Route 66 - S1 V1

Wow! Route 66 on DVD. Finally, we get to cruise America with Tod (Martin Milner) and Buzz (George Marahis).

What can I say to convince you it's a `60s B&W series worth watching? Well, the vette is one thing, but it never overshadows the stories. Despite all the adventure, travelogue, drama and poetry this duo gets into, the real subject of the series was the human condition. Tod and Buz acted as observers and mentors to broken-down prizefighters and rodeo clowns, sadists and iron-willed matrons, surfers and heiresses, runaway kids and people from all walks of life, forced by circumstances to confront their demons.

While we may only get Route 66 Season 1 in Volumes 1 and 2 as some reviewers have indicated, this is what we have to look forward to in the first year (October 1960 to June 1961):

Episode 1 -- "Black November" -- Car trouble strands Tod and Buz in a small town with a terrible secret.

Episode 2 -- "A Lance of Straw" -- Tod and Buz sign on to crew a shrimp boat, despite the objections of the female captain's boyfriend.

Episode 3 -- "The Swan Bed" -- Tod and Buz meet a girl in New Orleans during a parrot fever epidemic.

Episode 4 -- "The Man on the Monkey Board" -- Tod and Buz meet a Nazi-hunter and his quarry on an offshore oil rig.

Episode 5 -- "The Strengthening Angels" -- Tod and Buz try to help a migrant worker who is in trouble with the local sheriff.

Episode 6 -- "Ten Drops of Water" -- Devastated by drought, three orphaned ranchers need Tod, Buz and the Corvette.

Episode 7 -- "Three Sides" (aka Three Sides of a Coin) -- Tod and Buz get involved in family strife while working for an Oregon hop farmer.

Episode 8 -- "Legacy for Lucia" -- While working at a logging camp, Tod and Buz meet a girl from Italy, who insists she has inherited the state of Oregon from a local man.

Episode 9 -- "Layout at Glen Canyon" -- Tod and Buz act as bodyguards to fashion models at the Glen Canyon Dam construction site.

Episode 10 -- "The Beryllium Eater" -- Tod and Buz help an old prospector stake his claim after he finds beryllium ore.

Episode 11 -- "A Fury Slinging Flame" -- Tod and Buz meet a scientist (Leslie Nielsen) who intends to hide in Carlsbad Caverns with friends until an expected nuclear holocaust is over.

Episode 12 -- "Sheba" -- Tod and Buz work as cowboys for Woody Biggs (Lee Marvin), who isn't done with the woman he sent to prison.

Episode 13 -- "The Quick and the Dead" -- Tod becomes a race car driver as he and Buz get involved in a family controversy over whether an aging driver should retire.

Episode 14 -- "Play It Glissando" --Tod and Buz try to protect a woman from her jazz musician husband.

Episode 15 -- "The Clover Throne" -- Tod and Buz work for a date farmer (Jack Warden) who fights the highway department while he "waits out" his sexy ward, hoping she will marry him.

Episode 16 --"Fly Away Home (Part 1)" -- Tod becomes a crop duster for a struggling company.

Episode 17 -- "Fly Away Home (Part 2)" -- Tod and Buz get involved in a quandary over an extra-dangerous crop dusting contract.

Episode 18 -- "Sleep on Four Pillows" -- Tod and Buz meet a teenage girl who claims to be on the run from gangsters - but her family thinks she has been kidnapped.

Episode 19 -- "An Absence of Tears" -- Tod and Buz try to protect a blind widow from her husband's murderers.

Episode 20 -- "Like a Motherless Child" -- Buz and Tod split up over whether to return a runaway boy to an orphanage.

Episode 21 -- "Effigy in Snow" -- Tod and Buz try to stop a murderer who has left his latest victim in the snow at Squaw Valley.

Episode 22 -- "Eleven, the Hard Way" -- Tod and Buz meet a gambler (Walter Matthau), whom the people of Broken Knee have asked to save their town.

Episode 23 -- "Most Vanquished, Most Victorious" -- At the request of his aunt, Tod traces the life of his saintly cousin through the Los Angeles slums.

Episode 24 -- "Don't Count Stars" -- Tod and Buz get involved in a custody case over a 9-year-old heiress and her drunken, gambling "uncle."

