News from me - May 11, 2001

May 11, 2001

A COMPANY CALLED BFS has just brought out six episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show on DVD. The episodes are as follows: Never Name a Duck, Bank Book 6565696, Hustling the Hustler, The Night the Roof Fell In, A Man's Teeth Are Not His Own and Give Me Your Walls! All of them are completely watchable but I would rank none of these installments among the show's finer moments. (This is not supposed to be the "six best," but if it were and I were asked to pick, I'd include It May Look Like a Walnut, Coast-to-Coast Big Mouth, That's My Boy?, The Bottom of Mel Cooley's Heart, The Impractical Joke and then either Talk to the Snail or October Eve. But that's just me.) Still, there is good news in that this new DVD DVD is supposed to be the first of many releases — and at bargain prices.

This DVD goes for under ten bucks. Matter of fact, DVD Planet has it for $7.49 plus postage...$2.50 for the first item and 50¢ for each item thereafter. You'll probably want to amortize that "first item" cost by ordering several DVDs at the same time. DVD Planet used to be known as Ken Crane's Laserdiscs, and it was (and still is) the best place in the world to purchase those now-antiquated items. They also have the best prices, best selection and almost the best service for DVDs. I say "almost" because they tend to slightly delay your first-ever order to make triple-sure your credit card is legit. But once they deem you Kosher, they ship instantly, and you won't want to order from anywhere else. End of plug.

AS MENTIONED HERE weeks ago, Eric Idle is currently making a sequel to his "mockumentary," The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash. This new one is called Can't Buy Me Lunch and I saw it this evening at a test screening/preview which Mr. Idle hosted to check for weak spots. There weren't many. It features leftover footage from the first, plus interviews with the likes of Steve Martin, Tom Hanks, Garry Shandling, Jewel, Robin Williams and even Salman Rushdie. At the moment, Idle can't say for sure when and where the thing will appear — but when it does, make sure to catch it. Very funny, especially as his character of the inept interviewer from the original film grows increasingly less ept.

MICHAEL KINSLEY has an interesting piece today about free content on the Internet — and you can read it for free either at the Washington Post website or on Slate. Here's a direct link to the article on the latter.

ADDED my obit on the great Gil Kane (here's that link) and fixed more HTML errors. And now I have to get back to paying work. I hope.

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