Product Details

• Actors: George Maharis
• Directors: Arthur Hiller, George Sherman
• Format: Box set, Black & White, NTSC, Closed-captioned
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.77:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Studio: Infinity Entertainment Group
• DVD Release Date: February 5, 2008
• Run Time: 780 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0010SB064
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #39,950 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Route 66: Season 1, Vol. 2" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The irresistible call of Route 66, the classic TV anthology series and the venerable Mother Road herself, is best summed up in a bit of dialogue in the episode, "Welcome to Amity," one of the 15 episodes that concluded Season One contained on this four-disc set. Yet another stranger in distress urges self-proclaimed "searchers and look-arounders" Tod Stiles (Martin Milner) and Buz Murdoch (George Maharis) to help her. "Where are we going?" Tod asks, as she bids them to follow her. "Let’s find out," Buzz replies. Viewers happily followed Tod and Buz for four seasons on their cross-country odyssey in search of roots. Each week brought a new location, a new job, and new personal dramas in which they found themselves involved. In the gripping "An Absence of Tears," they unwittingly help a vengeful blind woman buy the exact brand of gun and bullets that thugs used to kill her husband during a botched gas station robbery. In "Most Vanquished, Most Victorious," they have 24 hours to find the daughter of Tod’s dying aunt. In "The Newborn," they help an expectant Pueblo woman escape the clutches of the wealthy and powerful rancher whose late son impregnated her. No wonder that in the more lighthearted "Eleven the Hard Way," Tod suggests to Buz that they take "a 48 hour furlough from other people’s problems" (no such luck; they no sooner find themselves in Reno helping two men win enough at the crap tables to save their dying town). Compelling stories, a vivid sense of place, and literate scripts were signposts of Route 66. While Tod and Buz "give lumps to some well-deserving people" (a climactic encounter with a street gang in "Most Vanquished, Most Victorious" is a great rumble), the show (and the cast) truly shine in the more emotional and dramatic moments. In "Like a Motherless Child," orphaned Buz bonds with a lonely woman who fronts as a shill. While Tod is the studied one, it is Buz who gets the bulk of the scripts’ great, glorious riffs, as in "The Opponent," when he and Tod visit a once-legendary figure from Buz’s Hell Kitchen neighborhood ("Would you take a detour to see Caesar or Napoleon? Those are the big boys you met in books. I met my own kings, face to face, in the back alleys"). Along for the ride are some great character actors, many in their earliest screen appearances, including Robert Duvall as "a trigger-happy kook" in "The Newborn," Darrin McGavin as a boxer on his last legs in "The Opponent," featuring Ed Asner (with hair!) as his trainer and Al Lewis (Grandpa from The Munsters) as a gym owner, and Walter Matthau at his schlubby best as a disreputable gambler in "Eleven the Hard Way." As in Volume 1 there are no commentaries or interviews, but vintage TV and classic car buffs will cruise through nearly 20 minutes of commercials for Chevrolet and Bayer Asprin. --Donald Liebenson

Product Description

ROUTE 66 is a classic American TV series that only gets better with time. The first season alone boasts appearances by Lee Marvin Leslie Nielsen and E.G. Marshal as well as tough thought provoking storylines penned by Academy Award-winner Sterling Silliphant. The series follows the experiences of the poor boy/rich boy duo of Buzz and Todd as they hit the road in the 1960s' spirit of self-discovery. While everyone can whistle the Nelson Riddle tune about "getting their kicks" this show has much more to offer than trivial pop-culture references.System Requirements:Running Time: 810 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSIC Rating: NR UPC: 617742203196 Manufacturer No: IEG2031

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

60 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Look What They've Done To My Show, Ma, February 6, 2008

By 

Robert Huggins (Suburban Philadelphia, PA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Route 66: Season 1, Vol. 2 (DVD)

Hands down, "Route 66" was one of the greatest dramas produced in television's golden age. The acting, writing, and production values for this "show-on-the-go" were trend setting for its time and still resonate strongly with this viewer . . . . . surely a five star series if ever there was one. And that's why it pains me to give this second release from Roxbury Entertainment and the Infinity Entertainment Group only three stars.

The good news is that the visual quality for the episodes contained in this second volume represents an improvement over those in volume 1, at least based upon my viewing of the first two episodes (a good two-parter titled "Fly Away Home" with the great Michael Rennie) and spot checking other episodes. The visuals aren't in the same eye-popping category as some other shows from the era that have been released on DVD like the "The Untouchables" or "The Fugitive," but they still look pretty good to my eyes and represent an improvement over the vast majority of the episodes contained in volume 1. The extra features contained in volume 2 follow the same format as the first volume, cast credits and episode clips (to help you identify the actors) and early 1960s era commercials on disc 4.

Now for the bad news, Roxbury and/or Infinity have matted the top and bottom of the episodes to give it a FAKE WIDESCREEN look. So in certain scenes, the tops of the actors' heads are missing. This might not be so readily apparent to viewers who have never seen the show, but after releasing the first 15 episodes in volume 1 in the correct, full-screen aspect ratio, it becomes glaringly apparent. Even the bonus commercials on disc 4 are matted! I don't have the slightest idea as to why Roxbury/Infinity decided to go with this format, but if anyone from either of these companies happen to read these reviews, please do not matte any further volumes . . . . . serious viewers of "Route 66" want to be able to watch this series in its original, full-screen aspect ratio as originally broadcast. Had this second volume been released in its correct aspect ratio, without the matted effect, I would most certainly have given this release a full five stars.

29 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Be warned: Picture has been cropped!, February 12, 2008

By 

D. Holt (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Route 66: Season 1, Vol. 2 (DVD)

Route 66, like all TV shows of its era, was filmed in a squarish 1.33:1 aspect ratio. But for this "Volume 2" DVD set, the manufacturer has shamefully CROPPED the top and bottom of the image to about a 1.77:1 frame. Essentially, you are missing part of the picture and it ruins the original photography.

Sure, it fills a "widescreen" TV, but at what expense? Tops of heads are frequently "cut off", and the cropping further deletes some of that wonderful Americana from 1960 that provided the mesmerizing backdrop of this classic series. The packaging does not warn you of this image tampering, so buyer beware! Maybe one day we'll see a re-release of the FULL image that was filmed and shown back in the '60s.

34 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Infinity -- You lost a guaranteed sale with the cropping, February 19, 2008

By 

DesiluTrek "Live Long and Prosper" (Sterling, Va. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Route 66: Season 1, Vol. 2 (DVD)

To Infinity Entertainment Group:
What were you thinking? I bought volume 1 and lived with the subpar prints, now this 16x9 crap -- I mean crop? How does cropping to 16x9 help try to draw a bigger audience beyond the die-hards when the series is black and white to begin with? I was a guaranteed sale of this and future volumes, but you lost me with this bizarre move.

Leave it to viewers whether they want to watch the show in a 16x9 picture.
All decent HD sets have a zoom function to fill the screen for 4x3 pictures (avoiding stretch-fill), plus a way to adjust up and down to find the visual center (above true center.) Sometimes I watch classic TV like Star Trek this way and it's fun. But that's my choice. I do not want that imposed on me, as Infinity, you are doing.