Episode 25 -- "The Newborn" -- Tod and Buz protect a Native American girl and her newborn from their employer, who rules the land like a feudal baron.

Episode 26 -- "A Skill for Hunting" -- Tod and Buz are framed as poachers after Tod interferes with a real poacher's hunting.

Episode 27 -- "Trap at Cordova" -- Tod and Buz are coerced into teaching school children in rural New Mexico.

Episode 28 -- "The Opponent" -- Buz visits and inspires his boyhood hero, a former boxing great (Darren McGavin) who is now on the skids.

Episode 29 -- "Welcome to Amity" -- Tod and Buz meet a woman (Susan Oliver), who wants to bury her mother in a nearby cemetery. The people of Amity want to stop her.

Episode 30 - "Incident on a Bridge" --Tod and Buz board in a home with an abused, mute girl and her two jealous - and violent - suitors.

So, c'mon. Hitch a ride and relive these nostalgic vignettes of America and Americans. It's a great trip!

POST-SCRIPT (31 Oct. 2007):
I concur with subsequent reviewers, regarding the audio-video transfer quality to this DVD set. It could be better. Although the video is too dark, the brightness and contrast can be adjusted from your system. Audio varies from episode to episode, and I would have thought with today's technology this could have been improved. It is a pity because the packaging of this boxed set is well done. The menu of episodes, commercials and bio-film background are nice touches to a great, great series. Does this mean I regret buying this DVD set? Not one iota, considering its the best thing out there at the moment.

Sorry friends and readers, I know it's a bit shopworn but I couldn't resist the title. I assure you, however, that this TV series remains far from stale.

Inspired by the wanderlust of Kerouac and mainstream America's discovery of the beat subculture, ROUTE 66 ran from 1960 to 1964 and was television's first road trip drama. Similar to David Janssen's THE FUGITIVE, each episode would have the all-American Tod Stiles (Martin Milner) and his hipster companion Buz Murdock (George Maharis; replaced in mid-1963 by Glenn Corbett as the haunted army vet Lincoln Case) traveling Route 66 in their blue Corvette, getting involved with the lives and problems of the people they'd encounter on the road.

Although some of today's viewers might find Buz's "hip lingo" to be over-the-top, one should understand that he is a beatnik and he talks like a beatnik. Throughout ROUTE 66's four year run, Stirling Silliphant (VILLAGE Of The DAMNED, IN The HEAT Of The NIGHT, TOWERING INFERNO, POSEIDON ADVENTURE, DIRTY HARRY) was the main scriptwriter, earning the series its well-deserved reputation for quality writing. Nelson Riddle did the show's opening theme, which became a Top 30 hit.

Included in this 4-disc collection is the first half of the first season, containing 15 episodes (guest starring Walter Matthau, Darren McGavin, Lee Marvin, Leslie Nielsen and Jack Warden, among others), along with extras featuring original commercials and the featurette "History of the Corvette." The rest of the first season can be found on the recently released Season 1: Volume 2.

UPDATE: The quality on some of the episodes lacks the quality of Season 1 Part 2 which is excellent except for the widescreen formatting they used. You can tell when they used original films versus washed out and barely audible video tapes in Season 1 Vol 1. Just keep that in mind. At least it is in 4:3 format.

Finally someone is listening! First the Fugitive and now Route 66! Television with meaning. I guess it was well worth the wait for the studios to get all the crap out of their system so they could start releasing the real quintessential jewels of American television.
This show was so innovative for its time - It was shot on location around the country. The entire cast and crew literally travelled from one spot to the next and filmed each episode. This would be so cost prohibitive today, and a show like this would probably be cancelled after one episode anyway with today's TV execs - especially that one at the CW!

Anyway, this is a legitimate, proper Season release (granted it is in two parts) of my all time absolute favorite television show ever!
It is released by the same people who did the 11 episodes disc, which had great video quality, kept all of the bumpers, commercials and previews for the next week intact. You couldn't ask for more. If they release all seasons of this great series, I swear I will never watch current television again. THIS SHOW IS WHERE IT'S AT CATS!

› Go to Amazon.com to see all 59 reviews  4.2 out of 5 stars