Wow, it’s warm outside. And with a holiday weekend there are going to be picnics and fireworks and crowds and flying disc related games. It’s a little bit horrifying, frankly. If you want to avoid all of that hullabaloo, I recommend hiding out in your TV bunker with Action: The Complete Series.
Originally airing in 1999, Action was one of the greatest Hollywood satires ever to make it to television. Jay Mohr plays Peter Dragon, a completely unscrupulous movie producer (reportedly based on Joel Silver and the late Don Simpson). After a string of massive hits, Peter finally flops with Slow Torture, and has to scramble to rebuild his reputation. As I can only assume is common in Hollywood, the first step in his comeback is hiring a former child star turned prostitute (Illeana Douglas) as his head of development. He buys a script called Beverly Hills Gun Club from a rookie writer, mostly because Dragon mistook him for a successful writer with a similar name.
Action is an absolute wallow in the fields of bad taste. Peter is cruel, sexist, racist, and self-destructive. The opening minutes of the series feature Peter screaming obscenities at a caterer, all because the poor man point out that Dragon took his parking spot. It’s a fantastic piece of unbridled anger, and it’s how they decided to introduce us to our lead character. Clearly, the world of 1999 was not ready for this, but it’s 2008 now, and that’s how we all start out days, right?
The whole series acts as a single story, detailing the making of Beverly Hills Gun Club, from the pitch, to finding financing (the sacrifice of a goat is involved), casting (In order to secure a newly-out-of-the-closet star, Peter is willing to go to extraordinary lengths. No, really.), production (Beverly Hills Gun Club will not be able to claim that “No animals were injured or killed in the making of this film.”), and even a fight for the rights to the finished product. Action was ahead of its time in devoting a season to a single story arc.
Plenty of guest-stars appear throughout the series, satirizing themselves. Who knew Sandra Bullock had a sense of humor? Scott Wolf, Keanu Reeves, Salma Hayek, and others all pop in, and if that lineup doesn’t scream ‘1999’, I don’t know what does. The regular characters are great, from Dragon’s obsequious assistant to Bobby G., the gay studio head who’s living with Peter’s ex-wife. Bobby G. almost always appears clad only in a towel, so he can use his giant…. member…. to intimidate rivals. The legendary R. Lee Ermey appears in several episodes as director Titus Scroad, and his trademark mixture of fury and obscenity fits the series well. And weirdly, you know who steals almost every scene? Buddy Hackett! As Peter’s bodyguard, Uncle Lonnie, the old-time comedian gets to bring some real depravity to his role. I mean, he was Scuttle in The Little Mermaid! And here he is, packing a pistol and making erection jokes.
If you watched this show in its original run, you may remember that the series ended with Peter Dragon dying of a heart attack. Well, it turns out there are five more episodes! (It turns out, that heart attack wasn’t so fatal after all.) Those episodes, which FOX never got around to airing, introduce publicist extraordinaire Connie Hunt (Hey, I never said it was a classy show.), detail exactly what a producer has to do when the leading man’s not happy with the size of his crotch, and spread a nasty rumor about Peter and a certain predilection involving frogs. And it all ends with Peter making an absolutely indefensible choice. It’s hilarious and disturbing and something in it will offend you at some point. May I suggest “You tossed that baby like it was radioactive!” or “I bought the wrong Jew!”?
The Complete Series collects all 13 episodes, uncensored. Like Arrested Development, Action made liberal use of language that wouldn’t pass muster on network TV. And while I think bleeping obscenities is funny, the filth flies with such passion that it deserves to be heard in all its glory. The nudity, on the other hand, is still blurred out. This is especially disappointing in the body double audition scene, but I guess you can’t have everything.
The two-disc set includes three commentary tracks with the writing staff and co-star Jarrad Paul (who played screenwriter Adam Rafkin). They’re not the most informative of commentaries, as everybody is too busy laughing. Still, they do reveal that the absurd “What time is it?” sequence was inspired by an Illeana Douglas tantrum. That is worth the price right there. The best extra is a half-hour featurette on the making of the series. It’s a fascinating and funny look at how to build a cult favorite. It’s as amusing and disturbing as the series itself, particularly seeing a pre-Saturday Night Live Will Forte on the writing staff. Most of the writers were bitter old misanthropic comedy veterans, and seeing that Forte is still clearly scarred by what he witnessed is darkly hilarious.
Action: The Complete Series is dark and hilarious and perfect for those of us who would like summer celebrations better if it weren’t for all those happy people running around and shouting about America. Watch it, and you will be making inappropriate references to the “Dominican FaceHat” in no time at all.
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