Customer Reviews

Route 66 - The Complete Second Season

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The five-star rating is for the series itself, thanks in large part to the exceptionally realistic storylines from Stirling Silliphant and guest scriptwriters. The on-screen chemistry between Martin Milner as Tod Stiles and George Maharis as Buz Murdock is superb as they criss-cross America working odd jobs in search of themselves and helping others find their purpose in life. Great show from television's golden age. Highly recommended.

The episodes featured in the second season (1961-1962) include:

"A Month of Sundays" -- Buz falls for starlet Arlene Sims (Anne Francis), unaware that she has a terminal illness.

"Blue Murder" -- Tod and Buz attempt to recapture a wild horse which has apparently killed its new owner.

"Good Night, Sweet Blues" -- A dying jazz singer (Ethel Waters) enlists Tod and Buz to search out and reunite her old combo.

"Birdcage on My Foot" -- Tod and Buz try to help a heroin junkie (Robert Duvall) kick the habit.

"First Class Mouliak" -- When a young woman is found dead, the chief suspect (Robert Redford) is the son of Tod and Buz's employer.

"Once to Every Man" -- Tod seems ready to finally settle down and tie the knot with the daughter of a shipyard owner (Janice Rule).

"The Mud Nest" -- After discovering a family that resembles him in a small Maryland town, Buz goes to Baltimore to search for the woman who may be his mother.

"A Bridge Across Five Days" -- The boys try to help a woman recently released from a mental hospital adjust to life in the outside world.

"Mon Petit Chou" -- Tod becomes enamored of a lounge singer, but finds an obstacle in her intensely jealous manager (Lee Marvin).

"Some of the People, Some of the Time" -- Tod and Buz work for a fraudulent beauty contest promoter and become hucksters in the process.

"The Thin White Line" -- Tod goes on a one-man rampage through Philadelphia after inadvertently drinking a beer spiked with a powerful hallucinogenic drug.

"And the Cat Jumped Over the Moon" -- A social worker (Milt Kamen) who is a former mentor of Buz is killed playing a dare game with a gang leader (Martin Sheen).

"Burning for Burning" -- Tod and Buz work for a wealthy family with a dead son. When their daughter-in-law pays a visit with their grandchild, the family treats her with open hostility.

"To Walk with the Serpent" -- The F.B.I. wants Tod and Buz to infiltrate a neo-Nazi group.

"A Long Piece of Mischief" -- A rodeo clown nurses a love for a trick rider while fending off sadistic cowboys.

"1800 Days to Justice" -- An ex-con (John Ericson) who was framed takes over a small Texas town and holds a kangaroo court to pass judgment on the real culprit (DeForest Kelly).

"A City of Wheels" -- Working in a veterans hospital brings Tod and Buz into the life of an embittered invalid.

"How Much a Pound Is Albatross?" -- Free-spirited motorcycle rider Vicki Russell (Julie Newmar) arrives in Tucson and turns it - and the lives of Tod and Buz - upside down.

"Aren't You Surprised to See Me?" -- A religious fanatic with a biological weapon kidnaps Buz and threatens to kill him, unless the entire city of Dallas abstains from sin for 24 hours.

"You Never Had It So Good" -- As part of a power play, a female executive promotes day-laborer Buz to a high administrative position.

"Shoulder the Sky, My Lad" --Tod and Buz come to the aid of a young Jewish boy, who has a crisis of faith after his father is killed in a mugging.

"Blues for the Left Foot" -- Tod helps a dancer - his first love - get a tryout with a major television network.

"Go Read the River" -- Tod finds that his new employer, a designer of speedboat engines, is an exceptionally driven and desolate man.

"Even Stones Have Eyes" -- Buz contemplates taking his own life after a construction accident leaves him without his sight.

"Love is a Skinny Kid" --A young woman (Tuesday Weld) stirs up a small Texas community by arriving in town wearing a frightful mask, which she refuses to remove.

"Kiss the Maiden, All Forlorn" -- An international fugitive (Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.) risks recapture by returning to the U.S. to visit his daughter.

"Two on the House" -- A young boy pretends to be the target of kidnappers in order to get attention from his business-obsessed father.

"There I Am - There I Always Am" -- Buz attempts to rescue a young woman who gets her foot stuck in the rocks of a Southern California beach, with the high tide coming in.

"Between Hello and Goodbye" -- Tod becomes involved with a reckless blonde and her reserved brunette sister.

