Hooperman - Seasons One and Two DVD Reviews

[TJ]

Hooperman - Season One

Available for the first time on DVD, the classic (but short-lived) ABC ‘80s TV series Hooperman! The series stars John Ritter (Three’s Company) as plainclothes San Francisco police inspector Harry Hooperman. When he inherits a building from his former landlady, he also gains ownership of her dog - a feisty Jack Russell Terrier named Bijoux. Comedy and drama ensue in equal measure as Hooperman juggles the pressures of his job, his newfound pet, and a romantic entanglement with the building manager he hires. The series co-stars Barbara Bosson (Hill Street Blues) and Felton Perry (RoboCop) and includes guest appearances (throughout the two-season run) by Don Cheadle (House of Lies), Norman Fell (Three’s Company), Mark Hamill (Star Wars), Barbara Rush (Bigger Than Life), David Paymer (Mr. Saturday Night), Joanna Kerns (Growing Pains), Jane Leeves (Frasier), Dan Lauria (The Wonder Years), Lorna Luft (Grease 2) and Shannon Tweed (Hot Dog ... The Movie).

The three-disc set from Olive Films contains all 22 first season episodes in their unedited format. The first season starred John Ritter, Felton Perry, Debrah Farentino, Barbara Bosson, Clarence Felder, Sydney Walsh, Joseph Gian, and Alix Elias.

Read our review of Season One here:
http://www.sitcomsonline.com/hooperm...dvdreview.html

Hooperman - Season Two

The three-disc set from Olive Films contains all 20 second season episodes in their unedited format, along with a bonus feature. The second season starred John Ritter, Felton Perry, Barbara Bosson, Clarence Felder, Sydney Walsh, Joseph Gian, Alix Elias, Paul Linke and Rod Gist.

Read our review of Season Two here:
http://www.sitcomsonline.com/hooperm...dvdreview.html

[Ron Ron]

I already have mine on pre-order.

Thanks for the review!!

[king of comedy]

Great show that was underrated.

[Ron Ron]

I have to say that the picture quality for season 2 is pretty good. Can't wait to get season 1!

[bmasters9]

I'm on the verge of completing the first season's worth of Hooperman-- just two shows to go (when I do, it'll be the first season of anything that I have actually completed in a long time).

[Latka Gravas]

As a kid, I was a fan of "Three's Company" back in the early - mid '80's, primarily because of the women - LOL. However, I felt that Hooperman - as short lived as it was - was a far superior show; much more layered & interesting. I do remember one episode where Hooperman had to talk down a criminal who had a gun pointed at him; other scenes were much more comedic. It was a great combination of comedy & drama, which is not easy to pull off - but was done very well here. I know one of the actresses from "Hill Street Blues" was on the show.

I think Ritter got typecast as Jack Tripper on TC, so that may have been why Hooperman didn't do better at the time.

I tried to keep up with the show, but didn't watch it as often as I would have liked. Plus, IIRC they changed the air time at least once during the short-lived series. So, I honestly don't remember seeing that many episodes when it originally aired, unfortunately.

I knew about the DVD release two years ago, and was happy that the show finally made it to Disk - though I still haven't seen it on DVD yet. I just checked on Amazon, and it says the first season will usually ship in "1-3 months", which sounds like they have it on back-order - and/or the set is Out of Print (OOP). In any case, I regret not getting the show when it was first released.

[Latka Gravas]

Though it's taken me a while, I finally watched Hooperman S01 on DVD. What a great series! I had only caught a couple episodes here & there back in the day, so had never seen S01 in it's entirety before. And, it was even better than I remember it - fantastic. Extremely well-written, clever, funny/witty, and sad. I was also impressed by the realism in many of the episodes. Apparently, this show coined the term dramedy - very appropriate.

IMHO this is Ritter's best role, and the other cast is great as well, including Debrah Farentino, Barbara Bosson (probably best known as Fay Furillo from Hill Street Blues), Felton Perry, Clarence Felder, and others.

And, in a category by herself is the extremely hot Sydney Welsh - as sexy officer Maureen DeMott. Wow. I really miss the '80's One of the running jokes in S01 is how DeMott typically goes after guys who aren't into women, including one of her fellow officers - ha ha.

Note there are SPOILERS below; I don't know how to insert SPOILER tags in this forum.

Some of the best episodes from S01 include:

-Hooperman & Boris "Bobo" Pritzger (Felder) go undercover to stop a series of convenience store robberies, and
Bobo ends up having to kill the perpetrator to save Hooperman's life. Afterwards, the seemingly tough/macho Bobo breaks down @ work, after becoming distraught/suffering PTSD from shooting the criminal.

