Kenner's rare "Burping" ALIEN commercial

Blade Runner: I don't get it.

Blade Runner…I don’t get it.
Jennifer Smith
Am I missing something? I admit, it took me three viewings of Casablanca (I saw it for the first time when I was 12) before I can sort of understand why some consider it the finest motion picture ever made. But Blade Runner? I don’t get it. Let me tell you, I have tried. My eyes have seen the original props from the film, from the Toymaker’s jacket and shirt to Harrison Ford’s original blaster, complete with its semi-translucent fiery handled grip. The Japanese Blade Runner “Dekkard” doll is beautiful, down to the last detail. The film has a rabid following of very cultured and intelligent sci-fi fans. I usually “get it” almost immediatley, I just don’t this time. So I’m wondering, am I alone? I feel somehow “wrong” for not catching on to the apparent coolness of this film, but I’m missing something here.
I tried to watch the film last night, for about the fourth time in my adult life. Mind you, I have the absolute perfect setting for film viewing. The film was projected onto a 90” screen with 5-point-one surround sound. When those Tangerine Purple (or whatever the hell that band is called) bells sounded, it was incredible. The film is a tour-de-force of design and boasts an absolutely otherworldly soundtrack. The innovation of Japanese projection ads on buildings through the rainy gloom of 2019 Los Angeles was fantastic. Rutger Hauer is both magnetic and tragic. He’s a symbol of doomed perfection, a combination of Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s immortal “Spike” and a genetically engineered Billy Idol. A brilliant and compelling character.

The question is raised: is Harrison Ford the “good guy,” or is he bad? After all, he guns down helpless Joanna Cassidy in the streets, which is one of the saddest examples of violence against women I have ever seen on film. Yet in the moments where you are supposed to empathize for his character, to root for him, I felt nothing. First of all, there is absolutely no chemistry between Sean Young and Harrison Ford. None whatsoever. The tender love story that is supposed to transform a bounty hunter into a runner (so run, runner!) fizzles at the end. Why does he want to run away with Young’s chain-smoking ice queen anyway? In the scene where they first meet and he questions her, she is rude and hostile. Is that sexy? I didn’t catch the undertone of attraction there, or in any subsequent meeting.
Then, the menacing and bizarre character played by James Edward Olmos just lets them go at the end, evidenced by the foil unicorn left on Ford’s apartment entryway. Olmos knows that Ford will run with the replicant Young, but I suppose he figures that she will die soon anyway, so he allows it? And what’s with Olmos’ weird blue eyes? Is he a replicant? Did that weird Japanese guy in the freeze chamber make his eyes too?
This could have been a chase film, like Terminator on crack. A cybernetic Rutger Hauer in his prime Vs. Harrison “Han” Ford? Bring it on!! Daryl Hannah as a psychotic gymnastic “pleasure model”? Wow! Pris says to Hauer: “We’re stupid and we’ll die,” yet Hauer seems so touchingly certain that they won’t. Yet at the end in the rooftop scene, with the nail in his hand and the dove across his chest, Hauer resembles a futuristic St. Sebastian. Even if he alone lived, excepting all other replicants (including Sean Young’s wet rag with great lip gloss character) it would have made this film worth watching. If Hauer lived on, and the Blade Runner let him go because he has a realization on the rooftop that he is an executioner, and not the good guy, how great would that have been? Hauer is the good guy, and could go free. Fabulous, I would have cried and cried. Just like Somewhere in Time, right?
In the prop collecting world, much has been made about the blaster that Ford uses. What’s the big deal? The very gun that blows two huge holes in Pris does Ford absolutely no good five minutes later against Hauer? Then Ford drops it? He drops it???? Where’s the drama? Ford could have shot Hauer in the face in the hallway of the toymaker’s house in the first minute of the finale when Hauer discovers the dead Pris, for Pete’s sake! By the end of the film I was howling like Hauer does, hoping for some logic to strike this highly legendary movie. I was hoping to figure out some secret message that everyone else has already figured out that makes this movie so well loved, like those 3-D images at the mall that I have never been able to see for myself. Like the fat guy in Mallrats, I never saw the sailboat either.
Some of you may be thinking, “lighten up, woman, it’s a classic!” but I don’t care. Classics are Three Stooges shorts with Curly in them, or Return of the Living Dead on DVD. Classics are The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, when at the end Mrs. Muir’s ghost walks away into the clouds holding hands with the ghost of the Captain. Classics are Elvis in the Aloha from Hawaii special and I Remember Mama with Irene Dunne. Logan’s Run and Aliens. Xanadu and Singin’ in the Rain. Logan’s Run and the Star Trek episode “Return to Babel” where Spock’s mom slaps him in the face. These are the true classics, and no well-made Japanese doll or cleverly marketed nostalgia of a beautifully art-directed film will make me think otherwise. So there.

