Review(s): DVD My Favorite Martian - The Complete First Season
TIM AND HIS UNCLE MARTIN
MY FAVORITE MARTIAN is probably not in your list of the top ten sitcoms of the sixties.Upon watching the 37 episodes of this first year,i must say that it comes close in my list.It is not the special effects that makes the show,but the chemistry between BILL BIXBY and RAY WALSTON.Perhaps because i watched too many episodes at once,i prefer the early ones to the last ones.Among the guest stars are BERNIE KOPPELL,MARLO THOMAS,TOM SKERRITT and ALAN HALE.It seems to me that the novelty of the show wears out near the end of season1.Nevertheless,i must say that i liked many episodes like HOW TO BE A HERO WITHOUT REALLY TRYING and MY NEPHEW,THE ARTIST to name only two.Should you buy this set?Yes,but only if you like chocolate brownies...
Rhino gets it and let's hope it's catching
Rhino did a great job with this black and white 1963 show. (The third season was in color). It's on two two-sided discs and one one- sided disc in a single width DVD package. Given deluxe packaging like Futurama and The Simpsons, it could have been five one-sided discs in a slipcase. But no one thinks retro TV will sell, so it's packaged less expensively to appeal to a lower market niche. That's why shows like Burns and Allen, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Petticoat Junction are hard to find except in budget, no-frills versions, often without the original themes (since the DVD manufacturer didn't license them).
Enter Rhino, one of the few companies with any sense of how to make good DVDs and with any interest in black and white TV. Rhino gets what TV execs don't: we really aren't watching their highly- rated new shows. We really don't care about the Nielsen ratings. Many of us don't have cable, and we really are buying these retro DVDs. And we do want deluxe packaging and well-done transfers. Thanks to Rhino for preserving TV history. They even have the pilot, which got this show off to a good start. However, it immediately sinks to same old sitcom fare, only slowly beginning to develop the show from the characters, and only later hit its stride. But this was arguably the first fantasy sitcom (Unless you count Topper), preceding Jeanie and Bewitched. Like so much of the memorable TV of the time, it was filmed at Desilu Studios, produced by Sheldon Leonard and bankrolled by Danny Thomas and Andy Griffith.
Sitcoms then were not the anything for a laugh shows they later became, and the shows writers ponder profound questions and dabble in drama. Tim and his alien uncle wrestle with the problems of the day, offer the occasional insight, and rebound with unsinkable optimism. Pamela Britton is outstanding as supporting actress, with far better chemistry than the "crackpot neighbor" foils for Bewitched. Early on Bill Bixby and Ray Walston are both stiff and awkward, and we are very much aware that they are acting, but as they settle into their roles, an easy camaraderie develops. Everywhere abounding with joy and good humor, this buoyant show echoes the underlying theme of early '60s sitcoms, in the title of an earlier show by Fulton Sheen, that "life is worth living."
A True Classic...
My Favorite Martian Is Classic '60's Fun, As With "Bewitched", "I Dream Of Jeanie", "The Munsters" & "The Addams Family" All Had Good Writting & Great Casts!!! I Watched These Shows After School And I Enjoy Them Now As Much As I Did Then!!! Can't Wait To Get Season Two!!!!
Related DVD's My Favorite Martian - The Complete First Season
My Favorite Martian is a great show, but this is one cheap DVD release! The episodes are edited and the package is cheap!
By the way, Amazon, it's not My Favorite Martian:Complete Second, it's My Favorite Martian - The Complete Second Season! TITLE IT PROPERLY!!!
Amazon also incorrectly said it was in Color, it is not, it is in Black & White! GET IT TOGETHER AMAZON! More Info about this DVD DVD Release Date: Released the 10 May 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $39.95 Your Price: $35.96YOU SAVE $3.99!
Buy it
My stars! The first, and perhaps most magical, season of Bewitched still casts an enchanting spell. For escapist fantasy, this series, no doubt inspired by the play Bell, Book and Candle, broke significant television ground. The Stephens were sitcoms' first mixed marriage. Advertising executive Darrin Stephens (Dick York) was mortal, and wife Samantha (Elizabeth Montgomery) was a witch. According to a retrospective segment included on this four-disc set, the Stephenses were also the first couple to sleep in one bed! And Samantha's mother, Endora (the venerable Agnes Morehead), and father, Maurice (Maurice Evans, most popularly known as Dr. Zaius in the original Planet of the Apes, were TV's first separated couple. Surely, Darrin did for advertising what Dick Van... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Elizabeth Montgomery DVD Release Date: Released the 21 June 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $39.95 Your Price: $23.97YOU SAVE $15.98!
Buy it
Two years after 1963's The Great Escape thrilled movie audiences with a tale of Allied soldiers working cooperatively to flee a World War II-era prisoner-of-war camp, CBS found a hit situation comedy in the loosely similar Hogan's Heroes. Initially dismissed by critics as being in poor taste, the half-hour show starred Bob Crane (previously known for a supporting role on The Donna Reed Show) as Colonel Robert Hogan, leader of a resourceful band of French, British and American guests of the German Luftwaffe. Rather than sit out the war with his fellow captives, Hogan essentially used the POW camp, Stalag 13, as a base for sabotaging Nazi operations whenever possible, helping important prisoners escape, supporting the Resistance, gathering intelligence for the Allies,... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Howard Morris - John Rich - Robert Butler - Edward H. Feldman - Bob Sweeney DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $39.98 Your Price: $29.99YOU SAVE $9.99!
Buy it
"It's been a long time since I was a pony." These immortal words launched one of television's most unlikely, but enduring friendships between architect Wilbur Post and Mister Ed, his talking horse. What better escape from the onslaught of reality television than a thoroughbred example of unreality television? Although, so convincing is Alan Young as Wilbur, and so easy his rapport with his equine costar, that you really do believe a horse can talk (Ed's voice is courtesy of Western character actor Alan Lane). This two-disc set saddles up 21 episodes from the first three seasons of this Golden Globe-winning series, which was recently added to the TV Land stable of '60s retro faves. Director Arthur Lubin knew his way around the barn. He directed the best of the Francis series of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Alan Young - Connie Hines - Allan Lane Director(s): Ira Stewart - Rodney Amateau - Arthur Lubin - Alan Young - Jus Addiss DVD Release Date: Released the 13 January 2004 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $29.98 Your Price: $26.98YOU SAVE $3!
Buy it
Eva Gabor and the late Eddie Albert continue pleasing their fans in this second season of Green Acres. Sadly,Albert passed away not too long ago(he was born in the 1900's). Fans of GA are also fans of other Paul Henning creations and productions,The Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction. More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Eddie Albert DVD Release Date: Released the 08 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $29.98 Your Price: $17.97YOU SAVE $12.01!
Buy it
