
3.6 Hank's Night in the Sun
3.7 Office Romance
3.8 The Mr. Sharon Stone Show
3.13 Hank's Divorce
4.7 Hank's Sex Tape
4.11 I Was a Teenage Lesbian
5.1 Everybody Loves Larry
5.2 My Name Is Asher Kingsley
5.4 Ellen, or Isn't She?
5.13 Larry's New Love
6.1 Another List
6.2 The Beginning of the End
6.4 Pilots and Pens Lost
6.5 The Interview
6.6 Adolph Hankler
6.10 Putting the “Gay” Back in Litigation
6.11 Flip (series finale)

DVD Special Features Include:

* Documentary: The Making of The Larry Sanders Show
* Featurette: Trio

* Exclusive Interviews: Personal, Intimate, Indulgent Meetings With My Friends That Are Meant Only for Me to See - Interviews with:
Alec Baldwin
Ellen DeGeneres
David Duchovny
Tom Petty
Jerry Seinfeld
Sharon Stone
Jon Stewart
Carol Burnett

* Featurette: Interview with Penny Johnson
* Featurette: Interview with Wallace Langham
* Featurette: Interview with Scott Thompson
* Featurette: Interview with Janeane Garofalo
* Featurette: Interview with Mary Lynn Rajskub
* Featurette: Interview with Sarah Silverman
* Featurette: Interview with Jeremy Piven
* Featurette: Interview with Bob Odenkirk
* Featurette: Interview with Linda Doucett

* Deleted and Extended Scenes
* Alternate Takes
* Audio Commentary and Documentary Introduction on What Have You Done for Me Lately with Garry Shandling and Peter Tolan
* Audio Commentary and Documentary Introduction on Hank’s Night in the Sun with Garry Shandling and Todd Holland
* Audio Commentary and Documentary Introduction on Putting the “Gay” Back in Litigation with Garry Shandling and Judd Apatow
* Audio Commentary on Flip with Garry Shandling and Peter Tolan
* Digitally Remastered Audio and Video
* Full Screen Presentations
* Audio: English (Dolby Surround)
* Subtitles: Spanish
* Closed Captioned

From Sony’s press release:

With More Than 8 Hours of Newly-Produced Material Including Garry Shandling in Personal and Intimate Meetings With Stars Like Alec Baldwin, Tom Petty, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, and More, This DVD is...

NOT JUST THE BEST OF THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW

The DVD Set Also Includes 23 Classic Episodes of the Emmy Award-Winning TV Program, the Documentary - "The Making of The Larry Sanders Show" - and Features Guest Appearances by Jason Alexander, Warren Beatty, Jim Carrey, Ellen DeGeneres, Sean Penn, Vince Vaughn and More

The Four-Disc DVD Collection Debuts on April 17

Culver City, Ca (February 5, 2007) - Forget about the 23 featured episodes of the Emmy Award-winning "The Larry Sanders Show" (it received a whopping 56 Emmy nominations during its run on HBO). NOT JUST THE BEST OF THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW contains more than eight hours of newly produced material that makes this not just your usual DVD - not even close! The four-disc DVD boxed set debuts on DVD on April 17 at the suggested retail price of $49.95. This innovative, provocative and hugely entertaining release includes personal, intimate, indulgent visits meant until now for only Garry Shandling to see - raw, real-life situations between Shandling and stars who appear in the featured episodes - including Alec Baldwin, Tom Petty, Jerry Seinfeld, Jon Stewart, Sharon Stone and many others. These unrehearsed visits surpass even the Larry Sanders reality, as they once again explore the core ingredients of the ground-breaking program - unexpected human behavior, truth and humor.

