I'm not sure how "Fishing with John" on DVD ended up in the house--probably my college senior daughter--or why we eventually put it in the DVD player, but some good things happen by chance. Slow-moving but funny enough to keep you awake, this "TV series" (financed by Japanese money and reportedly a big hit in Japan) hooks you good. The narrator is very funny. On Lon, the Thailand fishing guide, "Lon's legs are made of wood, but his feet are real!" Faced with a choice of hours of entertaining Dennis Hopper stories or slow-moving footage of the two of them fishing, Lurie chose the fishing. Right choice. This is a fishing show after all.
Lurie's commentaries add much--I missed the cow and pig noises on the sound track of the long shark fight in Episode 1 (they land a 12' tiger shark).
It is tempting to label Lurie's 1991 and 1992 humor as early Tom Green, but Lurie is on a different level. I am not sure the show would work as well with guests more different from Lurie (though Matt Dillon, chosen by the Japanese backers, does not fit the mold), but the guests often do not seem to be enjoying themselves. In the commentary, Lurie says he is afraid that if the skipper of the shark boat, a real fisherman who never appears on camera visually or by voice, ever sees the show "He will beat me up." His guest on Episode 2, Tom Waits, would not talk to Lurie for 2 years after filming and has never seen the show. Yet later guests Dillon and Hopper saw the completed first two episodes, loved them, agreed to come on the show, and had more or less the same things happen to them (though Hopper clearly had fun). Fishing is fishing. Sometimes the scenery compensates for all else.
Stumbling across this "TV series" on real broadcast TV would be a life-changing experience. On DVD, it is a memorable keepsake.
