1980s

Newhart - The Complete First Season

Bob Newhart returns to the TV as Dick Loudon as he and his wife Joanna decide to leave life in New York City and buy a little inn in Vermont. Dick is a how-to book writer who eventually becomes a local TV celebrity as host of "Vermont Today." System Requirements:TRT; 660 Mins.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 024543499091 Manufacturer No: 2249909

Looking for the perfect getaway? Check in to Newhart, finally open for business on DVD. Let's consult the travel guide: "Nestled in a grove of majestic maples just a stone's throw from the ivy covered walls of Dartmouth University lies the authentic colonial comfort of the Stratford Inn. Your jolly and congenial hosts are well known author Dick Loudon and his wife, Joanna." It's the ideal setup for the understated Newhart who is right at home in this quaint and bucolic setting. Between the guests and the colorful town characters, he has ample opportunities to do what he did so expertly on The Bob Newhart Show; deal with the crazies (as he so elegantly puts it in one of this set's bonus featurettes). Newhart stars as Loudon, a successful New York writer of how-to books, who, with his more reluctant wife, Joanna (Mary Frann, who rises to the unenviable challenge of following Bob's first TV wife, Suzanne Pleschette), uproots their lives to buy and run the venerable Stratford. The place comes with some colorful history (in the pilot, it is revealed that the inn once served as a house of ill repute, and in another episode, Bob learns that a woman hung as a witch is buried in the basement). It also comes with George Utley (Tom Poston), the handyman, who may have more than one screw loose. Newhart's first season provided the series with a solid foundation. It just needed a little tinkering. Kirk (Second City veteran Steven Kampmann), owner of the neighboring café, is introduced as a habitual liar, a character trait that is thankfully phased out as the season unfolds (his character would exit the show after two seasons). Pam-pretty and sweet Leslie (Jennifer Holmes), the maid, an heiress who wants "to experience the real world," would be replaced in season two by Julia Duffy, who is introduced as her cousin in the episode, "What is This Thing Called Lust?" But the series' most welcome additions are backwoodsmen Larry (William Sanderson) and his silent brothers Darryl (John Voldstad) and Darryl (Tony Papenfuss), who make their auspicious debut in the second episode. An instant hit, they were brought back for another before becoming regulars in season two. Newhart is four-star character-based comedy. There is nary a cheap or easy laugh in these episodes. Lines such as "There go the dregs of society," "I haven't got $80," and "What would you say if you weren't a college graduate," aren't funny out of context, but spoken by these characters, they're boffo. The DVD box lists four extras, but there are only three. The best is "Getting to the Heart of Newhart," in which cast members Newhart, Duffy, Sanderson, and Voldstad reflect on the series and pay moving tribute to the late Poston and Frann. Considering how much fun they all say it was to work on the show, a gag reel (including the classic blooper in which Newhart accidentally calls Frann's character, "Emily") would have been a nice amenity. --Donald Liebenson

Moonlighting - Seasons 1 & 2

Glamorous Maddie Hayes (Cybill Shepherd) is an ex-model with a problem--her accountant just ran off with her money. Granted, he did leave her with a few broken-down businesses. One happens to be a detective agency run by charming loudmouth David Addison (Bruce Willis). Her attempt to shutter the agency fails when they stumble across a crime and David convinces Maddie to help him solve it. And with that, one of television's most popular partnerships was born. Moonlighting made a star out of newcomer Willis and turned Shepherd (Taxi Driver), who had already found fame through fashion and film, into a bona fide TV star.

