Bosom Buddies Season One Set for DVD Release on March 13, 2007

Not long ago I published an article here at Associated Content that asked, well, maybe one of the most important questions of our time. Why is it that television series like Hazel have been released on DVD, but not shows such as St. Elsewhere, Thirtysomething or Bosom Buddies?

This week saw the release of the first season of St. Elsewhere hit the stores in DVD form. Next year will see the second season of Twin Peaks finally make it onto a Region 1 DVD disc. Still no word on Thirtysomething. But great news for fans of Tom Hanks, Peter Scolari and well-written, intelligent comedy: the first season of Bosom Buddies will be released on DVD on March 13, 2007.

Bosom Buddies was the show that gave Tom Hanks his big break. It was conceived as a Some Like It Hot update, in which two men who sort of resembled Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon are forced to masquerade as women so that they can get an apartment that’s dirt cheap. It also doesn’t hurt that the Hanks character is crazy about the blonde. (You know, like Stony Curtis was crazy about Marilyn Monroe.)

This basic premise served to provide the laughs and plotlines for most of the first season, but by season two the show has largely eschewed the reliance of the cross-dressing for its comic thrust. By that point Bosom Buddies had found its center, which was the extraordinary chemistry between Hanks and Scolari. These two actors are smart enough to handle the writing handed them that soon was far above the common sitcom fare.

It was midway through the first season that this change in focus took place, in an episode titled How Great Thou Art. Tom Hanks’ character Kip was an advertising illustrator by day and a serious artist at heart. His bosom buddy Henry was an advertising copywriter by day and a serious novelist at heart. In this episode Henry gives Kip a surprise birthday present: a showing of his art at a gallery. Kip insists he isn’t ready and the episode becomes really the first one in which the fact that both men spend time dressed as women has no real bearing on the comedy. It is a brilliant episode, both hilariously funny and emotionally wrenching.