February 16th, 2007
9. Cartoon Sushi
A short-running showcase of traditional animation and claymation, MTV's Cartoon Sushi was never fit to attract viewers who wanted reliable tone or quality from a TV show. The shorts that made up each episode could range from straight-up silly (a piece of broccoli going on a rampage after losing on a game show) to slow and unsettling (an awkwardness-filled Don Hertzfeldt short about a blind date). It might get a more sympathetic audience today among fans who've since warmed up to Hertzfeldt and the ever-more-disorienting and perverse humor of South Park and the Adult Swim lineup.
10. Spaced
Before there was Shaun Of The Dead, there was Spaced, a Channel 4 series co-written by Simon Pegg, directed by Edgar Wright, and co-starring Nick Frost. Pegg created the show with co-star Jessica Stevenson, who plays his matter-of-convenience roommate who slowly develops into a love interest. Sort of. Pegg plays a would-be comic-book artist and Stevenson plays a would-be writer, but many of the show's jokes come from their tendency to lounge around their flat getting stoned, which does little for their careers. The rest of the gags emerge from the clever, too-many-to-count pop-culture parodies woven into each episode. Spaced ran for two seasons, one in 1999 and the other in 2001, and reruns can currently be seen on BBC America, but it's the kind of series that doesn't just reward obsessive re-watching, it practically demands it.
11. TV Funhouse
This short-lived satire of lessons-oriented children's television programming featured permanently grinning host Doug and puppet friends The Anipals introducing Robert Smigel's cartoons—some of which have already been collected in the recent SNL: Best Of Saturday TV Funhouse. Still, the live bits featuring the Anipals' various tawdry adventures—usually involving sex, drugs, foul language, and heaps of abuse for the unflappable Doug—were often funnier than Smigel's broad jabs at celebrities (some of which, like "Kidder, Downey & Heche," were dated the second they aired), and they truly deserve a disc of their own. TV Funhouse may have been a cheap ploy to spin off the popularity of Triumph The Insult Comic Dog—and indeed, the episodes where he cameoed felt a bit like Ted Danson dropping in on Frasier—but The Anipals had their own crude, Meet The Feebles charm that predated obvious successors like Wonder Showzen, and the show makes similar (and already released) fare like Greg The Bunny seem positively anemic in comparison.
12. Max Headroom
For most people, Max Headroom was nothing more than a Coca-Cola pitchman and ubiquitous '80s icon—a computer-generated counterpoint to Spuds MacKenzie, say. Few outside of certain science-fiction fanatics remember the surprisingly dark drama that Britain's Channel 4 developed as an origin story for the creepy Matt Frewer character, the cheeky host of The Max Talking Headroom Show. Set in a dystopian future run by greedy corporations and lorded over by the sinister "Network 23," Max Headroom combined gritty street drama with visionary cyberpunk themes—in the pilot, Network 23 is revealed to be broadcasting subliminal advertisements called "blip-verts" that cause viewers' heads to explode—and frequent plots involving terrorists and screeds against censorship that proved too heavy for most in 1987. In today's post-9/11, 24-watching world, however, Max Headroom would fit right in. Unfortunately, a DVD—like the never-produced feature film Max Headroom For President—still exists only in fanboy dreams.
13. The State
It's been "in development" for nearly five years now, but MTV has yet to officially announce a DVD edition of The State, the sketch-comedy show that, along with Beavis And Butt-head, briefly made the network a home for cutting-edge comedy. Upon its original airing, it was critically reviled as too crude and sophomoric for the kind of sophisticated pundits who made Home Improvement and The Drew Carey Show hits, but The State's cast members have nevertheless been hanging out in the corners of popular culture for more than a decade now, giving birth to the beloved cult favorite Wet Hot American Summer and the similarly misunderstood shows Viva Variety and Stella. Now that the show's most popular descendent, Reno 911, is introducing The State's cast to a broad new audience, the timing has never been better for a DVD release. Unfortunately, all of the red tape surrounding the show's music rights doesn't appear to be going away any time soon, so until a generous benefactor steps up—like Shout! Factory did for Freaks And Geeks—we may never see Louie dip his balls in anything again.
14. It's Garry Shandling's Show
Garry Shandling's characters often suffer from crippling insecurity, and the few and far between DVD releases of his work suggest that this isn't just an act. While the forthcoming Not Just The Best Of The Larry Sanders Show includes an impressive eight hours of special features, only the show's first season has been released as a complete set—and unfortunately, mediocre sales haven't boded well for future seasons. Likewise, Shandling's groundbreaking anti-sitcom It's Garry Shandling's Show has been missing since its original late-'80s simultaneous run on Showtime and the fledgling Fox network. IGSS is remembered fondly by audiences fortunate enough to catch it as one of the more unusual shows in TV history, from its bouncy, deadpan theme ("This Is The Theme To Garry's Show") to the characters' habit of regularly breaking the fourth wall, but without syndication or home video, it's been lost to the ages for nearly 15 years. On a recent promo junket, Shandling hinted that a DVD release was in the cards, but to date, no official announcement has been made. Meanwhile, Full House has just issued its fifth boxed set.
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