-Hooperman ends up buying a very well preserved & impressive older car (for a price he can't afford) from a drug dealer who had just been arrested & needed the money for legal fees - ha ha. He notices that his car is getting unwanted attention due to the recognizable license plate.

Soon after, he discovers a bomb underneath of it; he was being targeted by the drug dealer's enemies who thought he was connected to him in some way. Very funny (but also cringe-worthy) scene as the bomb squad intentionally sets off the bomb & destroy the prized car, while Hooperman & McNeil (Perry) look on.

-Hooperman ends up becoming the advocate of a career criminal who is dying. Despite Hooperman trying to help him by getting him a room in a hospice (so he won't have to go back to prison), the criminal ends up intentionally getting himself shot & killed. Very realistic & sad ending.

-Hooperman & co. investigate a series of crimes where people are badly beaten & in some cases chained/bound, but not robbed.

At first, the beatings seem random. However, on further investigation the one common denominator is that they are all parents who have had complaints against them for abusing their children. Hooperman realizes the perpetrator is a woman who works at a local child protective agency & is enraged at the crimes committed against innocent children by one (or more) of their parents. This episode really shines a light on child abuse, which many people weren't talking about much prior to the '80's.

Also really liked the jazzy score/music, including the great theme song.

[Latka Gravas]

Here is my technical review of the S01 Hooperman DVD set:

-The Picture Quality (PQ) was decent. It was definitely better than a VHS rip & also better than a lot of other '80's TV shows I've seen on DVD. But, it could stand some improvement. That being said, I'm not sure this can ever get any better than what we see here - given the limitations of the source material.

Some of my favorite scenes in S01 were the night-time scenes of S.F., i.e. Chinatown with the neon lights, the city skyline @ dusk, the GG bridge @ night, etc. Excellent.

-I did like that this set offered subtitles, since that's not always the case with '80's TV shows on DVD.

-The Audio was, overall, decent. However, there were numerous quick audio dropouts on these DVD's, notably Episode 3 & some in the final episode. Very distracting, but didn't mar/ruin my enjoyment of the show. I'm certain this issue has nothing to do with the player(s) being used, but that the issues were with the DVD's themselves. I'm not going to bother trying to get replacements for these, given that it seems like this is systemic with all of the DVD sets - and AFAIK Olive hasn't offered replacements anyway.

[Latka Gravas]

Recently finished watching Hooperman S02.

Decent season, but not nearly as good as S01. There were very few dramatic episodes in this season (unlike S01), and the emphasis was more on comedy. That would have been OK with a normal sitcom, but I was expecting at least a little more drama mixed in with the comedic elements re: this series.

My comments/review on the episodes - note there are SPOILERS below:

- Smith (Farentino) became pregnant at the end of S01,and has a miscarriage at the beginning of S02. Very sad & realistic.

This leads to the break-up between Smith & Hooperman; she leaves S.F. & moves to NYC. I was actually glad to see the character get written off the show. Yes, their hot/cold relationship in S01 was interesting - but, I didn't want to see it dragged out in S02.

-Excellent episode that involved a convict getting out of prison & being unable to adjust to life on the outside - and, a big-shot mobster who thought he was untouchable. IMHO this was the best episode of the season, with an unexpected ending.

-In his off-hours, Hooperman enjoys playing sax at a slightly seedy dive bar/restaurant. However, much to Hooperman's chagrin - the place is also being used for criminal activities.

- Very funny episode when Hooperman's apartment house is taken over by a film crew shooting a very low budget horror/sci-fi movie, and they end up effectively trashing the whole place - LOL. The film's director was played by Mark Hamill (better known as Luke Skywalker from the original Star Wars films), in a rare & comedic non-SW role.

-Another amusing episode involved a ventriloquist losing his dummy, and Hooperman & co. being tasked to find him - LOL. The ventriloquist was played by Norman Fell (better known as Mr. Roper on Three's Company) - an obvious homage to the iconic sitcom that both he & Ritter starred in previously.

Technical review of the DVD set:

-The Picture Quality (PQ) was slightly better/sharper than S01's PQ. Nice.

-The audio in most of the episodes was fine. However, the audio drops that plagued some of S01's episodes were far worse in S02. There were some episodes that suffered from these audio drops continuously through at least 3-5?! minutes (though not the whole episode, thankfully). Very distracting; if it hadn't been for the subtitles here, I wouldn't have been able to understand what the characters were saying. I'm not blaming Olive for this, however - given that I suspect the source material was like this; and, obviously they can't go back & re-do the audio for a 30+ year old series.