Customer Reviews

Greg Garrison Presents The Best of the Dean Martin Variety Show, Volume 11

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a review of the complete 'Best of Dean Martin...' sets. I'm not critiquing any specific volume, so I apologize in advance that this review is found on every one. However, since my review is for all buyers and not just those of a certain volume, this seems necessary.
'The Dean Martin Show'(1965-74) was a favorite of mine as a child &, outside of the vaudeville slapstick, it still holds up pretty well. As for the packaging, however, Martin's longtime assistant, Greg Garrison, has edited this whole thing together with no consideration to content or style: on e. volume, excerpts from all nine seasons are poorly tossed together, with the jump from time periods being extremely jarring & the style of the show completely lost. Included are reminiscences from guest stars of the show, but these are poorly edited into the format, looking more like cheap quality early 80s videos. A friend of mine, who also likes 60s TV, was just horrified when he saw this mishmash.
So, basically, if you're someone who just wants to see the show and has no concerns on how you view it, these'll possibly be fine. Contrarily, if you have fond memories of the show and its style, which Martin worked hard on, you'd probably do better waiting for a better package. A season by season release, as most TV offers now, is long overdue.
The real culprit here is Guthy-Renker, who has the rights to the show. It's an extremely dated company that does this very same thing to all programs to which they received the rights, such as 'The Carol Burnett Show' & 'Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'. I believe 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour' has had this same problem, but handled by a different mishandler.

I received this DVD as a Christmas gift and was very disappointed. There was very little of Dean, a not at all funny, and very lengthy Jonathan Winters skit, and the cover was misleading -- not all celebrities listed appeared in the DVD. All in all, a real letdown.

Just in time for Christmas gift for a family member "under the weather" and gave him hours of smiles!!! Thanks so much!!!