From The Archives: The Adventures of Enos Straight Beyond Hazzard County

(originally published on June 7, 2010)

Howdy y'all! As a good ole Southern Boy myself, and a fan of the Dukes of Hazzard tv series to boot, y'all can understand that I'm a' bustin' at the seems to let y'all know about Enos!

Now for all y'all that thinks you know all 'bout Sheriff Roscoe's favorite deputy, then step up and let me learn yah a thing or three.   See, round about the Duke Boys third season ole Enos up and left for yonder parts, while Boss Hogg's relative Cletus took over his deputy duties.  But Enos weren't just away for nothin', no sirree!  He was busy with this :

Enough with the vernacular for a bit.  This show lasted one season and has never been released for home viewing.  As the opening credits fairly well establish, Enos becomes a hero after capturing a dangerous criminal, more or less by accident.  He uses his fame to transfer to the Los Angeles Police Department where his country charm provides some great comedy when clashing with his contemporary modern setting.
The show was nominated for Two Peoples Choice Awards despite being canceled.  It co-starred the fantastic Mr. Samuel E. Wright as Enos' jive talking partner... who I was unable to find a decent solo photo of.  I did manage to find one featuring himself with Sonny Shroyer, John Dehner (far right) who played Lt. Jacob Broggi and John Milford (back center) who played Captain Dempsy.

For those who are interested Mr. Shroyer has a page dedicated to this show on his official website.
Outside of a few fan efforts there has never been a major move to get this wonderful show on dvd. A large part of that lies in the fact that very few people, even within the DUKES fanbase, don't even know that this wonderful gem of a show exists. Hopefully this article and others will change that and draw Enos the attention he deserves.

For those interested in learning about Enos, you can find more information at crazyabouttv.com and imdb.com, or you can support an Enos DVD release by voting for it on tvshowsondvd.com

And just to tide you over allow me to present a clip featuring Deputy Strate with none other than Catwom, I mean Michelle Pfeiffer!

Y'all come back now, y'here!

From The Archives: Great Guardians! Challenge Of The Go-Bots is coming to DVD!!!

(originally published on May 3, 2011)

Most people remember Go-Bots as being the Transformer's stupid cousin. Most people who do are probably themselves, somebody else's stupid cousin (who says this blog's not edgy?)! After years of waiting, Hanna-Barbera's fantastic adventure, sci-fi show that was a mega-hit in the 80's is finally coming home to own on Digital Video Disc (and you know I'm excited when I spell out DVD)! The series is being released on May 17th as a manufacture-on-demand product by the Warner Archive collection, and will contain the show's pilot, a five-episode mini-series which can be had for an estimated cost of $14.95.

Critically speaking, I will admit that Go-Bots is not as challenging (pun intended) as Transformers, nor is the animation as dynamic, but where it fails on those points, it makes up for it in consistency. I'm not going to nitpick Transformers. It's one of the greatest animated shows of all time, but all that said and done, it's not fair to point out what it did better than Go-Bots without pointing in kind how Go-Bots actually outshined it.
Like Transformers, Challenge of the Go-Bots featured a group of Robotic beings (well, in Go-Bots they're actually Cyborgs, but I'm not going into all that now) that are divided into two camps: the evil Renegades and the valiant Guardians! They originate the planet of Gobotron which has one of the coolest designs of any alien world I've ever seen!

As would be expected, eventually both Guardian and Renegade alike end up on earth where they adapt their robot bodies to transfor, er, I mean convert (yeah, they call it converting in this show. Biiiiiig difference than transforming) into earth vehicles and from there they go to war.

Go-Bots does offer somethings you don't find in Transformers though. For one, the Guardians are obligated to work with the human military, partly with the aid of General Newcastle and partly through their 3 human liaisons: Nick, Mac, and A.J. This is the first point that goes to Go-Bots. Unlike the Autobots whose companions never have any real reason to hang out with them when they should be out earning a living, the Guardians' companions are there because it's there job. Not only that, but the story had better direction from the start. The series suffers through far fewer plot holes than Transformers did and while the animation is less eye-catching it is more consistent with visual less goofs and virtually no choppy animation. And honestly, for a Hanna-Barbara cartoon the series was surprisingly mature. The first five episodes deal with issues of the Cold War and encourage American and Soviet cooperation.

I'm not going to sell this as the greatest show ever made, but it is good and much better than its been made out to be. It's biggest sin has been living in the shadow of Optimus Prime, but if taken on its own terms and for its own merits, Challenge of the Go-Bots is not only fun, but actually can be quite exhilarating if you catch it at the right moment.

Both Toonzone and TV Shows On DVD have additional details concerning the release, should anyone wish to pursue the matter further.

From The Archives: Altered Doctor Who DVD Being Released In The U.S.

(originally published on June 8, 2010)

The Chase an early Doctor Who serial and the third story EVER to feature the Doctor's archenemies the Daleks is finally being released in the U.S., double billed along with The Space Museum

U.S Release

It will however lack six seconds of footage removed from the original broadcast version. Apparently there was a clip of the Beatles playing in the original and it's being left out due to contractual restrictions.

While six seconds might seem trivial, hardcore Whovians such as myself will settle for nothing less than the full monty! Luckily the U.K. version is completely uncut!

Where Region 1 has failed us, Region 2 once again soars! Kudos to anyone with the cash to pick up a copy from jolly ole England. I know I'm going to have to start saving my pennies to swing it.