DVD Update: Wizards & Warriors

Wizards & Warriors (1983)

WARNING: This is an ANCIENT Post! Only slightly updated.

This post has been sitting around for a few many many months almost years since the September 2014 release. I just was never motivated to continue with it, plus once again scanning photos or surfing the web for an appropriate image caused me to dilly dally and procrastinate. While trying to clear out my dusty drafts folder I decided it would be better to go ahead and post an out of date old post, and add some images, rather than delete it wasting any effort I put into it.

The long awaited television series Wizards and Warriors (1983) has finally come to DVD 30 years after it originally aired sort of. Unfortunately the series was very short lived having only 8 episodes total. I'm not even sure if all of them were aired. Again an unfortunate event is it is only available as an "On Demand" Title. Meaning it is made to order ONLY when ordered online and burned onto a DVD-R not a regular mass printing.

Marco (Walter Olkewicz) and Prince Erik Greystone (Jeff Conaway)

The series was a sword and sorcery fantasy series that starred Jeff Conaway, Clive Revill, Duncan Regehr, Ian Wolfe, Walter Olkewicz, Julia Duffy and Randi Brooks with an appearance (well two) by Christine De Lisle. It was very tongue planted securely in cheek slapstick campy humor. Sort of a Dungeons and Dragons version of the 1970s When Things Were Rotten. Which was a short lived Robin Hood series produced by Mel Brooks.

When I first heard this was coming to DVD I was super excited since I loved the show and hadn't seen it since the original airings. Sure some people have been selling pirated copies on all formats (even some VHS copies) on Ebay for years. However, they were typical pirate low-quality copies not even worth watching. Most copied from an ancient VHS copy.

The Wizard Vector (Clive Revill) and The Witch Bethal (Randi Brooks)

I'm not sure if I am going to take the plunge on this one. I'm not too thrilled about the ON Demand concept. There are some other titles of shows/movies that are in this same ON DEMAND DVD-R boat. I can't think of those titles at this moment and I don't want to do any more research for this ancient post. I would love to get this, but I'm just not sure.

The best photos of the show seem to be at a fan website called wizardsandwarriors.org of course. It is an old site and probably hasn't been updated. That is the site I got the screen shots from. It seems to be the only site people have gotten stuff from, they have the most variety of images, i.e. more than just what a quick Google image search gives you. The DVD cover shot is at several sites, most of them I think are from people who got the DVD and reviewed it on some online forum.

Show links on imdb.com
Wizards and Warriors (1983)
When Things Were Rotten (1975)

DVD Update - January 2012

JANUARY 2012 - DVD UPDATE

For January it looks like I just have two DVDs and I didn't spend a single dime on them. I got them from a "yankee" gift exchange party.

Leatherheads (2008)

I've only seen bits and pieces of this movie. It is one of those dramatic "feel good" sports movies where a group of ragtag players end up beating the odds and making history. I'm not sure if this is based on a specific historical events or just based on the early days of football in general.

Time Bandits (1981)

 This is a comedy/adventure classic from the demented directing of Terry Gilliam of Monty Python fame. I forget how many times I've seen this film the basic story is about a 10 year old boy who gets mixed up with a band of time traveling thieving dwarfs who have stolen a cosmic map from the Supreme Being (aka: God) to collect historical wealth.

DVD Update - August thru October

 AUGUST - OCTOBER 2011

It has been many many moons since I've updated any of this blog, ACK the last few minutes of October are passing me by. This update has just August and September DVD purchases since I didn't get any in October, although I do have a couple of discs in transit from Columbia House.

NOTE: At the time I started working on this post my Amazon Associates link thing wasn't working properly so I couldn't add the links I wanted to, perhaps I'll have to edit later to improve this entry.

 

Source Code

First up in August I went to Target and got a DVD that I had forgotten I also had on order from Columbia House. It was the Sci-Fi Action Time-Loop movie Source Code. It is a blind buy. The first thing about the film from the trailers I've seen is the main plot of having to go back into the past just before some tragic event and try to make it right, re-doing it if you fail. Sort of along the lines of the 90s TV Show Seven Days.

 

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor

Moving back a little further through time we have the Third installment of The Mummy Franchise The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I haven't watched my DVD of it yet but I have seen the flick. Got this from Columbia House.

The Jerk: 26th Anniversary Edition

This Classic Steve Martin comedy I got for real cheap at one of my local Safeway stores. Excellent comedy with the classy Bernadette Peters. They worked well together, too bad it was only because they were dating at the time.

Termination Point

A sight unseen very B-grade Sci-fi Time Travel movie. Perhaps straight to DVD starring Lou Diamond Phillips and Jason Priestley. Again a very cheap purchase from Safeway.

National Lampoon's Pucked

Yet again a Safeway sight unseen B-Grader this time a Sophomore or perhaps Freshman comedy from National Lampoon called Pucked looks like a parody of high-school Hockey flicks with a girls team. These movies can be very Hit or Miss.

That was the August fair next the two September Flicks I got.

Thor

First up from Columbia House as the Director's Choice of the Month pick one of the latest Superhero flicks from Marvel Comics Thor. Looks to be 10 times better than that Hulk vs. Thor Made for TV movie from the late 1980s.

Zulu

The last entry was a DVD I got from one of my friends so it was a Freebie. He upgraded to Blu-Ray so he gave me this copy. This historical action Classic starring Micheal Caine might make one want to chant weird things.

Tragedy For Comedy

This past Sunday (22 June, 2008) the world of comedy lost one of it's true geniuses to a heart attack.

George Carlin

(1937-2008)

Best known for his offbeat very politically incorrect cerebral humor, and clever use of words. One of his best known routines was "The 7 words you can't say on television" those words still can't be said on regular broadcast television but they run wild on cable television. Although mostly known for his stand-up and frequent HBO specials, he appeared in several movies including: Dogma, Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure along with it's sequel Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey. He also had his own short-live sitcom "The George Carlin Show" and was the very first guest host on NBC's Saturday Night Live back in 1975.

His comedy covered every area of life, from the personal observations to the things in peoples everyday life (the little world) to politics, religion, world events (the big world). He also wrote 3 books were were big sellers; Brain Droppings, Napalm and Silly Putty and When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops? Funny Stuff. (OK I've only read Brain Droppings, but I want to get and read the other two sometime.)

A Recent Read Number 9

"When I woke up that morning, it didn't take me long to realize there were dogs in my nose."

Cruel Shoes by Steve Martin. Before becoming a big box office movie star Steve Martin rose to the top of the stand-up comic ranks. He was a frequent guest host for the original cast Saturday Night Live, often he would be the first host of a new season, which is why some people mistakenly think he was the first to ever host SNL. That honor my friends goes to George Carlin. Anyway it was during this time (late 1970s) that Steve wrote this book, which is just a hodge podge collection of strange, weird and often funny stories and ideas. Some of them are quick one-liners while others run a page or two very few are more than two pages long. Some of the bits, all of which have titles and are listed under the table of contents, get to the point of the joke right away, while some take sometime and make you scratch your head and wonder what the point is. Then there are the totally absurd bits like "How To Fold Soup".

It is a quick and easy read as there are only 120 some pages with many of those having black and white photos from Steve on stage doing his stand up. The humor ranges from slightly humorous and only worth a slight smile to outrageously hilarious. I took about a week to read this as I would read one or two bits and then put it down, but it can be read in a very short period of time depending on your reading speed and length of laugh breaks. Fun and very silly book.

Cruel Shoes by Steve Martin 1977 G.P. Putnam's Sons 128 pages - ****.5