Hey folks, I was gone for a week up in the wilds of Alaska. Somewhere in the suburbs of Homer, I was staying in a geodesic dome that’s outside of TV reception. The only TV that got watched as a video tape of GalaxyQuest, a fine little gem of a film. I was visiting Mom, and knew she’d like that one. Normally, I just give Mom my used videos, but this is one I’ll want to watch again in the future.
So I’m only now catching up on the TV I missed, which means that I just watched the animated Alan Brady Show on TV Land. Having Carl Reiner play his Dick Van Dyke Show character Alan Brady again is not a bad idea; he did it well a number of years back on Mad About You. However, having a bunch of computer animators try to capture the great dry moments that Reiner put into his character? That proves to be a less-good idea. Nothing is gained from the computer animation but stiffness and slowness. The times that they do try to go broad with things that couldn’t be done live prove to be bad ideas. There are some funny moments in here, but almost all come from Reiner’s delivery. It wasn’t a great work, but it would work at least as well in radio form. This wasn’t a tragedy or a car wreck, but it will likely always be a minor footnote on the bigger discussion of Reiner’s career and The Dick Van Dyke Show.
And speaking of minor footnotes on The Dick Van Dyke Show, my pal Mark Evanier, dissatisfied with there not having been any DVD comic books during the 1960s, decided to review them anyway.
