SOAP!! ENTOURAGE!! SMART!! MASTERS OF SCI-FI!! BUFFY!! TREK!! Vern On BOONDOCKS!! HercVault!!

I am – Hercules!!

“Outlaw Vern’s” new book “Seagalogy” hits shelves the same day as the second season of one of his favorite TV shows, so we thought we’d give him a chance to plug both today. Beware as always his salty jailhouse argot! Here's Vern:
In my opinion THE BOONDOCKS is the best and most relevant cartoon since Popeye. Well to be honest I don't really watch cartoons but in my opinion this one is way better than either CLUTCH CARGO or that racist DICK TRACY cartoon they used to have. I vouched for season 1 a while back and got alot of emails from people thanking me for recommending it, especially after they watched the classic "Return of the King" Martin Luther King Day episode. I really had high hopes for season 2 thinking that now that they had found their feet they were gonna knock us the fuck out with the next batch of episodes. To be honest that is not the case. If anything the second season is a little less consistent, and there's not an episode as good as "Return of the King". But it's still some funny shit and explores modern issues rarely covered on THE FLINSTONES or even WAIT TILL YOUR FATHER GETS HOME. This season deals with hot button topics like the "stop snitching" movement, Katrina refugee relatives, white people using the n-word, and Usher stealing your girlfriend, and not always from the angle you would expect. But the season's biggest obsession is with negative stereotypes perpetuated by black entertainers. This is explored in "...Or Die Trying" (where the family sneaks in to see SOUL PLANE 2: THE BLACKJACKING), "The Story of Thugnificent" (where a famous rapper moves into the neighborhood and ends up in a rap feud with Granddad over a parking dispute), and especially in "The Hunger Strike" and "The Uncle Ruckus Reality Show" (two full-frontal assaults on the B.E.T. network). Those last two were actually never aired, and include commentary tracks where they mostly just complain that they're not allowed to talk about it. No one knows why the episodes were "banned" but it may have something to do with the way they portray actual BET executives as James Bond style villains openly plotting to destroy black culture. And it couldn't help that they put the BET logo in the corner for almost the entire "Uncle Ruckus" episode. Or that two of the demands of Huey's hunger strike are that BET goes off the air and that "top executives commit Japanese ritual suicide." Plus you gotta take into account the vicious portrayal of BET president Reggie Hudlin, who because of developing an earlier incarnation of the show actually has an executive producer credit on THE BOONDOCKS. That might have something to do with it. Some of the satirical attacks are too broad (a caricature of Ann Coulter for example is more concerned with making fun of her facial expressions than what she says) but more often than not it hits the target. And I have to admit that despite all the big issues they're dealing with here by far the highlight of the season to me is in "Thank You For Not Snitching" when Samuel L. Jackson's character Rummy gets to do several Jules Winfield-style rants about the ridiculousness of Bluetooth headset phones. Not sure, but I think the animation improved a little in the second season. This causes them to get carried away with ENTER THE DRAGON and Shaw Brothers references in the early episodes, having the characters always get into pole fights and shit for no reason. But the randomness of the show is sometimes its charm. For example I like when a Ben Kenobi style apparition of Ghostface Killah appears to help Huey. Season 2 is pretty good and I still got a couple episodes I haven't watched yet, maybe it will get even better. Or maybe these episodes will be so bad they'll change my mind and I'll wish I never recommended this season. All I know is Herc promised me if I wrote this he would pimp my book in his big ass Amazon ads at the end of his column , which has been a dream of mine ever since I was a little boy. Also I'm gonna try to get him to tell me what happens in the next chapter of "Gone." back to you, Herc

“Soap” is one of the funniest sitcoms ever aired. Series mastermind Susan Harris would later create inferior projects that proved longer-lived ("Benson," "Golden Girls," "Empty Nest"), but “Soap” established her brand and stands as her masterwork. Utilizing a loose structural mimicry of the era’s network daytime dramas, “Soap” follows the extended family of two close-knit sisters – one who married into money and anther who didn’t. Richard Mulligan, in the role of his career, played excitable not-rich husband Burt Campbell. Robert Guillaume, in the role of his career, played the wealthy side of the family’s disdainful butler Benson DuBois. Jay Johnson was a scream as Burt’s disturbed ventriloquist son Bob. Donnelly Rhodes, currently the chain-smoking physician Cottle on “Galactica,” was hilarious as tough-guy Dutch Leitner. Billy Crystal, who would go on to “SNL,” at least two big-deal movies and a series of Oscar broadcasts, played a closeted homosexual. Diana Canova and Jennifer Salt played the supersexy Tate sisters, Corinne and Eunice. Recurring roles were played by Robert Englund, Ron Rifkin, Howard Hesseman, Joe Mantegna, Robert Urich and even Susan Harris herself. This new box provides all 90 episodes of all four seasons for just $44.99, which works out to less than $11.25 per season or and less than 50 cents per installment. A stellar sitcom in any era. If you don’t love Richard Mulligan in this, there may be no love left in you.

Comedy Central's Home Grown is a sampler of six series airing on the channel plus extras. Three of the episodes – of “The Sarah Silverman Program,” TV Funhouse” and “Root of All Evil” – are new to DVD. The three others – of “Chappelle's Show,” “Reno 911!,” and “Strangers With Candy” – have appeared on earlier sets. The price is an appalling $16.99, so hopefully the extras are really incredible.
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