Stometer
Save your money for something good and enjoyable
Donald Seymour
This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.
Anoushka Slater
While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Billy Ollie
Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable
eily
I love Fresno so much. I watched all of the night time soaps, and I saw this when it aired. They used to show it on Comedy Central back when the channel was new. My favorite gag was always "the Rolls isn't running today, madam" then watching Carol riding in back of the station wagon. Also when Billy Joe always seems to be confessing to murder when the jailers walk buy. This was released on VHS in the UK, I bought a copy on eBay years ago and bought a worldwide VCR just to transfer this one show to DVD. It was released in 2 parts on VHS, first part was 2 hours and 16 minutes, the second part was 2 hours and 10 minutes (only 1 playing of the credits was omitted for the 1st tape, 2 playings of the credits for the second tape explaining the time difference) but you only see the opening and closing credits twice- once for each part- instead of 5 times for the 2 hour 1st and one hour 2nd through 5th episodes so that cut out several minutes. I watch Fresno a couple times a year, I just finished watching season one of Falcon Crest which is where a majority of the spoofing comes from, so I had to watch it again. There are too many great moments, like everyone always having a drink in their hand, even when skulking in bushes, or Kevin giving mouth-to-gills to some dead fish, to list them all, but if you watched any of the prime-time 80s soaps and like spoofs at all, you have to watch this if you get a chance.
richard.fuller1
But it was royally raked over the coals when it first aired.CBS showed one two hour part, then it was hour parts for a week, instead of the usual mini-series, two hour movies on three nights.Fresno wasn't allowed to dominate the night as it should have been.Yet still people saw it and loved it.Willard Scott on the Today show commented on how funny it was.Thankfully, I don't recall anything about the second airing with the laughtrack.Favorite bits for me? Those shots of Carol descending the staircase. Slowly.Nothing else, just Carol descending the staircase. Look at her dress, everyone. Isn't it stunning? Grodin did indeed make this thing. My favorite bit was at the end, after the ridiculous trial and he is in the hall yelling at Carol, probably, or Teri Garr.Photographers are swarming around him, snapping pictures, moving like vultures.Suddenly he removes his hat and starts swatting at them."Here! Photograph this, you want to take pictures so badly!" The dinner table. Everyone would storm off and leave. Carol and Mahaffey were the only two left. Mahaffey was Tiffany, Carol's adopted daughter (don't ask about this!).Carol would exclaim "I wish just once one of my real kids would remain at the dinner table one evening." Mahaffey would make the most hurt expression.Mahaffey mastered the wooden soap performances as well. Thank goodness she went on to win deserving Emmys.
humilitas
Every once in a while I remember watching this back in 1986 and have to smile. We were die-hard Dallas fans in my family (God knows why), so the tremendous evening soap-opera send-up worked very well for us. I won't ever forget the Raisin Capital of the World, DDDLT, or other giggle-producing memories (Carol Burnett's Dynasty-inspired wardrobe, e.g.). Will this ever be available on home video?? I hope so! I would love to see it again.No one who ever watched Dallas, Dynasty, Falconcrest, or other 70s-80s vintage evening soaps can find this anything but hilarious and spot-on. Its skewering of every soap/melodrama formula ever over-used will leave you howling and hoping it will go on for much longer. The week we spent watching it was one of the funniest of my television life, and made all those Friday nights soaking up South Fork seem worthwhile.It seems as though television has grown/withered to such an extent that this kind of miniseries no longer has any place in prime-time or anywhere else. It is a great pity! I am a great fan of smart entertainment, which is more often than not treated as an oxymoron by the industry these days. TV needs more of this kind of thing.
James Bryden
This was a fantastic spoof taking names and ideas from nighttime soaps such as Dynasty and Dallas. Carol Burnett and Charles Grodin played the main roles, and were absolutely fantastic. To see Carol Burnett as a "drunk" is always fun. I like how they made the last name of the "wealthy" family Kinsington; which compares to Carrington in Dynasty. They also used such names as Tallon; which compares to Fallon in Dynasty and I really thought that Billy Jo and Bobby Jo Bob having the same middle name was great.I have an original copy which I taped off of the TV before having satellite TV, so it is fuzzy and sound is not so great. I'd love to get a new copy and would be ecstatic if you burned it on a DVD. I'd pay for the DVD, your time, shipping, etc. Please E-Mail me at
[email protected] if you have anymore copies, or are willing to make anymore; whether on VHS or DVD.Thanx so much, Jamie