Kollecting KISS

Kollecting KISS

KISS is one of those bands where you either love them, or hate them. The loyal KISS fans would all agree that their lives have been changed by being a KISS fan. The fun and magic of their entertainment will always be a high point while on Planet Earth. They are one of he most innovative and talented bands in the history of entertainment.

The genius of Paul Stanley’s song writing, god given voice and stage performance, he is the epitome of what is Rock Star. Ace Frehley, perhaps the best guitarist of the 70s and onward, Ace is just cool, truly awesome. Peter Criss’ excellent and straightforward, custom van drumming, along with classic rock n roll wiskey-ish voice, KISS would not have been the same without him. Gene Simmons, is Gene Simmons, nuff said.

Here area few examples of some KISS items, a true feast for the eyeballs.

“Here come the Show Boat!”... and you better listen, when the Lion Roars!!!

MGM: When the Lion Roars Two-Disc DVD Set


MGM: When the Lion Roars was once a shelf-hogging three-part VHS set or a thick deluxe laser disc box set, well worth the space required to have this in your personal library. It is now a 2-disc DVD set, and it’s about damned time. This documentary was one of those reasons I was hanging onto my VHS player, for Pete’s sake. Departed from the DVD release is the booklet once included in the VHS set that contained information about the MGM coffee table tie-in book of the same name, as well as tragic images of the MGM back lots being bulldozed to rubble in the late 70’s. Nevertheless, this six-hour-plus documentary detailing the complete glorious-to-tragic history of the greatest motion picture studio of the 20th century is finally available to the public once again.

If you are a radster and think that musicals are just for girlies and are too “old school” for you, you are an idiot, and you should shut your mouth and sit down to learn how things were done with style and talent that you just don’t see anymore. I dare the most cynical modern-day individual to watch this historic journey and not at least walk away with more respect and interest in early film industry, needless to say in MGM studios.

Documentary host Patrick “Jean-Luc Picard” Stewart mentions in his opening monologue the sheer power of the MGM studio, psychologically and behind the scenes. Though he admits right away that he never was there to witness it in person, Stewart possesses the gravitas necessary to convey this magnitude, and to take us through this sacred story. We learn about the inception of the studio, and the merging of three pioneers of early film history. This triangle were three successful and prevailing silent film studios, Metro, along with two other studios led by Samuel Goldwyn, and Louis B. Mayer, two individuals who were pioneers of film production, trail blazing their way to power. These three entities were brought together by Lowes Incorporated to become the greatest motion picture studio the world has ever known: MGM. Immediately joining the new company, Irving Thalberg, the “boy genius”, was recruited from Universal Studios in 1924 and initiated by Mayer to become MGM’s head of production. He was 23 years old at the time. Tragically, Thalberg died in 1936 at 37 years of age, but his legacy is still celebrated today with the prestigious Irving G. Thalberg Memorial Award, which singles out excellence in the art of filmmaking every year by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences at the yearly Oscar ceremonies.

MGM was located in Culver City, and would become a self-sustaining complex behind its own walls, complete with everything from schools to a zoo, hospital, costume department, lakes, and millinery. A motion picture factory, capable of producing one motion picture a week, in order to supply the parent company, Lowes Inc. with first-run movies across the states.

