Night Court Season 1 DVD set

Starting in 1984 NBC first aired what quickly became one of my favorite American sitcoms. Night Court was written by one of the former Barney Miller writers. And it had a great ensemble cast. We have Harry Anderson as Harry Stone,the youngest judge in NYC. John Larroquette as the prosecutor Dan Fielding. Richard Moll as Bull Shannon the bailiff. Selma Diamond as the other bailiff  Selma Hacker. Paula Kelly as the pubic defender Liz Williams. And finally Karen Austin as court clerk Lana Wagner.

The pilot episode has a different public defender,who only appears in this episode. And is mostly about Harry's first day as a judge. His unusual ways of handling the cases at first gets on the nerves of the rest of the main cast. But he quickly wins them over when he manages to get a feuding couple to make up. The rest of the season has some great episodes,one of which stars a very young Michael J Fox.

Now most people who remember Night Court remember Markie Post as the super perky public defender Christine Sullivan and Charles Robinson as court clerk Mac Robinson. But Markie didn't join the cast until season 3 and Mac didn't join until season 2. Another cast change happened when Selma Diamond died after the filming of season 2. She was replaced in season 3 by Florence Halop. Sadly Ms Halop only did one season. She died after that season was film,and was replaced by Marsha Warfield as Roz Russell. Also this first season has a more realistic feel to it. The later seasons became more slapsticky. But even then the show was worth watching.

This DVD set came out on February 8, 2005. And since Night Court wasn't being rerun on any channel I got I rushed out to get the set. Then almost 4 years later season 2 finally came out. And since then seasons 3,4 and 5 have come out. The later 2 as MOD DVDs. The first season set has a pretty well done behind the scenes featurette. In which I learned that Harry Anderson wasn't the original choice to play Harry Stone. But he came in and gave such a great audition that he got the role. Night Court season 1 gets a B-.