"A Feat of Strength" -- Tod helps introduce a legitimate Hungarian wrestler (Jack Warden) to the American version of the sport.

"Hell is Empty, All the Devils Are Here" -- Tod's employer (Peter Graves) is an animal trainer plotting revenge against the man he believes responsible for his wife's death.

"From an Enchantress Fleeing" -- Tod goes in search of a henpecked runaway husband.

Roxbury Entertainment's mastering of the series to DVD remains to be seen. Whether the series will be digitised to wide screen format -- as was the case in Season 1/Volume 2 - remains merely a guess.

This extremely well-written series was at its rip-roaring finest in season 2. As always, we get a unique and nostalgic authentic glimpse at specific American locales in the early 1960s, back when the country was prosperous, the economy was growing in bounds, and gas was CHEAP! Episodes 1, "A Month of Sundays", in which Buz falls head over heels for a dying young actress in Montana; 3, "Good Night, Sweet Blues", in which Tod and Buz are dispatched across the country to round up a sick elderly jazz singer's old band members for one last memorable performance; and 24, "Even Stones Have Eyes", in which Buz is accidentally blinded on a construction site and must attend a school for the blind in Texas where he falls in love with an actual blind girl, are some of the finest moments in the entire history of television. This is a MUST-HAVE DVD set you will never regret buying and will always treasure!

If you've previously purchased the split season 1 DVD releases of "Route 66" from Infinity Entertainment, you know that Route 66 - Season 1, Vol. 1 episodes were of variable visual quality and one episode, "A Fury Slinging Flame," was severely edited. Route 66: Season 1, Vol. 2 offered improved, more consistent visual quality across all of the episodes but compromised the visuals with a phony widescreen presentation which cropped a portion of the top and bottom of the frame. After numerous complaints here at Amazon and elsewhere, Infinity re-released Route 66 - The Complete First Season in its entirety, restoring the full-screen format to those episodes contained in volume 2. Which brings us to this full season 2 release . . . . . Infinity has finally delivered a set that most fans of the series will be happy to own. No, the visuals don't have that eye-popping, razor-sharp "CBS/Paramount sheen" found on vintage television releases like "The Fugitive" or "The Untouchables," but they're quite good, in the correct full-screen aspect ratio and, unlike some CBS/Paramount releases, the original music is all here . . . . . no modern synthesized replacement music on this release, thank you very much! Can anyone imagine watching "Route 66" without Nelson Riddle's memorable theme and orchestrations?

"Route 66" is one of television's all-time great dramatic series and season 2 finds protagonists Tod Stiles (Martin Milner) and Buz Murdock (George Maharis) continuing their cross-country road adventures in a wide variety of early 1960s locales. The guest star list for season 2 is impressive, including the likes of James Caan, Robert Duvall, Anne Francis, Peter Graves, DeForest Kelley, Lee Marvin, Suzanne Pleshette, Robert Redford, Marion Ross, Martin Sheen, Jack Warden, Ethel Waters and Tuesday Weld, among others. Infinity sticks to the same formula for extras used for the season 1 releases with the inclusion of vintage 1960s commercials (limited this time to a single episode "You Never Had It So Good") and short clip profiles for each episode's guest stars. However, one does wonder as to whatever happened to the George Maharis episode commentaries that were reported by ROUTE 66 NEWS in early 2008 to have been supposedly recorded, but have yet to surface on any of the "Route 66" season releases to date.

A public thanks is in order to Infinity Entertainment (the DVD releasing company) and Roxbury Entertainment (the series' rights owner) for actually listening to their customers and delivering a season 2 release that is befitting a series of this high caliber. While, perhaps, the extra features could have been a bit better, the episodes in this season 2 DVD release look very good and the mistakes of the past split season 1 releases have been corrected. Here's hoping that Infinity/Roxbury will release the remaining two seasons; I'll pre-order on the day that they are announced.