This documentary doesn’t focus on any one movie, song or person, but is about one of America’s most fascinating moments in history, when poor American immigrants started off in the new industry of filmmaking and became power-hungry, money-mad movie moguls, who would rule the entertainment industry for decades. Their seemingly unlimited power even had enormous pull with the politics of the time. (Well, some things have not changed.) Hence an American film studio provided the gold standard for motion pictures.

This documentary features perhaps many of the last on-camera interviews of many of the stars and technicians who were all cornerstones of the success and magic of MGM. Along with the interviews are clips of all the essential MGM staple films, and even the obscure clip or two from shorts and behind the scenes coverage.

MGM provided escapism for the audiences of the time. Their films always had an elegance and art that was true eye candy. MGM’s stable of talent was made up of individuals hand-selected to become “stars”; Clark Gable, Judy Garland, Joan Crawford, Greta Garbo, Spencer Tracy, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Presley, the list goes on and of all made their films made by MGM.

The story arc of MGM is not without tragedy, as the glory years of the silent era through the 40s are glamorous and magical, but the struggle for power in the studio, mixed with the changing times like the advent of rock n’ roll in the 1950s along with the rise of television was the establishing the slow downfall of MGM. The last days are truly sad, although there are highlights, like with one of the best horror films ever made: “2001: A Space Odyssey”. This film was made at MGM via the genius of Stanley Kubrick, whose success quickly followed in 1969 with the selling of studio to Kirk Kerkorian, the hotel millionaire. Unfortunately was not interested in making movies at all, and eventually his purchase of the studio led to the selling off of MGM’s glorious back lot, piece-by-piece, to make more condos. Thousands of iconic props and costumes, rare antiques and paintings were all sold at a public liquidation auction for 1.5 million dollars. Today, one pair of Ruby Slippers from “The Wizard of OZ” is worth at least that, and six pairs were found in the MGM wardrobe department and sold at the auction. Perhaps my favorite interview comment was made by Debbie Reynolds, who mentioned that she tried to make the heads of MGM realize they had a potential tourist goldmine on their hands, as their back-lots were already a Disneyland, and that all they needed was to add a turnstile and let cars drive in to see where “The Wizard of Oz,” “Singing in the Rain”, and hundreds of other film classics were made. She said, “Universal did it. If a silly little girl from Burbank could see it, why didn’t they see it, it’s too late now.” (The Universal Studios Tour draws more revenue than their motion pictures or television programs do, yet Universal is now is planning on developing their back-lot into condos, the same as the MGM folly of the 70’s. I guess no one ever learns from history.)

MGM When the Lion Roars features no additional features, but really none are necessary as the information contained on this DVD set is magnificently exhausting with its 366-minute running time. Writer / Director Frank Martin is no novice to the world of documentary filmmaking as he has delivered numerous exceptional Hollywood related docs, including “John Huston: The Man, The Movies, The Maverick” (1989), “Elvis in Hollywood” (1993) and “The Warner Brothers 75th Anniversary: No Guts, No Glory” (1998). It is reassuring that this tent pole documentary was awarded the Emmy Award for Outstanding Informational Series. Only to be matched by “That’s Entertainment,” the 1974 documentary largely focusing on the glorious musical numbers, this enormous accounting of MGM’s history will be hard to top. This is without a doubt the best MGM documentary produced to date.

स्टार ट्रेक सीज़न ३ DVD

Star Trek- The Original Series: Season Three Remastered DVD Edition
Reviewed by- Jennifer Smith & Rob Klein

Star Trek Season Three Remastered Edition is “sauce for the goose, Mr. Saavik.”

