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58.110.36.101
I have just found out that not only is this funniest ever TV sit-com(is it????) available on DVD, but there are several never shown episodes and a short doco about the rise and fall of the series.
If you have never seen it, just try this review from Amazon which I have lifted for artistic purposes...
This send-up of Hollywood makes Altman's Hollywood satire THE PLAYER look like it was shot under water by actors on valium. The pun-intendted title suits this series well. It is jammed with clever plot-twists and stellar talent (principals Jay Mohr as the Darwinian narcissist producer Peter Dragon; Ileana Doublas as the ultimate Hollywood insider, a professional sex worker whom Dragon makes his assistant producer because of her faultless nose for good--and bad--scripts; Jarrad Paul as the neurotic TV writer who hopes to make it in the big-budget action genre with his script for "Beverly Hills Gun Club"; Jack Plotnick as the ambitious but massochistic, dry-cleaning-fetching gay executive producer; and Buddy Hackett as Dragon's nap-susceptible body guard and chauffeur who just also happens to be his uncle). Add to this a number of cameos from the likes of Keanu Reeves, David Hasselhoff, Scott Wolf, Salma Hayeck, Sandra Bulluck, and "that Joe Isuzu guy" (David Leisure playing an out-of-work version of himself serving as security guard/gate-lifter at the studio lot).
Originally produced for Fox TV, the series takes a jab at everyone remotely connected to "the business." As rude, politically indifferent, and self-serving as Peter Dragon is, you soon come "to feel his pain" when you see the number of spoiled brats, self-promoters, and losers he is asked to manage and/or navigate among in the course of any given day. (When he seeks spiritual counsel from a rabbi at a funeral, the rabbi is quick to offer him a script to read. "Streisand is very interested," the rabbi assures him. Dragon takes the script, asking, "Starring or direting?" When the rabbi answers "Directing," Dragon tosses the script in a nearby trashcan. Mohr's expression? Priceless!)
The writing for the (unlucky?) 13 espisodes is consistently top-notch. The fun never lags. It is as if everyone involved knew Fox would not give them a second season and they had to pack everything into the first. (Everything beyond episode 6 was new to me, so I suspect Fox never even broadcast everything they had.) Although we don't ever get to see the premier of "Beverly Hills Gun Club," or the predictable Oscar snub, the story arc is satisfyingly complete at the end of episode 13 when the legal rights to the threatened script are secured and Douglas's character returns to her more honorable previous profession.
I'm so glad the makers of this show believed in it enough to put it out on DVD--and with a "making of" featurette and filmmaker commentaries for several episodes. This is satire at its most outrageous--directed at such a worthy target.
Follow Ups:
Only a minor correction: while the series aired on Fox it was originally marketed to and intended for a pay cable channel (Showtime or HBO). Apparently the pay channels passed on it, for reasons not known to me. BTW, the proof of this is in the adult dialog (frequent epithets and frank sexual depictions in every episode on this DVD set); trust me, this series could never have been aired on broadcast TV as it was originally filmed.Once the salty language was toned down by judicious editing and frequent bleeping of four letter epithets it aired on Fox. I'm not sure how ACTION! fared ratings-wise, but obtaining and keeping sponsors may have been a problem because of the strong content (even after editing). Fortunately, the DVD release is complete, unabridged and without any of the colorful language bleeped.
ACTION! is side-splitting funny stuff that has the odd ring of truth. In other words, the series doesn't come across like it's writers were making these stories up so much as creating scripts based on situations to which they'd been privy, changing names and specifics to protect themselves from possible litigation. In this way they could occasionally tell the unvarnished truth about their own Hollywood experiences, re-envisioning or embellishing specific events to maximize the humorous elements.
One final note: If you have a problem with strong adult language and frequent sexual content or are easily offended by depictions of stereotypes, then I strongly suggest that you rent or borrow an episode or two before purchasing. That caveat notwithstanding, I think that you'll find this series to be a gem that you'll treasure forever and play for friends again and again.
Cheers,
AuPh
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