Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Hey Vern It's Ernest the Complete series


By 1988 Jim Varney had done "Ernest goes to camp" some DTV stuff and a shit pile of commercials. So he was given his own live action Saturday Morning kid's TV show. I remember seeing a few episodes and really enjoying it. But by the time "Hey Vern It's Ernest" hit the airwaves I was more interested in sleeping in on Saturday than watching a TV show. But a few weeks back I saw that the entire first,and only,season had been released to DVD. Plus it was priced at $5. And now over the past few weeks I have watched all 13 episodes.

Hey Vern It's Ernest the  complete series
1988
Mill Creek Entertainment DVD set

We start off with a great cover that is very much in the spirit of the show's opening credits. The set has 2 DVDs. Each has around 2 1/2 hours of this somewhat forgotten classic kid's show. I would have liked if they included subtitles or closed captions. But that is a very very minor complaint that isn't  a big deal since the set has such a low price.

Each episode has a main focus,IE Outer Space,Scary Things,Movies,etc. And in most episodes Jim Varney plays at least 4 other non-Ernest characters. Plus we get some other people that were all in the first few Ernest films.

What really surprised me is how the show has held up. I was in my mid teens when it first aired and I did find it funny,but not nearly as funny as I find it now. And I am mid 30's now. I would love to find out why this only lasted one season.Also why that season is only 13 episodes. I thought that most Saturday morning shows of the late 80's did at least 17 episodes per season.

The picture and sound are great. Before this release all you could find was some old VHS releases that didn't look near as good as these DVDs. I am pretty sure that not all the episodes got a VHS release. Hey Vern It's Ernest gets  a B.

No comments:

Post a Comment