Sledge Hammer!

Sledge Hammer! - Season One

The "Magnum Farce" of Sledge Hammer aims at deserving targets and scores a bull's eye every time. Thanks to DVD, one of the funniest, most unconventional sitcoms of the 1980s has been gloriously revived, with an abundance of bonus features that fans are going to love. This is sweet revenge given the show's original ABC time-slot, buried under Miami Vice and Dallas on Friday nights, but creator-producer Alan Spencer's savvy spoof of Dirty Harry had critical praise in its favor when it premiered (with a senseless laugh track, mercifully deleted here) on September 23, 1986. Played to perfection by David Rasche and introduced with an infectious Danny Elfman theme song, Sledge is a trigger-happy male chauvinist pig (er, cop) in mismatched clothes who thinks The Deer Hunter is a comedy, sleeps with his .44 Magnum (called simply "Gun"), drives a bullet-riddled sedan with an "I ♥ Violence" bumper sticker, and somehow manages to always catch his quarry. "I'm a nihilist, not a stylist" he says (in the hilarious episode "Sledgepoo"), and that puts him at reckless odds with his lovely, karate-kicking partner Dori (played with flawless aplomb by former soap-star Anne-Marie Martin) and the vocally volcanic Capt. Trunk (Harrison Page, a slow-burn master and vital ingredient to the show's excellent casting).

Partly inspired by Get Smart!, Spencer and a host of talented writers and directors dished up consistent laughs and daring anarchy, challenging broadcast standards with topnotch spoofs of hit movies (in episodes titled "Witless," "Jagged Sledge," "The Color of Hammer," etc.) while familiar guest stars like John Vernon, Brion James, Clint Howard, Michael De Barres, and Mary Woronov raised the comedy quotient even higher. After a deliberately outrageous, go-for-broke season finale it's a miracle that the low-rated Sledge Hammer! was renewed for a second season, but Anchor Bay's DVDs do justice to the show's enduring quality, and Spencer's commentaries (on four episodes) rank among the funniest ever recorded (one of them during an earthquake, no less). All in all, this is one of the most delightful DVD surprises of 2004, with more fun to come in season 2. --Jeff Shannon

In the fall of 1986, an unsuspecting TV nation met a new kind of comedy hero who made Rambo look like Pee Wee Herman. David Rasche starred as the trigger-happy lawman whose hatred of criminal scum and yogurt eatin' creeps was matched only by his love of excessive force and a .44 Magnum. Over the next two seasons, this hilariously deranged lampoon of DIRTY HARRY and plenty of other targets became one of the most notorious series in television history and launched a rabid cult of fans that grows to this day. This is SLEDGE HAMMER! The complete first season of SLEDGE HAMMER! is now newly re-mastered (including removal of the laugh track) and loaded with an arsenal of exclusive extras that features uncensored footage, all-new interviews with stars David Rasche, Harrison Page and Anne-Marie Martin, audio commentaries and more, all given the "Hammer" seal of approval by Series Creator & Executive Producer Alan Spencer.

Sledge Hammer! - Season Two

It would take more than a nuclear explosion to stop everyone's favorite violence-loving lawman! David Rasche returned-along with co-stars Anne-Marie Martin and Harrison Page-in the surprising second season of the series that Entertainment Weekly calls "absolutely hilarious" These are the infamous final episodes featuring such guest stars as Richard Moll, Ray Walston, Edy Williams, Bud Cort, Bernie Kopell, Adam Ant, Davy Jones and more, in the "sitcom for people who hate sitcoms" that remains one of the most dangerously funny shows in TV history.

Sledge Hammer Seasons 1 & 2 Bundle DVD Set

Complete Seasons 1 and 2 of Sledge Hammer on DVD. US Version. Region 1. Factory Sealed./// "HAMMERED: The Best of Sledge" (Laserdisc) - Prepare yourself for four crime stories that pack more punch than Sledge Hammer's trusty Magnum. And loaded with more misadventure than there is air between Sledge's ears. Our hero find himself up against the likes of the infamous Elvis impersonator serial killer, a powerful Mafioso Don, the sex-starved Elizabeth, and a violent revolutionary. Armed only with a Magnum, grenades, several Uzi machine-guns, and a bazooka, our hero singlehandedly makes the streets safe again for law-abiding citizens.