Route 66

ROUTE 66 is a classic American TV series that only gets better with time. The first season alone boasts appearances by Lee Marvin Leslie Nielsen and E.G. Marshal as well as tough thought provoking storylines penned by Academy Award-winner Sterling Silliphant. The series follows the experiences of the poor boy/rich boy duo of Buzz and Todd as they hit the road in the 1960s' spirit of self-discovery. While everyone can whistle the Nelson Riddle tune about "getting their kicks" this show has much more to offer than trivial pop-culture references.System Requirements:Running Time: 810 minutesFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: TELEVISION/CLASSIC Rating: NR UPC: 617742203196 Manufacturer No: IEG2031 The irresistible call of Route 66, the classic TV anthology series and the venerable Mother Road herself, is best summed up in a bit of dialogue in the episode, "Welcome to Amity," one of the 15 episodes that concluded Season One contained on this four-disc set. Yet another stranger in distress urges self-proclaimed "searchers and look-arounders" Tod Stiles (Martin Milner) and Buz Murdoch (George Maharis) to help her. "Where are we going?" Tod asks, as she bids them to follow her. "Let's find out," Buzz replies. Viewers happily followed Tod and Buz for four seasons on their cross-country odyssey in search of roots. Each week brought a new location, a new job, and new personal dramas in which they found themselves involved. In the gripping "An Absence of Tears," they unwittingly help a vengeful blind woman buy the exact brand of gun and bullets that thugs used to kill her husband during a botched gas station robbery. In "Most Vanquished, Most Victorious," they have 24 hours to find the daughter of Tod's dying aunt. In "The Newborn," they help an expectant Pueblo woman escape the clutches of the wealthy and powerful rancher whose late son impregnated her. No wonder that in the more lighthearted "Eleven the Hard Way," Tod suggests to Buz that they take "a 48 hour furlough from other people's problems" (no such luck; they no sooner find themselves in Reno helping two men win enough at the crap tables to save their dying town). Compelling stories, a vivid sense of place, and literate scripts were signposts of Route 66. While Tod and Buz "give lumps to some well-deserving people" (a climactic encounter with a street gang in "Most Vanquished, Most Victorious" is a great rumble), the show (and the cast) truly shine in the more emotional and dramatic moments. In "Like a Motherless Child," orphaned Buz bonds with a lonely woman who fronts as a shill. While Tod is the studied one, it is Buz who gets the bulk of the scripts' great, glorious riffs, as in "The Opponent," when he and Tod visit a once-legendary figure from Buz's Hell Kitchen neighborhood ("Would you take a detour to see Caesar or Napoleon? Those are the big boys you met in books. I met my own kings, face to face, in the back alleys"). Along for the ride are some great character actors, many in their earliest screen appearances, including Robert Duvall as "a trigger-happy kook" in "The Newborn," Darrin McGavin as a boxer on his last legs in "The Opponent," featuring Ed Asner (with hair!) as his trainer and Al Lewis (Grandpa from The Munsters) as a gym owner, and Walter Matthau at his schlubby best as a disreputable gambler in "Eleven the Hard Way." As in Volume 1 there are no commentaries or interviews, but vintage TV and classic car buffs will cruise through nearly 20 minutes of commercials for Chevrolet and Bayer Asprin. --Donald Liebenson