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By Harvey F. Chartrand

Peter Gunn: The Complete Series is now available for the first time ever as a 12-dvd box set from Timeless Media Group… all 114 episodes, with a running time of over 58 hours.

Peter Gunn – created and produced by Blake Edwards – ran for three seasons – from 1958 to 1961. This classic detective show was a delightful blend of film noir and fifties cool, featuring a modern jazz score by Henry Mancini (a bonus CD of the soundtrack is included in the set), outbreaks of the old ultra-violence, a gallery of eccentric and sleazy characters (usually informants, gangsters and Beat Generation bohemians), and great acting by series leads Craig Stevens (as Gunn), Lola Albright (as his squeeze, sultry nightclub singer Edie Hart) and Herschel Bernardi (as Gunn’s friend and competitor Lieutenant Jacoby, who seems to work all by himself 24 hours a day...

You'd think a movie starring Marlon Brando at the height of his young-firebrand sex appeal, written by Nobel laureate John Steinbeck, and directed by the great Elia Kazan, would be better remembered today. Yet "Viva Zapata!", released exactly 60 years ago (on Feburary 7, 1952), is all but regarded as a footnote in the careers of Brando, Steinbeck, and Kazan. That's a shame, since it's at once a terrifically exciting action film, a heroic biopic, and a penetrating political study. Of course, even then, it was an odd one -- a movie about legendary figures in Mexican history portrayed by an almost Mexican-free cast; a movie about a pro-peasant revolutionary hero made at a time of anti-Communist hysteria in Hollywood. That it got made at all was remarkable, given the battles over censorship and casting, not to mention the battles between Brando and co-star Anthony Quinn, whose bitter tension often erupted into elaborate pranks and practical jokes.

Big kudos to the fine folks at MGM Limited Edition DVD-r! They’ve dug deep in the vaults for a true oddity in the world of cinema and television ( sitcoms, to be more precise ) ! I will tell anyone who asks that my absolute favorite TV situation comedy of all time is that early sixties gem ” The Dick Van Dyke Show” ( desert island, only one TV comedy, no hesitation! ). Well one of the few people with even more admiration and affection for this bit of comic perfection is comedy writer and pop culture master Mark Evanier. One of the sites I’ve bookmarked ( and if you love entertainment you should too ) is his website/ blog newsfromme.com . In 2007 he alerted his readers to Don”T Worry We’LL Think Of A Title was airing on the Turner Classic Movie cable channel. He had seen it with his family while they were...

It was an event that cartoon fans had been fantasizing for years. In 1987, many years after the cancellation of both The Flintstones and The Jetsons, this TV movie was released as part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 -- a group of 10 animated movies that were created for syndication. Though the two animated series were often compared to one another, it was the first meeting of the space-age and stone-age families. Many of the original voice actors returned to perform their trademark characters.

In the movie, Fred Flintstone (Henry Corden) and Barney Rubble (Mel Blanc) are fired from their jobs at the quarry and are afraid to tell their wives. In the future, George Jetson (George O'Hanlon) is having work issues of his own with Mr. Spacely (Mel Blanc). To escape his problems, George takes his family on a little vacation, courtesy of son Elroy (Daws Butler)...

On the one hand, you have to wonder what took so long for Hanna-Barbera to get around to having their two most famous franchises meet. On the other, maybe they should have waited for inspiration. Today, Warner Archive is releasing The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones and the 96 minutes went by at a glacial pace.

This 1987 television production features just about every significant character from both shows with the possible exception of the Great Gazoo. The simple premise has Elroy building a time machine for a class project and the hilarity begins when the entire Jetson family is accidentally transported to the past.

By the time the story ends, both families have had a chance to experience how the other half lives with parallel issues of both bread-winners having their jobs on the line. In the future, Spacely Sprockets has been on a losing streak with Mr., Spacely believing George Jetson was responsible for industrial espionage.

Warner Home Video has just re-released Yogi Bear's All-Star Comedy Christmas Caper, an animated holiday special from 1982. Along with Yogi and Boo Boo, the special features a number of classic Hanna-Barbera characters like Quick Draw McGraw, Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Doggie Daddy and his son Augie, Hokey Wolf, Snooper, Blabber, Pixie and Dixie, Mr. Jinks, Wally Gator, Yakky Doodle, Magilla Gorilla, and even special appearances by Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble.

The style of the artwork doesn't look much like the classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 1960s. However, the actors working on the special reads like a list of who's who of legendary voice talent. The cast, mostly playing their original characters, includes Daws Butler, Don Messick, Henry Corden, Mel Blanc, Allan Melvin, Jimmy Weldon, John Stephenson, Hal Smith, Janet Waldo, and Georgi Irene.

Esteemed comics and TV writer Mark Evanier wrote...

Though the animated Thundarr the Barbarian series was only on the air for two seasons and 21 episodes, it's earned a place in the memories of kids who grew up in the early 1980s.

Thundarr takes place in the year 3994. Civilization on Earth is in ruin after a runaway planet sped between Earth and the moon and unleashed "cosmic destruction." The planet is divided into territories that are ruled by magic and science. Thundarr (Bob Ridgely), a barbarian, and his friends Ookla the Mok (Henry Corden) and sorceress Princess Ariel (Nellie Bellflower) travel the countryside and use their powers, courage, and wits to liberate enslaved humans and battle mutants, wizards, thieves and robots.

The complete series has just been released on DVD in a four disc set. It sells for $29.95 from the Warner Archive Collection. You can also try to win a...