Be Excellent To Each Other

We have started watching this from the beginning again, and it's just stunning.

The characters are completely fully formed, right from the pilot episode, and it's so funny without being crude, or resorting to shock value.

Plus the first season is scored by They Might Be Giants, either with extracts from their songs or original scores, so I'm loving all those extra treats as well.

I remember watching the odd one or two and enjoying them (especially the older brother's various jobs/postings) but only infrequently. I think being on at tea-time was the main reason for this.

As noted, great theme music.

Yeah, great little show, and an excellent cast.

The episode with the speed walking lives long in my memory.

MitM is superb.

I liked the one, where the Dad comes clean he has never worked a friday.

Hey isn't this the prequel to Pizza Man?

I've recently watched all of these too and yes, it's brilliant. I agree with Kov... That was a stand out episode for me too.

Overall though, fantastic series.

Obviously you are all wrong and the greatest episode is the roller skating one.

A great show, did it ever get a HD release?

A quick Google says no, but some episodes have been re-uploaded to US Netflix in the original 16:9 apparently.

With a lot of the original soundtrack replaced or flat out removed.

I saw someone say that about Scrubs on Netflix as well.
I wish when people did these licensing deals it was for all broadcast and future releases so that DVD makes don't have to muck about worrying about rights.

I was reading about it on Netflix t'other day. Back in the 90's and early 00's, the idea of owning TV shows, aside from a few special episodes, was ludicrous* as people didn't want tons of VHS tapes cluterring up their homes just so they could watch Joany Loves Chachi "on demand". As such, the production companies never bothered to agree anything but first-run, repeat and syndication deals. When a show became popular, the artists would renegotiate the deals and ask for more money. Even international broadcasts were affected (see 'House' having a different opening theme in the UK). Instead of paying, the studios just remove of replace the music.


*Although I totally had the first 5 seasons of the XFiles in box set form. And Red Dwarf. And Fawlty Towers. Guess I was weird.

And yet as a kid I've had a massive video collection, and then DVDs. That WAS the time to own the content offline.

NOW it's switched back the other way with streaming becoming a viable alternative.

I had a look on the NG last night, found some episodes in 1080p but only maybe 20 which were not in any order and covered different seasons.

It always looks to be a problem when shows had good soundtracks bringing them to DVD, the Wonder Years is a another example.

"What... would you do... If I sang... out of tune..."

... I'd replace you with some generic music played by studio musicians.