Bosom Buddies - The Second Season

Great show! Hot blonde in it, but where the heck is the normal theme song???? The Billy Joel 'My Life' theme song is gone from all the intros, and some dorky lady singing a goofy song instead. Thank god the opening credits can be skipped over.

I absolutely loved this show when it originally aired in the 1980's and I have fond memories of it even still. But as is so often the case things aren't always as wonderful as we remember them. Watching the show now I do find it to be a bit dated, and even some episodes aren't as funny as I'd remembered them to be. With that said however the chemistry between Tom Hanks and Peter Scolari is timeless and still great fun to watch. They seem to have a limitless energy on screen and appear to be genuinely enjoying themselves. I will also say that despite the fact that season two is somewhat disjointed and the show seemed to be shifting direction from it's original premise, it is also the season that contains many of my favorite episodes. Worth mentioning is that like season one the original opening theme song by Billy Joel has been changed to something totally generic. Also, and again like season one, some episodes have scenes omitted that were shown in the original broadcasts. Admittedly though I only noticed this myself in one episode, where a sing along between Kip, Henry, and their two cellmates was omitted from a jail scene. When all is said and done I have great nostalgia for the show and I still enjoyed watching it. If only the powers that be had let the show go for more than two seasons and allowed them the time to develop and grow... who knows how great this little show might have eventually become?

I enjoyed watching this show when in was on the air. It was fun to revisit the show with all it's silliness. I found it as sweet and humorous as when I first saw it.

What Bosom Buddies always wanted to be was somewhere between Dick van Dyke and Friends-- a show about people of a certain age and station in life, their friendships, their loves, and not really too much else.

For one season, the network didn't have the nerve to let it happen and the show stayed hung on the peg of its high concept. And then, to kick off the second season, TPTB tossed the whole concept out the window. The cross-dressing some-like-it-hot gag went out the window and the two leads went into the ad business.

If I had never seen the dresses again, I wouldn't have cared. I was entertained to see people my age, going through the business of getting their young lives started, and there really wasn't much of that happening at the time on tv.

Yes, some episodes are kind of, well, dumb. And some were inspired fantasy-- if you were that age at that time, you got it. But what held the show together was a group of characters who really liked each other, anchored by the comedy team of Hanks and Scolari who, particularly when it came to physical gags, were a well-oiled machine.

Had the show stuck around, I think it could have morphed into something as fun and special and of its age and time as Friends would later become, but it was too late. It had changed so radically from its initial conception that only a handful of people ever uncovered this little gem. But in this second season you can see some great moments and the promise of what might have been. Not the greatest sitcom ever, but far better than its reputation and far more than a simple training ground for Tom Hanks.

I don't really have any special thirst to review this product, but that being said, I do think I can come up with one or two points, now that I own this DVD.

This season of Bosum Buddies is a shambles. Things are going in all kinds of directions, plots are picked up and then lost, with little or no ramifications. Wether or not the people knew this was going to be the last season, I don't know. Tom Hanks character also goes from lovable to pretty much a complete tool at such a relentless pace, you wonder if the show was being written by two groups of writers who had no idea what the other group was up to.

For those of us who are used to the sit-coms of the nineties and naughties, a show that doesn't plan ahead for their characters might seem a bit unresponsible, but remember, shows are still being axed, leaving characters in perpetual limbo (Joey).

And just one more thing before the good news, this is very dated. Shows from the 60's and 70's kind of work now, because the 60's are always cool, and brown being the new black, again, 70's shows also work pretty well now.

80's shows tend to be pretty cheesy to watch now. The music just sounds so cheap and out of place, and the way people are dressed, not to mention their hairstyles? Puh-lease!

Now, the 4 stars. Tom Hanks, pretty much, he is the alfa and omega of this show, and why he succeeds to this day is easy to see. From Bosom Buddies to Alex uncle on Family Ties, Splash via Man With Red Shoes, to Big, A League of Their Own, even duds like Vanity of the Bonfires, this man delivers again and again and again. We just like him is all, and as long as he shows up and is Tom Hanks, it doesn't matter if he is tearing Joe Nazi a new one or talking to a volleyball.

The friendship is another thing about this show. It is like a warm hug, like Joey and Chandler, only in pastel colours and pumps.

Oh, and finally, there's Donna Dixon. Yum-ee!

So, do I think you should get this season two of Bosom Buddies?

For sure, it's tv and ultimatly Hollywood history this.