Created for ABC by Glenn Gordon Caron (Remington Steele), the romantic comedy/detective drama was a mid-season replacement that quickly became a hit. There were only six episodes in the first season, including the two-part pilot, but 18 were produced for the second. Rhyming receptionist Agnes DiPesto (Allyce Beasley) was a regular from the start, while Herbert Viola (Ray's Curtis Armstrong) wouldn't hit the scene until the third season (as with Paul Sorvino and Mark Harmon). The first two seasons attracted an eclectic array of guest stars, including Tim Robbins ("Gunfight at the So-So Corral"), Beasley's husband Vincent Schiavelli ("Next Stop Murder"), Dana Delany ("Knowing Her"), Richard Belzer ("Twas the Episode Before Christmas"), and Whoopi Goldberg ("Camille"), who earned an Emmy nomination for her performance. The most notable guest was surely Orson Welles, who introduces the black and white noir spoof "The Dream Sequence Always Rings Twice." It would be his final TV appearance. Moonlighting ran for three more years. While the Emmy-winning Willis would abandon TV for the big screen, Shepherd found subsequent small screen success with Cybill. Caron, meanwhile, would launch another mid-season replacement series which became a surprise hit: NBC's Medium with Patricia Arquette. --Kathleen C. Fennessy

Maddie Hayes (Cybil Shepard), a wealthy former model, discovers one morning that her business manager has stolen all the money she has in the bank. However, it turns out that she still owns some non-liquid assets -- money-losing companies which were maintained as tax write-offs -- one of which is a detective agency run by David Addison (Bruce Willis). Maddie meets with him to inform him that the company is to be shut down, but he persuades her to keep it open by convincing her that the detective agency can make money. Maddie becomes David's new boss and accompanies him on adventure after adventure. While their personalities clash, a sexual tension arises in the time they spend together. But the question always remains... will they or won't they?

Dynasty - Season Three, Vol. 1

This hugely popular prime-time soap opera follows the exploits of the Carringtons and Colbys both "oilrich" family dynasties in Denver CO as they accrue and manipulate power and wealth.System Requirements:Running Time: 571 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 097361328041 Manufacturer No: 132804

Married With Children - The Complete Eighth Season

The three-disc set features all 26 episodes of the classic 1980s sitcom parody, starring the less than loveable and most unforgettable Bundys - Ed O'Neill (TV's John from Cincinnati), Katey Sagal (TV's 8 Simple Rules), Christina Applegate (TV's Samantha Who?), David Faustino (National Lampoon's Pucked), Amanda Bearse (Give or Take an Inch), and Ted McGinley (TV's Hope & Faith), along with guest stars Danny Bonaduce (TV's The Partridge Family), Gary Coleman (TV's Diff'rent Strokes) and Dom DeLuise (Blazing Saddles).

Highlights of this season include Peggy switching seats with Al at a basketball game and ending up being chosen for the $10,000 free throw contest, while Kelly and Bud buy a car to share and then are forced to double date. Everyone thinks Bud has flipped out when they overhear him speaking with his "cool" alter-ego, and in a hospital mix-up, Al is accidentally circumcised after he's injured playing baseball. Finally, Al could get a brand new car as his old Dodge nears 999,999 miles, but it remains to be seen if he can hold out.

Hill Street Blues - Season 2

Despite critical acclaim, Hill Street Blues could not get arrested ratings-wise its first season. Far from being careful out there, the superb second season did nothing to tinker with the integrity of this groundbreaking series to make it more audience friendly. Multiple storylines, overlapping dialogue, gritty language, and a pseudo-documentary style capture the palpable chaos and tension of what one character calls "the rat-infested, poverty-stricken urban reality." From the precinct-house shooting rampage that opens the season to a hijacked hearse in the season-ending episode, Hill Street Blues deftly walks the line between police procedural and personal drama, further fleshing out its gallery of compelling and colorful characters. Belker (Bruce Weitz) is still a growling mad dog who takes bites out of perps. But in one of the series' most memorable story arcs, he forms a surprising bond with the delusional costumed citizen Captain Freedom (Dennis Dugan), Public defender Joyce (Victoria Hamel)'s steamroller persona breaks down when a colleague is murdered and the case is thrown out because of a technicality.