Star Trek’s season three looks very different than the previous two seasons, and it wasn’t just because the Starfleet uniform’s fabric was switched from fuzzy velour to “Brady Bunch”-ish polyester. Star Trek suffered from a severely cut budget, due to the shows’ near cancellation at the end of season two. NBC had no faith in the program, and due to the historic letter-writing campaign spearheaded by loyal first generation Trek fans, Star Trek was awarded a third season. Star Trek was not given a fair chance, as its third season time slot of Friday at 10:00 PM was known as the network “dead-zone.” This was the time when the loyal fans that had supported the shows for two years were out of the house being teenagers, and the younger Trek fans were asleep, as 10:00 PM was still past their bedtime, even for a weekend. Additionally, the departure of Gene Roddenberry as the show’s writer/producer due to political posturing over contract disputes also affected the style and feel of the third season. Though the new producers did a great job with what they had to work with, Star Trek’s third season too often gets dismissed as throwaway when compared to the first two seasons. It may not be the strongest of the three, but with episodes like “Spectre of the Gun”, “The Enterprise Incident’, “All Our Yesterdays” and the “The Savage Curtain”, we should thank God for Star Trek’s third season, and this new DVD set celebrates it with style.

In season three, “all bets are off”. There are many far-out premised episodes that affirmed that the show was strong enough to carry controversial stories concerning race and war; subject matter that other shows of the time dared not tackle. Star Trek had the guts of storytelling that would pique the interest of the hardest of Klingons, and it took 60’s television boldly where no other shows had gone before. An excellent example of this is “All Our Yesterdays”, a tour-de-force of acting by Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock and DeForest Kelley as Dr. “Bones” McCoy. Sent back in time to a frozen wasteland by mistake, Spock and McCoy encounter the beautiful Zarabeth, marooned there by an evil dictator. McCoy finds a way to return through the time portal, but cannot jump through without Spock. Spock sacrifices his future with Zarabeth for McCoy’s return to the Enterprise, leaving Zarabeth alone in the past. Almost 20 years after the Trek episode was filmed, a brilliant book was released called “Yesterday’s Son,” by A.C. Crispin. In it, Spock realizes that he fathered a son by Zarabeth, and travels back in time to rescue him. How many other television shows have spawned episodes being embellished upon 15 years after the episode premiered? Another example is obvious; the first season episode “Space Seed” that originally starred Ricardo Montalban as “Khan” became the vehicle that generated the best Trek feature film: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Star Trek- The Original Series: Season Three Remastered DVD Edition looks great in spite of the controversial addition of enhanced effects. Though we will always be purists and want to see the original cuts and effects live on forever in reruns, I must admit that it’s fun seeing these new digital effects pop-up from time to time in an episode, especially when you forget you are watching an enhanced version. There is a certain thrill at seeing an episode that you’ve watched dozens of times, and being “wowed” or at least caught off-guard by how cool The CG “U.S.S. Enterprise” looks in orbit.

Sometimes DVD releases get everything right (in this case, except for the absence of a “play all episodes” function). The set is incased in a clear plastic covering which hinges open to reveal a CD-sized clear box, housing the DVDs with a colorful slipcover and neat-o data cards printed on clear red plastic featuring the set’s program. Continuing the typical third season tradition, the episode “The Cage” is included, which was the pilot before William Shatner was the Captain of “The Enterprise”. Some of the extras in the set have been regurgitated from the 2004 Trek DVD release, while a few are recent. “To Boldly Go… Season Three” is a short featurette that covers the highlights of season three. “Star Trek: A Collector’s Dream” explains the re-production of Star Trek props like phasers and communicators. It also coins the hysterical phrase “crapezoid” to refer to Trek’s non-working background phasers. Other mini-documentaries include “Life Beyond Trek: Walter Koenig”, “Chief Engineer’s Log” and “Captain’s Log with Bob Justman,” about the man who took up producing responsibilities when Gene Roddenberry left. On a lighter note, a little feature called “Collectible Trek” is just about as uncomfortable to watch as the film Trekkies. To those of you who have not seen Trekkies, it may be the best Star Trek film after Star Trek- The Wrath of Khan. On a more serious note, a very moving and informative look into the life of George Takei is shown in “Memoir from Mr. Sulu”, where he poignantly discusses his years in a Japanese Internment camp as a boy during World War WII.
As with the DVD Enhanced releases of seasons one and two, season three comes with the best Trek news of the decade: “Billy Blackburn’s Treasure Chest.” This is home video gold. Blackburn was on the Trek set five days a week. He provided production support, which is, to say the least, a Trekkie’s dream job. He was a stand-in for DeForest Kelley, stuntman, assistant to Fred Phillips (Star Trek’s resident make-up wizard with prosthetic effects), in addition to helping Bill Thiess with wardrobe. Blackburn took home movies while on the Trek set or while on location, and each Enhanced DVD Trek release reveals new Blackburn home movies never before seen or heard of until now. Part 3 features perhaps the only behind the scenes footage from Star Trek season three in existence (other than the elusive “season three blooper reel”).

