Sledge Hammer! - DVD

Sledge Hammer! - Season One

Amazon Price: $21.99 List Price: $29.97 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Starz / Anchor Bay - Model: D12406D Amazon Marketplace: 53 new & used starting at $11.94

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 121 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

The "Magnum Farce" of Sledge Hammer aims at deserving targets and scores a bull's eye every time. Thanks to DVD, one of the funniest, most unconventional sitcoms of the 1980s has been gloriously revived, with an abundance of bonus features that fans are going to love. This is sweet revenge given the show's original ABC time-slot, buried under Miami Vice and Dallas on Friday nights, but creator-producer Alan Spencer's savvy spoof of Dirty Harry had critical praise in its favor when it premiered (with a senseless laugh track, mercifully deleted here) on September 23, 1986. Played to perfection by David Rasche and introduced with an infectious Danny Elfman theme song, Sledge is a trigger-happy male chauvinist pig (er, cop) in mismatched clothes who thinks The Deer Hunter is a comedy, sleeps with his .44 Magnum (called simply "Gun"), drives a bullet-riddled sedan with an "I ♥ Violence" bumper sticker, and somehow manages to always catch his quarry. "I'm a nihilist, not a stylist" he says (in the hilarious episode "Sledgepoo"), and that puts him at reckless odds with his lovely, karate-kicking partner Dori (played with flawless aplomb by former soap-star Anne-Marie Martin) and the vocally volcanic Capt. Trunk (Harrison Page, a slow-burn master and vital ingredient to the show's excellent casting).

Partly inspired by Get Smart!, Spencer and a host of talented writers and directors dished up consistent laughs and daring anarchy, challenging broadcast standards with topnotch spoofs of hit movies (in episodes titled "Witless," "Jagged Sledge," "The Color of Hammer," etc.) while familiar guest stars like John Vernon, Brion James, Clint Howard, Michael De Barres, and Mary Woronov raised the comedy quotient even higher. After a deliberately outrageous, go-for-broke season finale it's a miracle that the low-rated Sledge Hammer! was renewed for a second season, but Anchor Bay's DVDs do justice to the show's enduring quality, and Spencer's commentaries (on four episodes) rank among the funniest ever recorded (one of them during an earthquake, no less). All in all, this is one of the most delightful DVD surprises of 2004, with more fun to come in season 2. --Jeff Shannon

Sledge Hammer! - Season Two

Amazon Price: $21.99 List Price: $29.97 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Starz / Anchor Bay - Model: 12709 Amazon Marketplace: 51 new & used starting at $12.62

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 26 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Sledge Hammer! Does it Again 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

What a shame that Sledge Hammer! only ran 2 seasons, it was great slapstick humor and David Rasche, Anne-Marie Martin and Harrison Page made it look easy. That and the fact that Alan Spencer is a great genius who came up with this series. I own both seasons and they are exceptional, buy them today!

Hilarious! 5 out of 5 stars.
0 of 0 people found this review helpful.

One of the funniest TV shows ever! Thank God they removed the laugh track on the DVD release. This alone really makes the show just shine. The actors are great, the dialog is simply brilliant, and the DVDs are packed with great features. This is really a shining, hidden gem from the 80s. There is no way a show like this would survive on today's liberal TV networks, which is another reason to buy it on DVD!

Editorial Review:

It would take more than a nuclear explosion to stop everyone's favorite violence-loving lawman! David Rasche returned-along with co-stars Anne-Marie Martin and Harrison Page-in the surprising second season of the series that Entertainment Weekly calls "absolutely hilarious" These are the infamous final episodes featuring such guest stars as Richard Moll, Ray Walston, Edy Williams, Bud Cort, Bernie Kopell, Adam Ant, Davy Jones and more, in the "sitcom for people who hate sitcoms" that remains one of the most dangerously funny shows in TV history.