Other dramatic developments: LaRue (Keil Martin) falls off the wagon and endangers his partner, Washington (Taurean Blacque), during a drug bust ("Zen and the Art of Law Enforcement"); Goldblume (Joe Spano) gets personally involved in the case of an abusive slumlord ("Of Mouse and Man," featuring future Miami Vice star Edward James Olmos as a threatened tenant); Esterhaus (Michael Conrad) is still bedeviled by sexual siren Grace Gardner (Barbara Babcock); and Precinct Capt. Frank Furillo (Daniel J. Travanti, who earned his second Emmy for Best Actor) and Joyce bring their clandestine affair out into the open. Other ongoing storylines involve realistic depictions of police corruption and inter-partner race relations. Hill Street's second season fulfilled the promise of its auspicious first, and repeated as TV's Outstanding Drama Series at the Emmy Awards. No roll call of classic, trendsetting TV series would be complete without it. --Donald Liebenson

Created by Steven Bochco ( Murder One NYPD Blue ) and Michael Kozoll and featuring an ensemble cast including Daniel J. Travanti Veronica Hamel Bruce Weitz Charles Haid Betty Thomas and James Sikking each episode chronicled a day-in-the-life of the cops on the beat starting with the infamous morning roll call and ending with a recap of the day s events. The first hard-hitting series of its kind Hill Street Blues garnered 26 Emmy® Awards including four for Outstanding Drama won two Golden Globes® and is credited with inspiring beloved dramas such as St. Elsewhere Law & Order and NYPD Blue. System Requirements:Features: Commentary by Actors Charles Haid Bruce Weitz and Dennis Dugan on "The World According to Freedom" Gregory Hoblit: The Hill Street Blues Story Profile: Bruce Weitz on Mick Belker Profile: Charles Haid on Andy Renko Featurette: Confessions of Captain Freedom Executive Story Consultant/ Writer Robert Crais on "Freedom's Last Stand" Gag Reel Running Time: 100 MinFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/SERIES & SEQUELS Rating: NR UPC: 024543242192 Manufacturer No: 2234219

Hill Street Blues - Season 1

Created by Steven Bochco and one of television's most influential series, Hill Street Blues was not your father's cop show. The Emmy-winning pilot episode, "Hill Street Station," immediately established the series as less a police procedural than an up-close and personal "interface with the police experience." To establish gritty, documentary-like realism, the show featured sequences, such as the pre-credit roll call, that were filmed with a hand-held camera. There was chaotic, overlapping dialogue. There were sudden, shocking bursts of violence that claimed popular characters. Story lines were not wrapped up at the end of the hour, but instead, unfolded serially throughout the season. It's no wonder that Hill Street, while championed by most critics, was initially not embraced by viewers. It was, in the beginning, one of television's lowest rated shows, its case not helped by NBC's criminal practice of juggling it in its primetime schedule). But there is justice in Hollywood. Hill Street Blues won the Emmy for best drama in its first season. Also honored were several members of the ensemble, including Daniel J. Travanti as the compassionate and incorruptible Precinct Capt. Frank Furillo, Michael Conrad as the avuncular Sgt. Phil Esterhaus (whose cautionary, "Let's be careful out there," became the show's pop culture signature), and Barbara Babcock as the wildly sexual Grace Gardner, who rocks Esterhaus's world (particularly in the episode that earned her her statuette, "Fecund Hand Rose").

There were no big stars on Hill Street Blues (or, for that matter, no little stars, as one of the cast members jokes during a near-hour-long reunion featurette included as a bonus feature on this three double-sided disc set). Each was an indelible character, among them Charles Haid as cowboy cop Andy Renko, Veronica Hammel as sexy public defender Joyce Davenport, Bruce Weitz as the untamed, animalistic Belker, Keil Martin as LaRue, whose descent into alcoholism is one of the season's most compelling dramatic arcs, and James Sikking as the gung-ho Howard Hunter. Once daring, Hill Street Blues seems almost quaint today, with none of the graphic sex or language that scandalized NYPD Blue (in one episode, a captured cat burglar, portrayed by a pre-L.A. Law Michael Tucker, makes a reference to "wolf pee-pee"). The ethnic portrayals, too, are not exactly nuanced. But the human dramas at the heart of Hill Street still make for arresting television. --Donald Liebenson

