Info:
DVD Release Date: August 23, 2005 (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
Color
MSRP: $29.99
Number of Discs: 3
Number of Episodes: 26
Running Time: 602 minutes
Total Run Time of Special Features: N/A
Languages, Subtitles, Closed Captioning: English,
closed-captioned
Special Features: None
Introduction:
Welcome to Oscar's Barber Shop, named after my daddy
who passed it on to me. It's been part of Washington
DC for a long time. That's me, Clifton Curtis, my own
boss and loving every minute of it. And this is my
little sister Tracy... and her husband Leonard. This
is my best friend, happy-go-lucky Earl. And this
wonderful person... well... That's My Mama! And now
this wonderful person has made it to DVD!
The Complete First Season (and also second season,
more details on that set coming later in another
review) of the obscure 1970s sitcom That's My Mama, is
coming to DVD from Sony Pictures Home Entertainment.
It is one of the more obscure sitcoms from television
history, starring Clifton Davis as a barber named
Clifton Curtis that lives with his wise and loving
mother Eloise (played by Theresa Merritt). The show
also features Theodore Wilson (if the name doesn't
sound familiar, you will recognize the face from many
other sitcoms of the past) as mail carrier Earl
Chambers, and Lynne Moody as Curtis' sister Tracy.
Also, there are the two barbershop regulars, Wildcat
and Josh, played by Jester Hairston (who later went
became a regular in the television series Amen along
with Clifton Davis) and DeForest Covan. Ted Lange
plays Junior on the series, although he doesn't appear
in the series as often as I would have imagined. Even
Gordon Jump, who later went on to play Arthur Carlson
on WKRP in Cincinnati, has a semi-regular role as a
police officer. The series aired on ABC for two
seasons (the second of which contained only 13
episodes) from September 1974 until December 1975.
Memorable Episodes / Notable Guest Stars:
There are some great episodes in this set, beginning
with the first episode "Whose Child is This?" In this
episode, a woman shows up at the barber shop claiming
that she is the mother of his child—until she finds
out that mama knows best! Mama falls in love with a
man that has six young (and almost beastly) children
in "Mama Steps Out," but does the man really love Mama
or does he just want a nanny? Tim Reid plays a
minister in "Clifton's Persuasion," an episode in
which Clifton begins to have doubts about the
existence of God. Clifton decides to bring a gun into
the house for his safety in "The Gun," but will Mama
approve? A 94-year-old loan shark dies while taking a
nap in one of Clifton's barber chairs in "The Last
Haircut," but leave it to Earl to make the death seem
less innocent than it actually is! Clifton gets hit by
a taxi cab and gets tied up with a lawyer that is less
than honest (and unwilling to allow Clifton to drop
the case) in "The Ambulance Chaser." Earl needs a
place to hideout after he testifies against a witness
that is set free in "The Witness," and it is driving
Clifton and Mama nuts! Clifton and Mama are chosen to
demonstrate what life is like in a typical day of a
middle-class African American family in a television
documentary, and choose to show how a middle-class
African American family is no different than a
middle-class white family when Clifton's Uncle Gus, a
man that demonstrates every single negative African
American stereotype that the documentary producers had
in mind, unexpectedly shows up in "The Image Maker."
Clifton volunteers for a political candidate, and
learns the reality of what politicians are really like
in "Clifton and Politics."
Packaging:
The packaging style at Sony keeps evolving all the
time it seems, but the style that they seem to be
using for series that are new to DVD right now is
pretty good (and of course, used in this set). The set
contains two slim cases, one of which is a double slim
case. Discs 1 and 2 are in the double slim case, and
Disc 3 has its own slim case. The overall packaging is
very slim, about as thick as an Amaray case. Just like
the Bewitched set that was released in the double slim
case form, however, there is one thing that bothers
me. The manufacturer that made the double slim cases
created cases that do not hold the DVDs in very
securely, and the discs do not stay locked into place
like they should. I like the double slim cases; I just
wish that Sony would use another design that will
allow the discs to stay locked in a little better. The
box art is actually fairly nice looking, with the
That's My Mama logo on top and pictures of the
characters on the bottom. The individual cases are
roughly the same, only with fewer characters on the
cases.
There are 26 episodes in this set, and they are
spanned across the discs fairly evenly, with episodes
1-9 on Disc 1, 10-18 on Disc 2, and 19-26 on Disc 3.
