The Monkees: Season 1
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Movie Reviews of The Monkees: Season 1
Movie Review: A second generation fan
Summary: 4 Stars
I love these DVD's. My mom was a fan when she was a kid and got me hooked on them 2 summers ago.At first glance, it doesn't look like it would be funny to a 19 year old. I'm not saying it's falling over hilarious, but it certainly keeps you smiling. Some of the stuff they get away with alone is laugh worthy. If nothing else you're thinking "What in the world are they doing?". "Too Many Girls" and "Monkees On The Line" are two of my favorites. First season is more formula than second season, but it also has more of the guys when they still liked each other. Peter's commentary is enlightening and really funny.
I highly recommend this to anyone with a whimsical sense of humor. Too cute :)
Movie Review: Great Flashback !!
Summary: 4 Stars
I used to watch these shows after school at 5 o'clock in the afternoon, back in...yes, 1979. So they were . duh, in syndication reruns, but for my generation, my first chance to see "The Monkees."
I looked forward to it everyday.
This box set, as well as season 2 are great. Sure, the audio is sub par, but it's the way it aired, then. Cleaned up some, and in it's original form. No edits and all the BS 60's promo's. How cool is that??
Stop the bitchin' and be thankful we can accually get these shows on a full DVD set.
Original packaging, very cool idea, not easy to fit into my DVD set up, but, that's what makes in unique.
Thanks Rhino !!
Movie Review: Finally, the whole first season!
Summary: 4 Stars
I'm a fan of the Monkees from the very beginning, as a matter of fact I remember seeing most of these episodes the first time they were aired on television. That being said, I am thrilled that the first season of episodes is now on DVD. It's a real treat to see Micky, Davy, Peter and Mike romp around the TV! Every Monkees fan should own this set!Movie Review: OK, Let's be realistic about this!
Summary: 3 Stars
What do you actually get for shelling out this much money?Here are the good things to say about this set, and Rhino's work on it:
1. They actually released it, and it has all the episodes of the first season included in order, with the original songs, and in vibrant color. This earns it most of the points, and is the only real reason to buy this.
2. It includes commercials, and the pilot episode with Boyce & Hart singing the soundtrack, and text trivia screens about each episode.
Here is what I see wrong with this set in no particular order:
The commercials and Boyce & Hart pilot are pretty bad quality copies. The box set video, while mostly vibrant throughout, still includes dust and hairs sometimes. The audio quality never gets above mediocre, and sometimes is either tinny and harsh, or muddy and mushy. The Rhino Monkee audio CDs sound terrific, as do most Rhino CDs. I have not been at all impressed with any Rhino audio on other DVDs so far, and these DVD 5.1 soundtracks are worthless--and the mono isn't much better. Why couldn't they have just done a decent plain stereo mix from the master tapes Rhino had access to for all the Monkee CDs?
I agree with a previous review comparing what was done with the old Beatles Anthology audio and video, and should have been done on this set. The volume levels are all over the place in this set too. The dialog is mostly quiet so you crank it up to hear, and then the romp music is too much louder. But what is really bad, the menu music level just blasts in comparison to the episodes. So, because you can't just set it to play all the episodes at once, the menu comes back after each one and you turn it down while the menu plays, then turn it back up for the episodes, and so on, very annoying.
No commentary from Dolenz, but if he had as little to say as what is included from the others, we're not missing much. This is some of the most boring and uninformative commentary you will ever sit through. As implied in other reviews, basically any of us could have given these commentaries (many of you much better)--and we weren't even there! You may as well say there is no booklet either, something this small and uninformative in a set this big, at this cost, is unbelievable. The Monkee CD booklets put this to shame.
The most outragious aspect of this set, and the single reason Rhino so overpriced it for what little work they actually seemed to put into the episodes--the packaging. We are paying for AIR. The expensive (probably about a third of the cost at least) 3 inch deep box holding six discs and a booklet that are 3/4 inches deep. That's 2 1/4 inches of premium wasted shelf space for air. The cute sleeves inside don't protect the discs, they scuff them sliding in and out--so you have to supply your own safe way to store them yourself. Nice way to give people value for their money Rhino.
Yeah, I'll still get season two reluctantly when it comes out--because I want all the episodes. But I hate rewarding Rhino anymore for lackluster work packaged in an over-sized, overpriced, impractical holder.
We deserve better, and I feel we have already paid for better, but didn't get it.
Movie Review: Monkees Shine, Rhino Stumble
Summary: 3 Stars
The Monkees exploded onto the TV and music scenes when I was six years old. Among my friends, the Monkees were the first big thing; The Beatles were ancient. Today, the Monkees rank a distant second to Elvis on my list of all-time favourites. My comments on the DVD collection:
The story lines are much better than I had remembered.
Select the sound option 2.0 rather 5.1 -- the surround sound is very unnatural. I had expected the musical romps to have rich sound -- they too are unnatural. As a point of comparison, BMG did a great job on the 5.1 DVD edition of Elv1s: 30 #1 Hits. Moreover, Rhino's CD re-issues of the Monkees' albums have great sound.
Other commentaries have mentioned that the discs can roll out of the cardboard sleeves. I purchased paper sleeves from Radio Shack. Given that cardboard sleeves resemble viny; record covers, one must question why Rhino did not provide paper inner-sleeves given that LPs were packaged with paper inner-sleeves. The cost would have been insignificant.
Commentaries by the director, James Frawley, were a highpoint.
One can view the all of the romps contained on a given DVD disc. It would have been nice to have the entire season's romps in one place.
Some episodes had shaper images than others. Perhaps that is a reflection of the master tapes. The TV commercials, contained on disc #6, are obviously second or third gneration copies.