Drama that explores the lives and careers of a group of people who work at an inner city police precinct.
No Track Information Available
Media Type: DVD
Artist: HILL STREET BLUES
Title: SEASON 1
Street Release Date: 02/06/2007
Domestic
Genre: TELEVISION

Magnum P.I.: The Complete Eighth Season

Left for dead at the end of Season Seven Magnum's back in the eighth and final season of Magnum P.I. the unforgettable Primetime Emmy® Award- and Golden Globe®-winning series nominated for an incredible 30 awards during its impressive eight-year run. For thrilling adventures rejoin Tom Selleck as the stylish private investigator Thomas Magnum along with Higgins T.C. Rick and some of television's hottest guest stars including Amy Yasbeck (Wings) Carol Burnett (The Carol Burnett Show) and Joe Regalbuto (Murphy Brown). This must-own 3-disc collector's set includes every Season Eight episode as well as a bonus episode of The Rockford Files featuring Tom Selleck in a performance that led to his most iconic role. Take home Magnum P.I.: The Complete Eighth Season and say goodbye as the red Ferrari drives off into the sunset forever!System Requirements:Running Time: 603 minutes Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/GAME SHOWS UPC: 025195016964 Manufacturer No: 61102098

The Cosby Show - Season 1

Looking back at season 1 of The Cosby Show, it's easy to forget that momentous history was being made. Not only did this immensely popular sitcom hold the #1 spot among all network TV shows for five consecutive seasons (a record that still stands), but it promoted an evolutionary progression that influenced the entire TV industry from that point forward. African Americans had enjoyed sitcom success in the past (on Julia, The Jeffersons, and Good Times), but the idealized family of Cliff and Clair Huxtable (Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad) represented a new and quietly revolutionary perspective; married for 21 years with five children (one in college, a detail unmentioned in the pilot episode), the Huxtables were happy and successful (he's a doctor, she's a lawyer), and issues of race were almost entirely irrelevant to the show's universal appeal. Making their Thursday-night debut on September 20, 1984, they were conceived by Cosby (as "executive consultant Dr. William H. Cosby Jr., Ed.D."), cocreators Ed. Weinberger and Michael Leeson, and executive producers Tom Werner and Marcy Carsey, with a matter-of-fact approach to upgrading the African American image, built upon Cosby's rubber-faced popularity as a stand-up comedian and rooted in the complete and unbiased integration of the black experience into the American mainstream. More to the point, The Cosby Show was eminently respectable family entertainment, perhaps too squeaky-clean for some tastes, but immediately popular at a time when Eddie Murphy (in Beverly Hills Cop) was honing a more profane image that Cosby disapproved of.

The show was also perfectly cast for mass appeal, from the irresistible precociousness of Keshia Knight Pulliam (as the youngest and most charming Huxtable daughter, Rudy) to the stylish adolescence of Lisa Bonet (years before her controversial role in Angel Heart) as 16-year-old Denise; Malcolm-Jamal Warner as outspoken teenager Theo; Tempestt Bledsoe as sensible younger daughter Vanessa; and Sabrina LaBeauf as college student and eventual mother of twins, Sondra. Combined with the effortless chemistry of Cosby and Rashad (credited in Season 1 as Phylicia Ayers Allen), the entire cast forged an easygoing, loosely-rehearsed dynamic that was genuinely familial.