The greatest moment of these season three home movies is seeing Spock, McCoy and Kirk on location for the episode “The Paradise Syndrome” hanging out around the giant Indian pylon featured in the story. Fantastic footage of the giant set piece under construction is awesome. Due to the slashed budget for season 3, not many episodes were filmed on location. However, “The Paradise Syndrome” was one of the few that let the crew out of the confines of the small Desilu studios in Hollywood to enjoy the outdoors and green pine trees surrounding the Hollywood Reservoir. The treat of leaving the studio’s gates is perhaps is why Blackburn documented so much material from this particular episode. These moments captured are priceless, and to reveal original series footage this long after everyone thought that the Trek well had run dry is a one in a million opportunity for fans.

The Blackburn footage is truly amazing, though short. Hopefully these sets will sell well, and their success will be attributed to the inclusion of “Bill Blackburn’s Home Movies”, not just to the enhanced effects. Blackburn must truly be commended and compensated for his foresight in capturing these precious moments in television history. His footage may be all that exists…but then again it may not be. Let’s hope that the success of these current DVD sets will spawn the future producers of Trek videos to suss out the “other” forgotten footage that still awaits discovery in the garages of Trek production personnel. The archeology of Star Trek still awaits, ready to be discovered.

Walt Disney’s True-Life Adventures Volume 4

If you enjoyed Walt Disney’s True life Adventures Volumes 1, 2 and 3, then you will probable enjoy Walt Disney’s True-Life adventure Vol. 4, the last volume in the series.
This set may not seem to have as much material as the previous volumes, but it does have rarer films, not often mentioned as The Living Desert or The Vanishing Prarie. The programs running times on vol. 4 are a bit longer than some of the other True-Life Adventure short films. This is the set I would imagine may be the future collectible volume, as I have not seen this set in stores, as often as I have run across volumes 1 and 2 of the True-Life sets.

This set contains the only Disney “True-life Fantasy” called Perri about the adventures of a young female squirrel. Unlike the other Disney nature films, this piece had a predetermined story line, written by Felix Salten who wrote the Disney feature animated masterpiece Bambi (1942). While filming Perri the Disney photographers were witness to a forest fire, and helped douse the flames. Footage of this event was presented on an episode of the Disneyland TV series. Which is presented on this DVD set. Any Disney home video release containing any Disneyland episode excerpts immediately finds a place in my video library.

Secrets of Life, is featured on this set, and contains some of the first stop motion photography of plants growing. Shot using macro photography on insects such as ants, the film is truly quiet remarkable when paired with the incomparable Disney story telling.

All the True-Life Adventures were shot with 16mm cameras, there-fore the prints tend to be scratchy, especially if you viewed one of these films for the first time at school in the 60s or 70s, as so many of us were exposed to the True-Life Adventures in that way. Fortunately, through modern technology these films have been restored and are crisp and clear, looking better than ever.

Disc two continues the tradition of the exceptional bonus features, which have been an essential addition to these True-Life Adventures DVD sets. Included are several enjoyable films: Searching for Nature’s Mysteries, Adventure in Wild Wood Heart and another Academy Award Winning film in 1951 for best short subject: Nature’s Half Acre. The section of the film documenting the habits of bees took over three years to photograph. Which is understandable, as bees probable don’t take direction very well.

