"A gun may not be the answer to the world's problems, but give it a shot." Sledge Hammer

Anchor Bay is back with a premium DVD package covering Season 2 of Sledge Hammer, the wildly funny series that features David Rasche as a detective after the manner of Dirty Harry, who solves most of his cases with his big 44 Magnum.

Sledge Hammer was a send up of tough cop dramas like Dirty Harry that ran two seasons on ABC during the mid-80s. Series creator Alan Spencer credited "Get Smart" as one of the seminal influences for his parody, so we had an nihilistic ultraviolent cop who settled all his problems with a gun, with hilarious results. The combination of these disparate elements made a legion of rabid fans, OK - me - who have eagerly awaited its release on DVD. Now packages for both seasons are available and well worth your consideration.

Sledge Hammer was scheduled to run in the time slot against "Dallas" and "Miami Vice" in Season 1, so it's a miracle it ever was renewed. Due to a nail-biting cliffhanger ending for the first season, it was. In Season 2, they moved the show to the time slot opposite "Cosby," so the show never really had a chance to appeal to a mass audience. Still, the show is able to elicit howls of laughter to anybody who sees it, even nearly twenty years after its run.

The four disk set comes in a hard cover book-like folder, with pages for each disk. The packaging beats most boxed sets, as it takes up about the same as two normal DVDs, not four. There is also a sixteen-page blotter style booklet entitled "Sledge Hammer: Case Closed" giving many details about the show, packaged inside a miniature file folder, complete with mock coffee stain...

If Season 1 was superior, Season 2 was even better, if that is possible. The actors had learned their characters better and the writing and direction was improved. Many of the Season 2 episodes were directed by Bill Bixby, a TV actor dating back to "My Favorite Martian," and great at putting together realistic action sequences punctuated by side-splitting humor. The episodes were themed after famous movies, like one of my personal favorites, John Carpenter's 1976 Assault on Precinct 13, entitled "State of Sledge." It's unfair to single out certain episodes as they all have uniformly good work by the writers, directors, actors, special effects crew, and so on.

Anne-Marie Martin returns as the beautiful and much smarter Dori Doreau, Sledge's partner, as does Harrison Page as Sledge's long suffering boss, the Pepto-Bismol swilling Captain Trunk. Each of the supporting characters has a featured episode in Season 2, with Dori getting Icebreaker and Captain Trunk getting They Call Me Mr. Trunk a take off on Sidney Portier's famous role. Hammer himself gets to send up Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop with the hilarious Hammeroid.

There are twenty episodes in all in Season 2, and extra features galore including Gun Crazy a documentary especially made for this disk and featuring reminiscences of series stars David Rasche, Anne-Marie Martin, Harrison Page, and series creator Alan Spencer. Alan Spencer does voice-over commentary on four of the episodes and Anne Marie-Martin does one. There is also a tribute to the late Bill Bixby, the show's favorite director. Bixby succumbed to cancer in 1993. There is a Sledge Hammer trivia quiz featuring a surprise for those who complete it and many more special features, 570 minutes worth of fun in all in this very worthwhile DVD package. I found the best price, $23.86, with free shipping, at Deep Discount DVD.

Also see Sledge Hammer, Season 1

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Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for Groups