DVD Pick of the Week - Bosom Buddies: The Complete First Season
“Who iiiiiiiis it?!”
DVD Pick of the Week - Bosom Buddies: The Complete First Season
Now that we have Queer As Folk, Ellen’s daytime resurgence and “Just Jack!,” it’s hard to imagine what an uproar was caused by Billy Crystal’s openly gay (and occasionally cross-dressing) Jody on the excellent Soap. Jody came along and made it okay for situation comedies to examine alternate sexualities in more detail. Before that, drag seemed mostly limited to sketch comedies; think - Flip Wilson’s Geraldine or the myriad the female characters played by those Monty Python fellers. And then the 80’s rolled along, and with it came Bosom Buddies. Two guys in dresses were the leads! Okay, fine they were straight, but while draggin’ it they learned an awful lot about the fairer sex and themselves while bemoaning the runs in their nylons. Oh, and then there’s that Tom Hanks guy.
But let’s talk about Peter Scolari – oh, Scolari. How often you are unfairly made into the butt of “the other guy” jokes; seriously, Alex Winter has nothing on you, dude. Fact is, as you can discover on Bosom Buddies’ first season set out this Tuesday, both he and his emerging megastar cohort pull their comedy weight ably as Henry and Kip - just a couple of sweet advertising agency shlubs who need a place to live. In hairbrained-schemery worthy of Lucy Ricardo, they end up posing as their “sisters” Buffy and Hildegard to get a room in a building for single ladies only. And thus somehow, for two seasons they manage not to get caught shaving, peeing while standing up, inappropriately adjusting their nether regions, or having their unspeakably deep voices questioned. Now to be fair, it was never quite bust-a-gut hilarious, but the chemistry of the “girls” (Damn, Hanks does look like Stockard Channing!) makes for some damn fine classic TV. Paramount keep ‘em coming (or at least, put out the second season of this, which had that infinitely better Billy Joel cover as the theme tune; there’s a reason no one remembers the first season theme, which has a lot to do with it blowing.)
Other recommended titles for March 13th: Casino Royale; Harsh Times; Shortbus.
—Nicole Campos