The DVD includes the documentary, The Making of The Larry Sanders Show, which reveals an in-depth and surprising look at the process of turning a script into a show that was ahead of its time. The Los Angeles Times selected Garry Shandling’s series as one of ten TV programs that had “inarguable influence” on the industry and this DVD is a celebration of the series’ unique place in entertainment lore. NOT JUST THE BEST OF THE LARRY SANDERS SHOW also features guest appearances on the featured episodes by a wide slate of stars which includes Jim Carrey, Vince Vaughn, Warren Beatty, Sean Penn, Ellen DeGeneres, Jason Alexander, Carol Burnett and Winona Ryder. The featurette "Rip Torn and Jeffrey Tambor Visit Garry Shandling in His Living Room" is a reunion of Shandling, Torn and Tambor discussing working together on the show. Also included are interview featurettes with cast members Penny Johnson, Wallace Langham, Scott Thompson, Janeane Garofalo, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Sarah Silverman, Jeremy Piven, Bob Odenkirk, and Linda Doucett.

The Larry Sanders Show debuted on HBO August 1, 1992, and was ahead of its time, becoming an immediate critical and audience hit for its satirical, tongue-in-cheek look at Hollywood. The series that combined documentary-like camerawork with a clever blend of fact and fiction set the standard of quality for HBO and influenced the development of shows like Sex and the City, Six Feet Under, The Sopranos, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and The Office. Over the course of its six-year, 89-episode run, the series was nominated for 56 Emmy Awards [winning three: Outstanding Writing (Shandling & Peter Tolan); Outstanding Directing (Todd Holland); Outstanding Supporting Actor (Rip Torn)]. The show also won three Golden Globe nominations, two Peabody Awards, and five CableACE Awards for Best Comedy Series.

Out This Week:

Between 1978 and 1981, Jamie Lee Curtis cranked out “Halloween,” “The Fog,” “Terror Train,” “Prom Night,” and “Halloween II.”

Her next film, the 1983 blockbuster “Trading Places,” rescued her from the horror ghetto, but she followed “Trading” with a five-year streak of movies nobody saw: “Love Letters,” “Grandview USA,” “Perfect,” “Amazing Grace and Chuck,” “A Man in Love” and “Dominick and Eugene.”

“A Fish Called Wanda” swam along in 1988 and garnered more than $62 million in domestic boxoffice, and suddenly Curtis was all hot again. Unwilling to squander her new momentum, she jumped at this point that into “Anything But Love,” which teamed her with riotously funny stand-up comic Richard Lewis, who was making a name for himself via Letterman guest-shots at the time. Lewis is the reason I watched the show; I was intrigued that ABC would build a sitcom around a comic as dark and disturbed as he.

The show, though, was highly sitcommy stuff about a woman named Hannah Miller who just dumped her boyfriend and was relocating home to Chicago to pursue a career as a writer. En route, she meets the Lewis character, Marty Gold, who just happens to be a Chicago Monthly writer and knows of a research position at the magazine. She lands the job, and the two leads spend a good segment of this post-“Moonlighting” series resisting their mutual attraction.

Season one, launched March 1989, lasted six episodes and was apparently overseen by writers Dennis Koening (“M*A*S*H,” “Barney Miller”) and Wendy Kout (“Mork & Mindy”).

When the show came back the following fall for its 22-episode second season, Koenig and Kout were gone, as was a lot of the magazine’s staff. Peter Noah (“One Day at a Time,” “Alice,” “The West Wing”) was now writing the show. Chicago Monthly abruptly became Chicago Weekly, with a new owner, new writers (including a newly promoted Hannah) and a new editor played by Ann Magnuson.

By far the most vivid memory I have of the series is the guest appearance in 2.2 of 22-year-old Tia Carrere (“Wayne’s World”) as Marty Gold’s visiting teen Thailandese foster daughter Cey, who liked to cavort about Marty’s apartment in undersized tops and short shorts, sitting in laps and giving Marty and a good sampling of the ABC viewership inappropriately robust bonage.

“Anything” lasted four seasons, wrapping up just in time for Curtis to make 1994’s “True Lies” with James Cameron and Arnold Schwarzenegger, thereby setting the stage for her to play Lindsay Lohan in “Freaky Friday.”

Herc’s Popular Pricing Pantry

$29.97 Dark Angel Season Two
$29.97 Poltergeist Season One
$29.97 The Shield Season One
$29.97 The Shield Season Two
$29.97 The Shield Season Three
$29.97 The Shield Season Four
$29.97 Stargate Atlantis Season One
$29.97 Tru Calling Season One

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