Route 66 is my all-time favorite TV show - and this time for Season Two Infinity/Roxbury did it right! After a few problems with Season One such as some quality issues with some episodes in Season One Volume One to Season One Volume Two being remastered in the non-original Widescreen format which cut off tops and bottoms of tight shots (this series uses very dramatic camera work at times), it appears the company listened to the complaints and did a great job with this release. For SEASON TWO - The Widescreen matting on the top and bottom of the screen is gone!!! and the original 4 x 3 television format has returned!!!! This Season was released as a WHOLE, not in 2 parts. Well technically there is a Volume One and Volume Two that slip into a box that holds the complete season, as far as I know that is the only way you could purchase them, together as a complete set, and at a reasonable price. Although I did not watch the entire season yet, I did sample through it and do not see any obvious poor quality dubs, they all seem to be clean original good quality transfers. The picture is crisp and vibrant (well as much as a black and white picture can be)! The audio is good for a TV series over 40 years old.
Please keep up the good work Roxbury Entertainment / Infinity - This is the way people want this series released!!!!! Now if only I could get Season One released with the same care as Season Two was.

What a bittersweet pleasure to have "Route 66" available at last -- a pleasure because of the show's extraordinary quality, and bittersweet because you just won't see a show like this on TV today. It's very much a product of its time, capturing a unique period in American history, just between the Beats & what became the 60s ... a time when literate, often deeply personal writing could be found on a weekly TV show.

And what a show! Something of an existentialist anthology, it gave us Tod & Buz, two friends with opposite personalities, united by their need to explore, experience, and learn. In fact, the show was originally going to be called "The Searchers," but the classic John Wayne film of the same name had been released just a couple of years before, necessitating the change to "Route 66." And while the show seldom travels down that actual road, it doesn't matter, because it's the spirit of the road, its essence, that they follow.

The series was in top form during this second season, with all the elements firmly in place: strong leads in Martin Milner & George Maharis; evocative location shooting that brought the full scope of America into clear view; a guest cast of nearly every up-&-coming major American actor; and writer Stirling Sillipant's intelligent, poetic scripts.

I want to focus on the writing. It's been said that real people don't talk like that, with so much philosophy & literary allusion. And that's probably true, especially today -- although it wasn't entirely unknown in the early 1960s. Some younger viewers accustomed to what modern entertainment calls "realism" may have trouble adjusting to this richer, slightly artificial style, more like that of a playwright than an "average" person.

Well, it's an adjustment worth making. TV once reveled in the power of language & symbolic dialogue, and it was exceptionally well done on "Route 66." If it strays from literal realism, it excels in emotional & psychological realism. Quality TV back then had a strong allegorical component, and most viewers had no trouble accepting & responding to it. "Route 66" was only too happy to delve into Big Questions -- even better, it did so thoughtfully, while never failing to provide plenty of entertainment.

While even the occasional so-so episode is still good, you'll find some especially moving stories in this second season. My own favorites: "How Much a Pound is Albatross?" with Julie Newmar as a free spirit haunted by personal tragedy; "A City of Wheels," set in a hospital for disabled veterans, examining one unsparing in his bitterness & despair; "To Walk With the Serpent," a frighteningly timely examination of the right-wing mentality; "Love is a Skinny Kid," with a kabuki-masked young woman arriving in a small Texas town & stirring up buried ghosts; "There I Am - There I Always Am," with Buz struggling to save a young woman whose foot is caught in the rocks on a beach, with high tide coming in; "The Thin White Line," which finds Tod on a hellish, drug-crazed odyssey through a city at night, after his drink is spiked with an experimental hallucinogen. But each viewer will have his or her own favorites.

What strikes me is the intense & wide-open emotional lives of the two leads. It's a mixture of the traditional model of American manhood -- strong, self-reliant, a little old-fashioned in the best sense of the phrase -- and a questioning, sensitive modernity, which allows them to sob or cry out in anguish when the situation demands. They experience their emotions deeply, at the very core of their being, but they're never paralyzed by them. They question, they argue, they act when necessary ... and they often learn something because of it.

As a window into an earlier mode of life, a more optimistic worldview, a pre-Starbucks/Wal-Mart/shopping mall America, it's invaluable. And for a TV show that's closing in on 50 years now -- half a century! -- so much of it still rings true. The fashion & slang may change, but those Big Questions remain the same for every new generation. Most highly recommended!

I was a teenager when Todd and Buzz fill the airwaves with adventure and travel. For a young man living in rural Louisiana their show gave an escape to places far from my little town. The show aired on Friday evenings and I could not wait to view it. The release of this second season was delayed for some reason and I was concerned that it would not go to print. I can tell you that if you don't mind black and white television you are in for a real treat. The parade of stars for the episodes read like a who's who for future years in both television and the movies. This is classic 60s TV!

