It took a couple months of working here before I fully realized something important.

I don’t need cable.

I have 1000’s of films at my fingertips and now that I have truly discovered that used DVDs are just as good, if not better (hello? The price!!!!) than new ones, I think that I may never need standard cable again.

Granted, I do watch some online TV just to keep up with the latest stuff (I adore Glee and Bones…I NEED them), but when my fave shows  are on hiatus, I turn to our fabulous wall of ever growing television shows to see what I can get into.

Without any commercials.

TV on DVD has to be the most fabulous invention ever. You can watch an entire season of something without waiting through the ads, the weeks of  “what is gonna happen next?”, and pause it while you pee.  I know DVR makes this stuff possible for live TV too, but you still have to wait for next week’s episode and you can only record so many at a time.

So this is where picking them up used comes in.  Our television section has been steadily growing for a while and I am always impressed with the prices. I picked up the first 3 seasons of Dexter for half the cost of them elsewhere….and promptly became addicted. I am always on the lookout for the first season of something cool that my two boys will enjoy (My Name is Earl, Smallville, Malcom in the Middle) so I can see how they like something before I start investing in all of them. It has been great. My kids no longer spout commercial jingles to me, I do not have to watch the same aggravating cartoons over and over, and my cable bill is….well…gone.

Tons of my friends rent shows from other places, but I like the way we roll a little better. Getting the discs in the mail means they might very well be scratched (hey, we buff and check our stuff before sending it home with ya!), and renting them from certain stores means having to pay out more than I think is necessary. If you take a look at our ingenious rental system, you can see that you could save a lot renting TV rather than buying it outright.

A customer stopped in today having bought Mr. Show season 4. He decided he would rather rent it. He ended up only paying $2 to watch that. And walked out again with Monty Python and the Holy Grail and still had money left on his account. He was pretty pleased.

Also,  even though a show is really great….I don’t always need to own it. Case in point, I decided to check out Boston Legal. We have the 1st season and even though James Spader and William Shatner bug me, I thought I would give it a try. I discovered it is an excellent program with brilliant writing and I would gladly check out the other seasons…..but I don’t need to watch the 1st season again. It just wasn’t good enough to  memorize (Red Dwarf is a show I have memorized, so is That 70’s Show), but it was worth watchin’ once.

It is like TV for commitment-phobes.

And right now you can try all kinds of different things on for size.  All the seasons of Sopranos, Entourage, most of Charmed, a healthy selection of Monty Python’s Flying Circus and Family Guy. We also have many other shows on hand to introduce you to something new! Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Burn Notice, Laguna Beach, The Simpsons, Lost, Heroes, The Osbournes and some cool comedy sketch stuff like The Dave Chappelle Show, and Mind of Mencia. Even some old shows like Beverly Hillbillies and Sanford and Son.

I guess the bottom line is why pay for cable?

You should pay us instead. You will save a bunch of dough and support an awesome local business in the process! It is a win/win situation!

I’ve always been a fan of sketch-comedy.  Loved it.  When I was a kid, sometimes on a Saturday or Sunday, if a t.v. movie ended early and the station needed time to fill, I remember them showing “Best Of SNL” 30-minute blocks.  Channel 9 would show Monty Python’s Flying Circus & its juvenile brother The Benny Hill Show. As a young teenager I also discovered SCTV (SNL’s Canadian Cousin).  And later, when I was in college (or at the age where I should be in college as it were) I had MTV’s The State.  The Fox network gave us the short lived The Ben Stiller Show….I watched ‘em all.

Anyways…one of the best, and one that holds up really well to this day is HBO’s Mr. Show with Bob & David.  This mid-90’s late-night Cable laugh-fest was the brainchild of Bob Odenkirk & David Cross (Arrested Development) & ran for four seasons before being canceled in 1998.

Besides Bob & Dave, you get a soon-to-be-star-studded cast, including Tom Kenny (The voice of Sponge-bob), Jay Johnston & Brian Posehn (The Sarah Silverman show…she shows up too!),  Mary Lynn Rajskub (24) and appearances from folks like Ben Stiller & Jack Black.

The show follows a Monty-Pythonesque sequence, in that all the sketches flow together or are linked somehow.   It’s also pretty pop-culture heavy, so if you can’t “Ride The Reference Train” you might want to skip it.   Religion, Kid’s Shows, Brit-pop, Sid & Marty Kroftt,  Phone Sex, 80’s Films, Brian Wilson….yeah.  It’s good stuff.

The cast made a movie…”Run, Ronnie, Run” Which they hated and disowned. But it’s not that bad. Trust Me.

We have the second two seasons of “Mr. Show” in stock.  I’d rush in and get them, as they won’t last.

Peace…I’m out.

Geoffrey.

If you’re a fan of either of these shows, today is your lucky day! All five currently-available seasons of Entourage have just hit the shelves. That’s around 33 hours of wannabe stardom! And, in case you’re wondering, season 6 will be out on June 22nd. Just so you know.

We also have all four seasons of the highly-rated Mr. Show, featuring the incredibly funny David Cross and Bob Odenkirk.

Other interesting titles headed straight for the Wall O’Cool: Japanese action/horror/comedies Battle Royale and Battle Royale II; the John Woo action classic Hard Boiled in a two disc special edition; Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall heat up the screen in The Big Sleep; classic horror in Wes Craven’s original 1977 The Hills Have Eyes and the 1980 people-who-can-make-your-head-explode-with-their-minds chiller Scanners from David Cronenberg!