Action

I never understood why this extremely funny and wonderfully cast show wasn't a bigger hit. It really was very, very good. Too bad it didn't get the audience it needed to continue. Oh well. Jay Mohr was perfect in the lead, and Ileana Douglas is a treat. Cameos by Sandra Bullock and others were hilarious.

I've read almost all the other comments on this wonderful, black, well-written series and for the very first time on IMDB, I agree with almost all of them! That must mean something. 'ACTION' is certainly one of the funniest shows I've ever seen, particularly the episode where the closeted gay actor considers coming out and Peter Dragon goes the extra mile to keep his star.

"ACTION" makes pointed and very deliberate fodder of Hollywood's appalling treatment of gay characters. I (as a full self-aware, well-adjusted MASCULINE gay male) found the constant juxtaposition of on-screen attitudes versus off-screen reality wonderfully funny. It explains why writers and actors who know many gay people and have dozens (or hundreds) of gay friends can write horribly insulting trash like 'Will and Grace' -- for them, it really is just a job, with no connection with reality!

Where have I been? Here I am sitting on my couch on a Sunday evening, looking for something halfway bearable to watch and I see Jay Mohr doing television. Right away, I was intrigued. And right away, I stayed. Why do people like this show? It's called GOOD WRITING. And FINALLY, these excellent actors have something to work with. Too bad this series got cancelled, it must have been a little too honest for some people.

For mature audiences only and a hilarious mockery of Hollywood.

Wow! That's all you really need to say about this too-short-lived series.

But since I have the space, let me say this too: I don't think a funnier satire exists or has ever existed on TV. I pray for the day an uncensored DVD is released - this show has me laughing my @ss off for just about the entire time I'm watching it. It's amazing that it ever got made at all, what with all the jokes ripping on the Hollywood community, and everyone gets an equal dose - producers, actors, writers, you name it, this show makes fun of it. Jay Mohr is funnier in this series than in anything else I've ever seen him do, and Ileana Douglas is, as always, fantastic.

Watch it! And to the execs at Fox - put out the DVD, already!

The continuing story of high-pressure Joel Silver-type movie producer Peter Dragon's battle to produce a make-or-break actioner called "Beverly Hills Gun Club" in view of obstacles from financing through to the writer (who in true Hollywood fashion is nearly always at the short end of the stick) to his cast, with hilarious consequences. Seriously.

Shot on film without a laugh track and with enough strong language and adult content (such as Sandra Bullock berating our hero for making a tape of the two of them having sex and selling it as "While You Were Sleeping On My Face") to irritate America's Bible Belt and get it dropped after eight episodes - at the end of one episode our hero mentions that a show like this could be a big hit in a good time slot (in Britain it was given an even worse slot; Channel 4 never showed it before midnight. Isn't it ironic, don't you think?) - "Action" is often crude and continues Hollywood's apparent unwillingness to glamourise itself as much as everything else, but it's very, very funny if you can get all the references, with a nice line in caustic insults from Dragon. My favourites: Dragon seeing the pretty but overweight blonde MAW Reagan Busch (a funny name in itself) and pointing out to the writer, "Yeah, she's got a cute face... ON TOP OF BRIAN DENNEHY'S BODY!!!" (This can be seen as a comment on Hollywood body fascism, because she isn't really that fat. Which is not to say that when we see her post-liposuction it isn't nice...), and his suggestion that Matt Damon winning an Oscar was the first sign of the Apocalypse.

Harlan Ellison said of "Bracken's World," "It has the evil fascination of rotting fruit. And smells about the same." I think he'd have kinder opinions of this short-lived gem. And remember, Silver may have produced "The Matrix," but he also did "Xanadu"...