Greg Garrison Presents The Best of Dean Martin Variety Show - Volume 9

So many guest, so many moments of this legendary show, that still will never get to see the light of day.

I love seeing Dean Martin's old shows. Wish they were not cut. Greg Harelson shows cut much of the music in favor of the comedians.

I purchased this to help complete my collection and it arrived in a timely manner at a very reasonable price,

This is a review of the complete 'Best of Dean Martin...' sets. I'm not critiquing any specific volume, so I apologize in advance that this review is found on every one. However, since my review is for all buyers and not just those of a certain volume, this seems necessary.'The Dean Martin Show'(1965-74) was a favorite of mine as a child &, outside of the vaudeville slapstick, it still holds up pretty well. As for the packaging, however, Martin's longtime assistant, Greg Garrison, has edited this whole thing together with no consideration to content or style: on e. volume, excerpts from all nine seasons are poorly tossed together, with the jump from time periods being extremely jarring & the style of the show completely lost. Included are reminiscences from guest stars of the show, but these are poorly edited into the format, looking more like cheap quality early 80s videos. A friend of mine, who also likes 60s TV, was just horrified when he saw this mishmash.So, basically, if you're someone who just wants to see the show and has no concerns on how you view it, these'll possibly be fine. Contrarily, if you have fond memories of the show and its style, which Martin worked hard on, you'd probably do better waiting for a better package. A season by season release, as most TV offers now, is long overdue.The real culprit here is Guthy-Renker, who has the rights to the show. It's an extremely dated company that does this very same thing to all programs to which they received the rights, such as 'The Carol Burnett Show' & 'Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In'. I believe 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour' has had this same problem, but handled by a different mishandler.

Some funny material in this one, but not as much as I would have liked. Even a couple of appearances by Charles Nelson Reilley couldn't bump this up to 3 stars. Still, better than most stuff on TV today.