Upward and onward, faithful Shot-scateers! At the tail end of of a year full of firsts for our venerable online film journal, Reverse Shot is proud to announce the christening of our very own vanity DVD label, through which we will make available to the public a wide range of out-of-print and unjustifiably-overlooked buried treasures of the arthouse. And it is with great pride that we announce the maiden release of RS DVD:
Available for the first time on DVD, the entire 13-episode run of Mr. Smith, the groundbreaking NBC sitcom that cast a jaundiced, Orwellian wit on Reagan-era backroom politics, following the adventures of the titular "Mr. Smith": Cha-Cha, a talking orangutan with an IQ of 256 who arrives in Washington as a no-nonsense political advisor (played with close-to-the-vest, deadpan charmby Every Which Way But Loose's incorrigible, raspberry-blowing "CJ").
Included are all of the now-legendary episodes that galvanized the nation for three months in 1983, including "Mr. Smith Plays Cyrano," "Mr. Smith Rescues Bobo," and the censor-baiting, double-entendre-laden "Mr. Smith Gets Physical." Discs include cast bios, a stills gallery, commentary by voice-of-Cha-Cha Ed Weinberger and writers Stan Daniels and David Lloyd, and specially-commissioned essays by Manny Farber, Anne Coulter, Joan Didion, and Dave Barry.