This series is incredible. Some might want to call the acting of George Maharis and Martin Milner over the top in some scenes, but those scenes are far and few and in between. This show gladly was a part of my childhood. Although I did not see the episodes when they originally aired in the 60's, I did see them all in syndication when I was in my young teens after school when I got home from school. Todd and Buzz where the epitomy of cool, and the fact that, much like Richard Kimble in the Fugitive, they helped people with life problems from town to town, state to state was riveting and endearing. They do not make shows like this anymore, nor is there a want for them. It is a shame. Yes, there was Highway to Heaven and Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman recently, but this show, along with the Fugitive, showed the human and emotional side to the caring American spirit that is sadly, vanishing right before our very eyes.

Season Two was released prior with altered music and a cropped screen. Why? Because the company didn't spend the time and money to go studio 35mm master transfers and ensure the quality. Also, using the alternative music meant avoiding paying music royalties. Sadly, a number of companies have been doing this over the past few years and yet EVERY time this happens, fans complain and with the internet, they complain BIG time. So why haven't the companies learned that they cannot insult the fans? Well, it seems Infinity heard the cries and like CBS, went back to the original masters and didn't use the syndicated (alternate) theme music. If you have been worried about reviews for prior ROUTE 66 TV DVD box sets, buy this one. It's the version (original version) and the one you want. Buy with confidence but buy directly from Amazon because a few sellers might not know the difference and make a mistake and sell you the prior set in it's place. This is how the series should have been released on DVD in the first place. Thank you Infinity!

Kudos to the people at Infinity for the release of this fine treatise of American entertainment. I love the film prints and audio qualities which comprise this product. I have viewed all of the Season 2 episodes and I remain impressed with the story lines and the world famous guest stars who appear. This season is the true strength of the series. George Maharis had just hit his stride with the Buz character and he and Milner had great chemistry. Maharis earned an Emmy nomination this season for his intense, charismatic performances. The most compelling episodes of the series are contained in Season 2. Among them are A Month Of Sundays, Goodnight Sweet Blues, Birdcage On My Foot, The Mud Nest, The Thin White Line, A City Of Wheels, Aren't You Surprised To See Me?, and Even Stones Have Eyes. George Maharis was conspicuously absent on disc 8, episodes 59-62, due to a bout with hepatitis. Martin Milner went solo, pausing at times to "place a call to Buz" in Santa Monica Hospital. The episodes were not as strong during this time, which might have led some of the Nielsens to believe that the series had lost its steam. More to the point, the only thing the series was missing was its "Buzz". Overall, the writing was great, though at times a bit poetry laden. There are fewer original commercials in this Second Season package than there were in the First Season. But DON'T let that stop you! The Second Season is finally on DVD and rightfully so. It's been a long time coming now and the show still does not get it's due. In my mind, Route 66 might be among the top 10-15 dramas in TV history.

In this season, there was less of the gratuitous punch-throwing melodrama of the first season, and more thought-provoking drama and character insight. It truly was a splendid season for the show. Cast and crew were at the top of their form, and the guest stars were probably the best of the entire run of the series.

HURRAH to Roxbury Entertainment for releasing the entire season in one package! (Not-so-hurrah for apparently going back to the one-volume-at-a-time way for the upcoming Season 3, however.) And HURRAH for abandoning the phony letterboxing of the earlier attempt at Season 2! The show was shot and broadcast in 4:3 aspect ratio, that's how the scenes were originally composed, and that's still how it looks best.

And yet, there are technical shortcomings on these DVDs--especially, flaws that were not present in the original film medium--and it is hard to comprehend why they are present; it's not as if DVD mastering is still a poorly understood art. Not just a few, but MANY scene changes are accompanied by inexplicable breaks in both video and audio. Audio levels are poorly managed; entire episodes require cranking up the volume control, while yet another requires a quick downward adjustment and apologies afterward to the neighbors.

The packaging is a puzzlement as well. The complete Season 1 set gave us the air dates of each episode, but not a clue where they were filmed. Season 2 gives us the locations, but leaves the broadcast dates a mystery. Although this is a secondary issue and does not detract appreciably from the joy of watching this great series once again, having both types of information available at the same time would be a plus. And speaking of information, the "cast bios" special features would be far more informative if they did include a little actual biographical information--not merely the names of other shows in which the person appeared.

Overall, a good set that I'm glad to have in my collection; but it could have been great with just a little more attention to detail.