Disc Three also contains the trailers that are
included in the set. The episodic contents of what is
on each disc, as well as a brief description of each
episode, can be found on the back of the slim case for
that disc. The discs themselves look pretty nice too,
again with pictures of the characters from the show.
Menu Design and Navigation:
There isn't much to say here, they are very basic
menus. The main menu has various pictures from the
show, and the options include Play All Episodes and
Episode Selection. Disc 3 has a Previews section as
well, with the previews for other DVDs. The Episode
Selection option takes you to a menu that looks just
like the menu on other Sony sets, where you are
presented with a snapshot from each episode. There is
no scene selection menu, but there are chapter points
placed at every point where a commercial break would
be, which is (in my opinion) sufficient for any sitcom
on DVD. There really isn't much else to say.
Video and Audio Quality:
First and foremost, here is a flaw with this set that
demands immediate attention: Just about every single
episode on this set appears to be edited. I can't
confirm that 100%, because I don't have access to
unedited episodes, but with many of the episodes
running at 22:34, something just isn't right about
that runtime. There are four episodes on the set that
have a runtime that seems reasonable for unedited
episodes, such as Tracy's Trouble (24:36), The
Ambulance Chaser (25:14), The Witness (25:15), and The
Image Maker (25:15). My theory about Tracy's Trouble
is that the runtime is shorter because it has an
opening sequence that is about 40 seconds shorter
(some episodes begin with an introduction that is the
same throughout the set, and others begin with the
music credits). The other 22 episodes run at 22:35 or
less, with some as short as 22:19. Common sense
dictates that these are definitely edited episodes. We
contacted Solomon Davis, a big fan of the show, and he
timed an episode for us (“Trial and Error”) from his
library that contains syndicated prints of the show
and his timing came roughly to 22:27, which was almost
exactly the same run-time for the DVD version of this
episode. It is a shame that a show such as this one,
especially considering how it has almost never aired
in syndication with only one exception that I can
think of (on the UPN affiliate in Atlanta), has
syndicated episodes on the DVD set, but perhaps that
is still better than nothing at all.
The problems don't just stop there unfortunately. The
video transfer on some of these episodes is less than
spectacular, and I have found several "bad" spots from
the video on several episodes throughout the set. I
have never seen so many video glitches on a DVD,
except perhaps on public domain DVDs. The video
quality in general is actually better than just decent
for a series this old, but the glitches that occur
here and there are a bit annoying. The glitches could
have something to do with the fact that this series
has remained mostly untouched since it originally
aired. The audio quality on this set is
decent...nothing spectacular though. The box says that
it is in stereo, but that is incorrect, it is actually
mono (what else would you expect for 1974?). Some of
the episodes have audio that has that annoying "tin
can effect," but it isn't a serious problem that
plagues the set.
Special Features:
There really aren't any special features... unless you
count trailers. There are trailers for Classic Urban
Series (1:27), Bewitched TV series (1:00), The
Partridge Family (1:00), Are We There Yet? (0:30), and
Hitch (2:25). They are all contained on disc 3, if you
actually care to see them. They should have put some
sort of interviews or something about the show on the
set for the majority of people (including myself) that
know nothing about the history of the show, but they
didn't... and considering that this set (as well as
the other set) has no special features, we will
probably never see special features for this show
unless the show is released on whatever format
replaces DVDs in the future.
Final Comments:
After reading everything that I've said, you probably
have some reservations about picking up this set--but
let me say, it is a mistake to think that way. This
set is far from perfect, especially considering the
fact that most of the episodes are edited and the
video transfer glitches, but That's My Mama is one of
those rare gems in television history that you will
likely never get a chance to see unless you pick up
this DVD set. It doesn't really remind me of any other
show that I've seen, so it is hard to say what this
show is like. I don't understand why this show was so
unsuccessful when it originally aired, because it seems
like a very good show to me. It was a rare treat to
see this show, and it is a set that I would buy even
if I did know about the problems with the set. The
bottom line: buy this set if you want to experience an
interesting show that you don't know much about. It's
a pretty good show and something out of the ordinary
fare that is offered by the mainstream outlets.
Final Numbers (out of 5 stars - How our point system works)
Video Quality: 4/5
Audio Quality: 4/5
Special Features: 0/5
Menu Navigation/Design: 4/5
Overall: 3/5
-- Reviewed by skees53 on 08/03/2005.
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