Given The Cosby Show's immense popularity, it's deeply regrettable that the exorbitant cost of original music rights resulted in this DVD release of edited episodes that were shortened, with different music cues added, for perpetual syndication. Fans eager to see the original NBC broadcasts were understandably outraged, and this shortcoming should be addressed in DVD releases of subsequent seasons. In truth, the episodes (including "Goodbye, Mr. Fish," a perfect example of the show's universal appeal) are not significantly diminished by the careful editing; for casual fans, the difference is barely worth mentioning. And while the 90-minute bonus feature "The Cosby Show: A Look Back" (a clip show originally broadcast May 19, 2002) suffers from the conspicuous absence of Bonet (who by then had mostly retreated from show business), it duly conveys the long-term value (and moral values) of the series, which singlehandedly restored the fortunes of NBC while embracing familial togetherness that would inform many of the popular sitcoms that followed its noble example. --Jeff Shannon

The Cosby Show depicted a close-knit and prosperous African-American family from New York City. Dr. Heathcliff (OB-GYN) and Clair (attorney) Huxtable were a happily married, dual-profession couple with aspirations of raising their 5 children in an uplifting, positive environment. The Cosby Show appeared on NBC from 1984 to 1992, becoming one of the most popular programs in TV history. It was an instant smash hit, holding TV's #1 slot for a record 5 consecutive years and stayed in the Top 20 shows for all eight seasons it was on NBC.

The Cosby Show - Season 2

An Emmy-winner for Outstanding Comedy Series its first year, The Cosby Show rapidly became to Thursday nights what The Wonderful World of Color and Bonanza were to Sundays in the 1960s: a family tradition. And the best was yet to come. Season 2 features some of this gold-standard series' benchmark episodes, most notably. "Happy Anniversary," the one in which the family honors Cliff's parents' wedding anniversary with a show-stopping lip-sync routine to Ray Charles's "Night Time Is the Right Time." In "Theo's Holiday," Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) gets a taste of the real world when his family shows him what it takes to live on his own. The Emmy-winning "Full House" anticipates Seinfeld "nothing"-ness as an exhausted Cliff (Bill Cosby) wanders his home in search of peace and quiet.

In The Cosby Show's charmed world, race was beside the point. Cosby strove to address universal truths about parenthood. In this season's first episode, "First Day of School," adorable Rudy (Keisha Knight Pulliam) tells her father she doesn't want to return to school because a classmate called her "a name." Much like Cliff, the audience braces for the worst until it is revealed that she was teasingly called "Rudy Huckleberry." More to the show's point was fostering an appreciation of black heritage, history, and culture. In "The Card Game," Theo gives his girlfriend Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man to read. In "The Auction," Clair (Phylicia Rashad) bids on a painting by her great-uncle, artist Ellis Wilson, which used to hang in her grandmother's house. And in the stirring final moments in "Vanessa's Bad Grade," the entire family congregates in front of the television to watch Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. From the first, The Cosby Show promoted education and fulfilling one's potential. In one of the season's very best episodes, "Mrs. Westlake," Theo's dread math teacher, a.k.a. "The Dragon Lady," (guest star Sonia Braga) comes to dinner. Fearing the worst from the strict teacher who has forced him to study harder, he is stunned not only by her transformed bombshell appearance but by the results of his math test, which he feared he failed. Love and respect for one's elders and each other thrive in the Huxtable household. In the Emmy-winning "Denise's Friend," Cliff and Clair hold a hilarious and heartwarming family meeting to assure their children that no matter what trouble they get into, they can always come to them. From Danny Kaye's delightful Emmy-nominated performance in "The Dentist" to Rudy's gridiron heroics in "Rudy Suits Up," season 2 is brimming with happy memories of TV's most functional family. --Donald Liebenson

Magnum P.I. - The Complete Seventh Season

Magnum is back and better than ever in all 21 action-packed episodes of Magnum P.I.: The Complete Seventh Season! Tom Selleck returns as TV's most charming Primetime Emmy® Award-winning detective, heating up the exotic streets of Hawaii with his hot red Ferrari and top-notch investigative skills. Along for the ride are everyone's favorite characters - Higgins, TC and Rick - as well as Jessica Fletcher from Murder, She Wrote in a special crossover episode. From exploring a secret island to chasing kidnappers and surviving his fortieth birthday, you won't want to miss a minute of the excitement in this fantastic 5-disc set!