10 best american comics 2008s

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The second half of Route 66's first season is has been digitally transferred from the original masters. The television series, which aired 1960-64, is one of the most brilliant dramas to emerge from the '60s, famous for its catchy Nelson Riddle theme song, intriguing characters, top-drawer writing and stellar guest appearances. The original "road trip" drama, this classic television series was one of the most highly rated of the era, establishing the Corvette as an American icon. Infinity Entertainment. 2008.

The irresistible call of Route 66, the classic TV anthology series and the venerable Mother Road herself, is best summed up in a bit of dialogue in the episode, "Welcome to Amity," one of the 15 episodes that concluded Season One contained on this four-disc set. Yet another stranger in distress urges self-proclaimed "searchers and look-arounders" Tod Stiles (Martin Milner) and Buz Murdoch (George Maharis) to help her. "Where are we going?" Tod asks, as she bids them to follow her. "Let’s find out," Buzz replies. Viewers happily followed Tod and Buz for four seasons on their cross-country odyssey in search of roots. Each week brought a new location, a new job, and new personal dramas in which they found themselves involved. In the gripping "An Absence of Tears," they unwittingly help a vengeful blind woman buy the exact brand of gun and bullets that thugs used to kill her husband during a botched gas station robbery. In "Most Vanquished, Most Victorious," they have 24 hours to find the daughter of Tod’s dying aunt. In "The Newborn," they help an expectant Pueblo woman escape the clutches of the wealthy and powerful rancher whose late son impregnated her. No wonder that in the more lighthearted "Eleven the Hard Way," Tod suggests to Buz that they take "a 48 hour furlough from other people’s problems" (no such luck; they no sooner find themselves in Reno helping two men win enough at the crap tables to save their dying town). Compelling stories, a vivid sense of place, and literate scripts were signposts of Route 66. While Tod and Buz "give lumps to some well-deserving people" (a climactic encounter with a street gang in "Most Vanquished, Most Victorious" is a great rumble), the show (and the cast) truly shine in the more emotional and dramatic moments. In "Like a Motherless Child," orphaned Buz bonds with a lonely woman who fronts as a shill. While Tod is the studied one, it is Buz who gets the bulk of the scripts’ great, glorious riffs, as in "The Opponent," when he and Tod visit a once-legendary figure from Buz’s Hell Kitchen neighborhood ("Would you take a detour to see Caesar or Napoleon? Those are the big boys you met in books. I met my own kings, face to face, in the back alleys"). Along for the ride are some great character actors, many in their earliest screen appearances, including Robert Duvall as "a trigger-happy kook" in "The Newborn," Darrin McGavin as a boxer on his last legs in "The Opponent," featuring Ed Asner (with hair!) as his trainer and Al Lewis (Grandpa from The Munsters) as a gym owner, and Walter Matthau at his schlubby best as a disreputable gambler in "Eleven the Hard Way." As in Volume 1 there are no commentaries or interviews, but vintage TV and classic car buffs will cruise through nearly 20 minutes of commercials for Chevrolet and Bayer Asprin. --Donald Liebenson

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Behind every last-second catch, drive-stopping tackle, or game-winning kick, there's a gut-busting gaffe, a side-splitting slip, and a jaw-dropping drop. Now, for the umpteenth time, NFL Films presents the best (or is it the worst?) of foul-ups and other calamities in NFL's Greatest Follies, Volume 4. As you laugh along with the so-called masters of the game as they fumble and flounder their way down field, you'll be piqued by other nonsensical matters: The Absurd Fashion of the NFL, Why 300-Pound Linemen Shouldn't Dance (or sing), and (of course) fun with kickers, refs, mascots, and sideshow attractions. Brought to you by the Emmy(R)-winning madcaps at NFL Films, NFL's Greatest Follies, Volume 4 takes the hard-charging intensity of pro football and completely ignores it for nearly two fun-filled hours of the players and coaches caught in the act of being themselves.