Mama's
Family: Season Six - Mama's Favorites
(2015 Compilation/Time Life/Star Vista DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: D Episodes: B+
Mama's
Family is one of my favorite sitcoms of all time (as noted
before) and this sadly is the last season of the classic show to make
its way on disc. A few months ago, The Complete Sixth Season
was released and now a shorter compilation of Vicki Lawrence's
favorite episodes have been compiled into this six episode 'six
pack.'
Still
as good as it was back then, the show is a spin-off of The Carol
Burnett Show and is extremely hilarious taking everyday
situations and spinning them on their head from the perspective of
Mama Harper and her odd ball family including Vint (her man-child
middle aged son), Naomi (his risque wife that lives with him in
Mama's House), Bubba (her youthful Grandson who is a hit with the
ladies) and of course Naomi - the next door neighbor with a heart of
gold who always ends up finding herself in the midst of the Harper
Family's zany adventures.
Episodes
on the disc start with Mama Fights Back, where she
chews out K-RAY radio's consumer watchdog on the air and promptly
gets hired as his replacement. After watching TV detective movies
for a week, and hearing that Iola's mother is missing, Mama dreams
she's a film-noir private eye hired to find her client's mother in
The Big Nap, which is one of my favorite episodes in
the series.
In
Pinup Mama, Bubba creates a flier for a senior mixer
using a photo of mama's head on a young model's bikini-clad body;
what happens at the mixer is not for the faint of heart.
Bubba's
House Band is where Bubba mistakenly books The Bone Crushers,
an all-female heavy metal band, for his college's homecoming, and
it's up to Mama to rein the hellions in.
However,
the big news in the show's final season involves Vint and Naomi: they
finally move out of the basement into an RV parked in Mama's
driveway, and after much anticipation, Naomi gives birth to Tiffany
Thelma Harper in Bye Bye - Baby! Odds are the
bickering bloodline will stay strong.
The
standard definition presentation is average for DVD with a full frame
1.33 X 1 presentation and a lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono track that
matches the original broadcast. No extras on this release, either,
though other sets have extras.
If
you're a fan of Mama's Family, Star Vista and Time Life have
made the series available in a variety of different ways. You can
either get the individual seasons, a massive box set (see the
coverage elsewhere on this site), or editions like this that
highlight some of the best episodes in the season. It all depends on
how much Mama Harper you need!
-
James Harland Lockhart V
www.facebook.com/jhl5films
