Another Lost TV Gem To Resurface on DVD
Folks love to christen fondly-remebered, and usually quickly yanked, TV series as “ahead of their time”. How about a single-camera, dry but quirky, workplace-centered situation comedy starring a trained improv comic and actor who’d recently departed a featured role in a popular late-night comedy show?
No, it’s not “The Office”. Good guess, though.
It’s 2002’s “Andy Richter Controls the Universe”, and how’s that for getting in front of the curve?
The show is coming to DVD on March 24th from Paramount Home Entertainment. The package will include 3 discs, 2 bonus featurettes. commentary tracks, and (sadly) replaced music to help get the whole magilla succesfully cleared.
While the show ran for two seasons, only nineteen total epsiodes were made. Thus, we can still allow it to count among the honored dead of brilliant and brief shows the Fox Network has used as TV cannon fodder over the past twenty plus years. Wherfore art thou “John Doe”, “Firefly”, “Brisco Country, Jr.”, “Dollhouse“…? (Sorry, got ahead of myself there.)
Created by Victor Fresco – who has a resume that covers shows like “The New Monkees”, “Alf”, “Evening Shade”, “Mad About You”, “My Name is Earl” and the upcoming “Better Off Ted” — “Richter” focused on Chicago based technical writer Andy Richter. Andy’s vivid imagination allowed him to narrate his daily life, to us the viewers, as he dealt with his dreary job, odd collection of co-workers, and his ongoing interaction with the ghost of the turn of the century industrialist who founded the business where Andy worked. The slam-bang cast included Richter, still fresh from leaving “Late Night With O’Brien”, Paget Brewster (now late of “Criminal Minds”, but 2002’s pre-Fey state of the art in smart/sexy/funny TV chicks), and the delightful Irene Molloy (WB’s “Grosse Point”, and now a Philly-based singer-songwiter). It was different, funny, fast, dry, verbal, visual, and doomed from the outset.
Thankfully, as the major studios continue to mine their TV vaults for home video, they still have small little gems like “Andy Richter” to discover. Pre-order yours now!!
January 13th, 2009 at 12:55 am
[...] Another Lost TV Gem To Resurface on DVD | popGeezer.com (popgeezer.com) – January 12, 2009The slam-bang cast included Richter, still fresh from leaving “Late Night With O’Brien”, Paget Brewster (now late of “Criminal Minds”, but 2002’s pre-Fey state of the art in smart/sexy/funny TV chicks… [...]