Gimme a Break - Season One

Gimme a Break! was a great show of the 80s, but why did Universal Studios stop after releasing Season One on DVD? Since there is hope for stalled series, which was said on May 28, 2008, I hope Gimme a Break! will be coming back to DVD soon!! Universal Studios should sale the rights of releasing the 5 remaining seasons of Gimme a Break to Shout! Factory. If not, there is always Arts Alliance America, who bought Charles in Charge last year. Please Universal Studios, sell Gimme a Break! to one of the independent companies!! Fans of the show will be more than happy once Gimme a Break returns to DVD!

First episode was really bad but the rest are great. Will be looking out for other releases.

I grew up watching "Gimme a Break" and enjoyed myself immensely. As with sitcoms, cartoons etc. that you watch as a child and then again as an adult, you realise how many things went over your head. In the very first episode Carl comes home from work talking about a gay cop wanting to come out of the closet. It was a big deal then back in the 80s and is still a big deal now. Some of the episodes deal with issues of cheating, stealing, teen sexual issues (dating, pregnancy, birth control)...in short, the social issues of the time. The more things change the more they stay the same...

It was so much fun watching this DVD, I could hardly wait for one episode to end and another to begin. I was able to fully appreciate all of the adult humour and content, and relate to the pop culture references that I remember so well (Billy Dee Williams was a really big deal back then). I was laughing out loud quite a bit and I loved that. So many times, a purchase made for nostalgia turns out to be so disappointing. It's never as good as you remember it but this was all that and MORE!

I had a couple of "Whoa Nellie! Where have I seen this before?" moments a couple times:
1. Overweight cop named Carl (Family Matters)
2. Girl named Samantha who is a tomboy called Sam, who comes home with a black eye from a fight with a boy (Who's the Boss?)

And a couple of "Heyyyy, I know that person!" moments with the following guest stars:
Johnny Brown (Good Times, The Jeffersons)
Harrison Page (Benson, Webster, Fame and a dozen other shows in the 80s)
Jack Carter (Match Game)
Liz Sheridan (Alf, Seinfeld)
Mary Jo Catlett (Diff'rent Strokes, That's So Raven)
Ben Powers (Good Times)
Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon etc.)
Crystal Bernard (Wings)
Jay Johnson (Soap)
Helen Hunt (Mad About You, Twister etc.)

My very favourite "extras" though were Alvernette Jimenez (Angie) and John Hoyt (Grandpa Kanisky). They contributed quite a share to my laughs, and I wish that I could have seen more of Angie (the Black "dumb blonde")especially. What a character!

One cool feature that I haven't seen on my other DVDs is that if you select to play by episode, it gives you a little synopsis of that episode right on the screen so you don't have to be fiddling with DVD cases and papers to see what that episode is all about. Also, it's not Closed Captioned but does contain English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing.

THE BUT - The DVD quality is pretty inconsistent. On Disc 1, the video is typical 80s - muted colours - the characters look so pale that they're almost green, then on Disc 2 the colours get better and they look a bit more human, while on Disc 3 they are positively rosier, darker and glowing with health! The audio track does contain some crackling and popping but not too noticeable during the episodes. The worst part of the audio would be at the beginning and end of the episodes when the theme song plays. Some bits sound quite like when a cassette's been stretched out, and the hissing is more noticeable then. Bet you haven't heard the word "cassette" in ages! As with the video, the audio gets progressively clearer by DVD. Odd, maybe I got a weird set...

All in all, it's ***** for the content and about *** for the DVD quality. Pity, because Universal's taken so much time to make sure each DVD is in its own case in the box set. That quality could have been transferred over into the internals of the set as well.

i watched this show just a little bit didnt really like it i think she is just a loud mouth person with a really bad cast i think this show wasnt a good one but i guess others would have their opinions too

This is the first series on DVD I bought that's NOT closed captioned, but its saving grace is that it has English subtitles, so this makes up for it. Bonus features on other series sets aren't CC, but what's cool about this one is the bonuses here in the form of other shows--Kate & Allie, Charles in Charge, and Gimme a Break 2nd season premiere--are indeed available subtitled.

That said, I forgot all about the funny aquarium water incident. Won't say here what it is but you'll understand once you see the opening credits. But another incident happens there (in another episode) that I never got to see, and this one really cracked me up.