The Drew Carey Show - The Complete First Season DVD Review

[TJ]

Cleveland Rocks! Well, at least, a 90s/2000s sitcom set in Cleveland rocks! I can’t vouch for the city, having never been there myself.

After a long and anxious wait by fans, the first season of The Drew Carey Show is now on DVD! All 22 first season episodes are now available -- for the first time -- on DVD. Warner Home Video put out a "Television Favorites" release of six episodes, including two season 1 episodes, "Pilot" and "Playing the Unified Field." Now you can own the other 20, plus...a special feature!

For those of you unfamiliar with the show -- The Drew Carey Show was a hilarious sitcom that ran on ABC from 1995 to 2004 -- Drew Carey was a lower-level white collar worker for the department store Winfred-Louder (and in the last 2 seasons, an internet-startup show -- but that’s still several seasons away). The Drew character was meant as a sort of "everyman" character -- though like Roseanne, the character and show turned into so much more. At work, Drew’s life is made an absolute nightmare by Mimi (Kathy Kinney) -- the secretary for Mr. Bell (in the first season) and Mr. Wick (in the rest of the Winfred-Louder years). Giving Drew a break from the nightmare and/or boredom at work is his friends -- Lewis (Ryan Stiles), a janitor at the pharmaceutical company DrugCo, Oswald (Diedrich Bader) -- at first a DJ but for most of the run a delivery driver for Global Parcel, as well as Kate (Christa Miller).

Read our review here:
http://www.sitcomsonline.com/thedrew...dvdreview.html

Post any questions or comments about this set.

[Ireneparalegal]

I can't wait to get this!!!!!

[Bobby F.]

Got mine yesterday and am enjoying the hell out of it!! One of the best out there!

[peter may]

i picked mine up yesterday, really enjoying it, havent seen it in years

[zypherix]

To help out, ep 114 - Drew and Mr. Bell's Nephew is edited.
I compared with the syndicated airing and approximatly 20 seconds of footage is missing right before the theme song begins, although the dvd had some more lines that were missing in syndication.

[HugeTVFan]

Originally Posted by zypherix

To help out, ep 114 - Drew and Mr. Bell's Nephew is edited.
I compared with the syndicated airing and approximatly 20 seconds of footage is missing right before the theme song begins, although the dvd had some more lines that were missing in syndication.

Yes and plus remember the pilot where Drew--where this--this IMDB link (if this is allowed here...which I believe it is). Now here's a direct excerpt (transcript,whatever) to (or from) the post:
It's not ABC, it's Warner. If you search for B00005JOCE at amazon.com it takes you to: "The Drew Carey Show - The Complete First Season". And "Availability: NOT YET RELEASED...". It's been like that for a while. If you're a customer there, it couldn't hurt to sign up for alerts.

It would be a dream come true, but there are so many ways Warner could screw up a complete season/series release of this show. Here's my wish list for any DVD releases this show gets:
1) Original/first-run prints, not syndication prints. On the "TV Favorites" DVD for this show, at the end of the pilot episode when Oswald is looking at Drew playing pool in the rain, you hear him say "look at that dumb son of a gun" but his lips are mouthing something different. Also, I've surprised myself by watching reruns on TBS and noticing obscure places where some of the dialog was edited for time; this is surprising because it had been 5-6 years since I'd seen the first-run broadcasts on ABC.

2) Keep all of the music that was originally used

3) All versions (eastern/mountain/pacific) of the Drew Live episodes

4) Original version AND pop-up versions of the "What's Wrong With This Episode" episodes
Now a user by the username of ncsumath83 (I believe that's the username,and the correct spelling of it as well) wrote that fine,fine post and if you notice it mentions what I was trying to mention with that scene from the pilot--you know--and they didn't fix that. The runtime was--wait,I'll compare runtimes--but I think they're pretty much the same--yeah they're the exact same--now to get a lil' off-topic--let's compare Playing The Unified Field--now I'll do the same thing like I did with the pilot--now,22:53 compared to--22:54! OK that was either a typo or they really did run it a second longer--than again no worry--it's probably unedited--they probably just--at the end they probably just used a blank screen as filler for a second--it was either that or a typo. Anyways back to what I was saying--back to on-topic--I'm on-topic again--uhh...yeah it's a shame and that episode you mentioned--also a shame. And I read a post earlier this morning on the Home Theater Forum and it looked as if Warner Bros. promised full uncut episodes to all of its consumers (or maybe only to that user)--now either:
a.they couldn't find the uncut/original episodes (specifically in the pilot's case although it has a pretty long un-cut runtime than again it's only that dub...yeah I think that's what you call it and in the case with Drew & Mr.Bell's Nephew--that episode as well)
or b. (this is only in the pilot's case) the dub was in the original episode as it originally aired back in 1995 on ABC. Maybe they thought that "bitch" (hope that won't be censored or anything) was too conterversial and they re-dubbed the line with Diedrich Bader (the actor who protrays Oswald) and they changed it to a more-friendly--family-friendly--"gun"! And maybe they actually changed the line prior to broadcast (I do kind of wish this was the case,actually). Still it's not the happiest news in the world but hey at least it's out there for mega-fans to buy. Right? C'mon now! Let's laugh this thing off! It's THAT hilarious!

[Chocolate Moose]

i hope that's what i have on my Queue at Blockbuster.

[HugeTVFan]

Originally Posted by Chocolate Moose

i hope that's what i have on my Queue at Blockbuster.

What do you want on your queue at Blockbuster?

[HugeTVFan]

Originally Posted by HugeTVFan

What do you want on your queue at Blockbuster?

I get what you're talking about now.......lol.........

[Blackout]

did season 2 ever drop?