Continuing the tradition originating on this series is the “Filmmaker’s Journal”, a look at the making the films featured on this volume and “Collector’s Corner”. In addition to yet another segment of “Backstage with Roy Disney” at Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park, learning about butterflies.

A very special bonus feature is a tribute to Winston Hibler who was the narrorator for all the True-Life Adventures. Mr. Hibler’s voice is that of legend. The volume of work this artist produced while at Disney is truly impressive. This short documentary features his grandsons, Chris Hibler and Winston Murray Hunt Hibler the second, examining their grandfather’s Oscars, archived at the Disney Studios, for the first time. Winston Hibler was a writer, producer and director at Disney. His contributions are vast, and it is surprising he has not been mentioned more as he was a contributor to so many Disney masterpieces. Winston Hibler has story credits on Sleeping Beauty and Peter Pan. He wrote Sleepy Hollow, The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad, Johnny Appleseed and Walt’s opening dedication at Disneyland, to name but a few of his contributions. He is perhaps best known for his voice over narration, a fact his family members feel sells him short. He never took any payment for his voice over work. He is a true renaissance artist and was honored as a Disney legend in 1993, though he passed in 1976. It is documentaries such as this, featuring the artists who made up the Disney empire that make these DVDs worth their weight in gold.

Roy Disney appears again throughout this set. He is a welcomed addition as some of his first production experiences were on True-Life Adventure productions. I wouldn’t mind at all if he got more involved with the company these days and became the official company spokes-person. Heck any member of the Disney family is better than some outsider, he was there in person when some amazing events in the companies hstory went down. He is a fascinating individual, as he is a true adventurer himself. The resemblance he has to his uncle doesn’t hurt either. Perhaps now with changes made with-in the Disney Company, we will see more of Roy Disney Jr. I had the pleasure of meeting him while I was documenting a lecture he was giving about his interests in sailing. The vibe he puts out is exciting as he was a part of the era of Disney history that is truly worth studying.

The Traveling Wilburys Collection
-------Rob “Doofus Wilbury” Klein says: “What Happened to Wilburys Vol. 2?”



The Traveling Wilburys made rock n’ roll history immediately upon their debut LP offering, The Traveling Wilburys Vol. 1. The group consisted of Beatle George Harrison, Jeff (ELO) Lynne, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty and Roy Orbison: a superstar line-up if there ever was one. The Wilburys came together as if by fate; George Harrison was recording a B-side for a single for his critically acclaimed 1987 offering “Cloud Nine” which was produced by Jeff Lynne. The B-Side, “Handle With Care”, was to be included on the LP’s first single “Got My Mind Set on You”. When the record company heard “Handle with Care” they immediately broadcasted their thoughts that this song was “too good” to be a B-side, and suggested another entire album upon hearing it. The company’s positive outlook for the single was not lost on Harrison, who ultimately produced more work than he had in twenty years. The last three years of the 1980’s were a career renaissance for all of the future members of The Traveling Wilburys. The connections between the artists can be explained by a game of “six degrees of separation” from Jeff Lynne, who would produce everyone’s solo LP’s: George Harrison’s Cloud Nine, Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever and Roy Orbison’s Mystery Girl.

Tom Petty and Jeff Lynne met during Petty’s outing one summer afternoon in the Valley, while he was going out to purchase a baseball glove. Petty pulled up next to Jeff Lynne’s car and introduced himself; an instant friendship was formed. Petty then met George Harrison through Lynne. Petty mentioned in a later interview that George Harrison met Petty at his Encino home, then spontaneously stayed for several days after as an unexpected house guest. Petty, Lynne and Harrison began to pal around together, and decided that it would be a good idea to record together. They headed down to Anaheim, California by limo to the Celebrity Theater and asked Roy Orbison to join the mix, to which he answered: “it sounds like great fun.” This led to recording Harrison’s B-side, “Handle with Care”.

