So much TV, so little time. Even during the summer — when broadcast TV slows down and leaves mostly cable and satellite TV series, and now Netflix, to watch and review — the TV shows on DVD keep coming. And summertime is the perfect time to dive into some of them.
A great one, for starters, is a 21-disc Shout! Factory set called The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis: The Complete Series. It's got lots of bonus features, but the core is the entire run of episodes from the CBS sitcom, which ran from 1959 to 1963, about a clean-cut, love-struck young man named Dobie, played by Dwayne Hickman. His best friend and sidekick, Maynard G. Krebs, was prime-time TV's idea of a beatnik: He wore ratty sweatshirts, listened to Dizzy Gillespie and was played by Bob Denver, long before Gilligan's Island.
But the show's joys come from the entire cast, especially, in the early episodes, two astoundingly shallow classmates in Dobie's high school English class, both played by future movie stars. One is a money-obsessed beauty named Thalia Menninger, played by the stunning Tuesday Weld; the other is a wealthy preppie named Milton Armitage, played by none other than a very young Warren Beatty.
Dobie Gillis,the TV series, is the first in a straight line of teen comedies from the teen point of view — a line that also goes right through Gidgetall the way to The Wonder Years.It's a comedy that holds up well and features plenty of familiar guest stars.
The Time Life set of China Beach: The Complete Seriesholds up well, too. This series, on ABC from 1988 to 1992, was a drama about an Army hospital and recreation and rehab center in Vietnam. It starred Dana Delany as a dedicated nurse and Marg Helgenberger as a pragmatic prostitute. As a TV drama series, it did for Vietnam what the sitcom M.A.S.H. had done for the Korean War. But way back in the '80s, China Beachwas also doing the kind of dark and meaningful stories, and presenting the sort of complicated characters, that today's best TV dramas get credit for showing. And this box set didn't skimp on paying for the music rights: The original '60s songs in China Beachare preserved in this box set, which is a crucial part of the mix. And these episodes still tug at your heart — a lot. It's a great set, and a wonderful show.
On the much lighter side is Acorn Media's Dirk Gently,a four-episode BBC comedy series from 2010 and 2012. It stars Stephen Mangan, of the delightful Showtime series Episodes,and it's based on the metaphysical mystery novels by Douglas Adams, author of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy stories, so I don't have to say much more about that one. If you've seen Episodes,you'll want to see this. And if you're a Douglas Adams fan, you have to. Dirk Gently has never been televised in the U.S., so you can give yourself an exclusive treat, watching him solve crimes with the most unusual methods since Dale Cooper on Twin Peaks .
Last, but to me certainly not least, is Shout! Factory's The Jack Benny Program: The Lost Episodes.These are episodes that, partly because they originally were preserved on kinescope rather than film, were not included in standard home video and TV syndication packages, so most of them haven't been available in more than 50 years. And for older TV viewers especially, these are a blast to watch precisely because they areso unfamiliar. You get a 1956 episode where Jack Benny plays violin while Spike Jones leads the orchestra; a 1960 episode where Benny rehearses a dramatic TV scene with Robert Wagner and Natalie Wood; and a 1959 episode in which Benny visits former President Harry Truman.
And here's perhaps my favorite moment from this entire three-disc DVD set, from 1958, when movie star Gary Cooper shows up to promote his new movie. As a bonus, Cooper brings out Benny's regularly featured singing quartet at the time, The Sportsmen, to join him on a version of an Everly Brothers song that was a No. 1 country hit at the time. As Benny looks on in disbelief, there's an intentionally stiff-looking Cooper, pretending to strum a guitar, trading vocals with the Sportsmen on "Bird Dog." They don't make TV like that any more.
Actually, they do. What Cooper did on The Jack Benny Programin 1958 ,somebody like Robert De Niro or Christopher Walken could do on Saturday Night Livetoday. Funny is funny, and whether TV was made in the '50s or '80s or just a few years ago, good is good.
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