The last Wilbury recruited by Tom Petty was Bob Dylan. Petty had a relationship with Dylan through a previous Tom Petty and Heartbreakers Tour, where they had been Dylan’s support band (after the Dylan set Petty performed with the Heartbreakers). Even George Harrison with his legendary Beatle status was giddy with excitement at the idea of Dylan joining the band; he would later secretly from the upstairs at Petty’s Encino house video-tape Dylan playing the piano.

Each band member assumed a Wilbury alias; comically they were all supposed to be half-brothers: Lucky-Boo (Dylan), Otis-Clayton (Lynne), Charlie T. Jr./Muddy (Petty), Nelson-Spike (Harrison), and Lefty (Orbison), even though these names changed on their second Wilburys release, “Vol. 3”. It has been said that those lucky enough to run across Harrison during his Wilbury days would receive a signature as his Wilbury character, “Nelson Wilbury”, a valuable and valid variation of the Harrison autograph. (Though many at the time were confused and pleaded for him to sign his real name).

This new CD / DVD is the first release of any Wilburys work since the initial release of the first and only two albums. (Not including endless UK 12” maxi-singles and 45’s, the most sought-after being a 12” single for “End of the Line”, which included Wilbury stickers). The Traveling Wilburys Collection includes just about every track recorded by the group, and offers both albums: “Vol. 1” and “Vol. 3”. (The group’s second LP was in fact entitled “Vol. 3”, a title cooked up by the group to confound future music historians who would no doubt would pull their hair out trying to find the non –existent “Vol. 2”.)

The third disc in the collection is the debut release of the band’s videos: “Handle with Care”, “End of the Line”, “She’s my Baby”, “Inside Out”, and “Wilbury Twist”. These videos are magical, especially “Handle with Care”, which is the only video featuring all five members. It was during this particular video’s shoot where Bob Dylan walked off the set, for reasons unknown. Another unpublished anecdote concerning the “Handle with Care” video debuting in this very article: The Wilburys used a privately owned Hollywood costume facility to outfit their wardrobe for the video. The entire band was let loose inside the wardrobe house with racks upon racks of Western garments that had been worn by Western legends like John Wayne, Michael Landon and Clint Eastwood. George Harrison picked out the duster that he is seen wearing in the video, and demanded to keep it upon the video’s completion, which did not go over well with the owners of the costume house, who were avid Western collectors themselves. The end result of this story I cannot recall, but had the owners been Beatles fans before Western fans, things may have gone more smoothly.

Vol. 1 and 3 are here in their entirety, and include the elusive bonus tracks, which were the “missing” Wilbury tunes that were virtually unavailable until this release. The highlight of the collection is the cover of Del Shannon’s “Runaway”, sung by Jeff Lynne. This track was only available as a bonus track on a very rare import CD single of “She’s My Baby”.

The coolest thing on this release is the DVD disc, which features all of the Wilbury videos. The “Handle with Care” video is enough to bring any Beatle fan to tears; it is so poignant to see how vital and hip these legends were in the late 80’s, especially Harrison, whose singing brings the Beatle film Help to mind. Now we have lost two of them, Harrison and Orbison. The videos for the Wilburys’ songs make one wish that Ringo Starr had been included in their little musical endeavor; the historical value of the footage would have been incredible. (With no disrespect to the incredible Jim Keltner who played drums on the Wilburys records, and to which Harrison, Petty and Lynne were all members of his fan club!) As the sales for CDs decline, it is very good that record companies are realizing that a DVD will add interest to any music release. Since videos were made to sell albums, why not use them for the purpose that they were created for?

This will be the definitive Wilburys release for both video and audio. Any fan of these legends must own this collection, whether it is the first time that you discover the Wilburys, or are revisiting a seldom talked-about era of the late 1980’s, where the epilogue to the historic 1960’s musical era was written.


Rob Klein
Pop Historian and Wilbury Authority - Author of the forth-coming Wilbury Biography:
“Popsicles, Beer, and Ukuleles”
North Hollywood, California