American Dreams - Season One (Extended Music Edition) |  | Directors: Bill D'Elia, Bryan Spicer, Craig Zisk, Dan Lerner, Daniel Attias
Actors: Gail O'Grady, Tom Verica, Brittany Snow, Will Estes, Jonathan Adams
Studio: Universal Studios
Category: DVD
List Price: $26.98
Buy New: $15.88
as of 11/23/2009 06:21 CST details
You Save: $11.10 (41%)
New (35) Used (23) from $11.94
Seller: Roxborough Discount
Rating:  105 reviews
Format: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
Languages: English (Original Language), Spanish (Subtitled), French (Subtitled)
Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Region: 1
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Number Of Discs: 7
Running Time: 1094 Minutes
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 7.5 x 5.6 x 1.8
MPN: MCAD25737D
ISBN: 1417015276
UPC: 025192573729
EAN: 9781417015276
Theatrical Release Date: September 29, 2002
Release Date: September 7, 2004
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
An American family adjusts to social change in this two-time Emmy winning series. Amidst a backdrop of American Bandstand, 1960s era pop music, and other cultural icons, the characters in this story grapple with many issues of the day, including the death of a president, Civil Rights, and women's emancipation. Still somewhat entrenched in the straightlaced ideas of the 1950s, each family member is challenged as old ideas are replaced by new. This first season in the series that follows the Pryor family (Brittany Snow) whose squeaky-clean image is questioned when she becomes an American Bandstand. Her mother, Helen (Gail O'Grady), has recently gone back to school and learns the true price of trying to have it all. Husband Jack (Tom Verica) is considering a career as a politician amidst great controversy and turbulence. Football star JJ (Will Estes) is a high school football star wrapped up in romantic troubles. This season is punctuated by performers Usher (as a young Marvin Gaye), Ashanti (as Dionne Warwick), and Vanessa Carlton (as Dusty Springfield). Hey, even Robby Benson makes an interesting comeback here, as Helen's Professor.
Amazon.com
The 2002 first season of American Dreams introduced one of the more ambitious new dramas on a major television network since the debut of The West Wing. Deceptively nostalgic, American Dreams looks, at first blush, like a bone tossed to baby boomers who remember black and white TV, American Bandstand, and what class they were in when word spread of JFK's assassination. But the more one watches the show, the more apparent it becomes that American Dreams is not about memories but about bringing a pivotal chapter in 20th century U.S. history to life--sometimes electrifyingly so. The series pilot, set just before and on the day of Kennedy's murder, introduces Philadelphia family the Pryors, white, middle-class Catholics whose stern but not undiscerning patriarch, Jack (Tom Verica), gets an earful one night over dinner. Eldest son J.J. (Will Estes), a star running back at high school and candidate for a Notre Dame football scholarship, announces he's leaving the sport, feeling unappreciated for his mind and inspired by Kennedy's outreach to young people. Teenage daughter Meg (Brittany Snow) allows that she'll be dancing on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. Jack's wife, Helen (Gail O'Grady), later lets fly that she's moving on from her boring book club to spend time with a new friend, a feminist academic (Virginia Madsen), and strongly hints that she's done with adding more babies to their brood of four. The times are indeed a-changin' for the Pryors--who have chugged along on WWII vet Jack's fiercely protected vision of picket fences, cooperative kids, and a wife who doesn't upset his equilibrium with needs of her own. But the rest of the country is changing, too, and American Dreams captures--with subtle precision--the erosion of comfortable assumptions at the onset of the Vietnam war, the escalation of the civil rights movement, the British Invasion, reproductive rights for women, and much else. The series flows, often with stylish splendor, between the Pryors' home, the Bandstand studio set, and Jack's retail television and radio shop, where Jack's sole employee, an African American father, Henry (Jonathan Adams), wonders silently about the options a racist society will offer his talented son, Sam (Arlen Escarpeta). Wordlessness is a hallmark of American Dreams: An exchanged look between Meg and Sam is shattering testimony to the confusion of racial prohibitions among well-meaning kids. Part of every show finds historical reenactments of '60s musical acts appearing on Bandstand, and sometimes these artists are played by contemporary musicians such as Nick Carter (as Jay of Jay and the Americans) and Third Eye Blind (as the Kinks). This boxed set includes real Bandstand clips that are contemporaneous with the series' timeline. --Tom Keogh
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 105
Still missing this show very much! November 11, 2009
Independent (Massachusettts)
Yes, it's been a while since this has been off the air but it's still a shame that this show was never given more of a chance for it to survive longer than it's 3 seasons. This was a wonderful, wholesome family show and I firmly believe that NBC pulled the plug on this one way to soon. A show like this is just what is needed during these uncertain economic and political times. To go back to a time when life was more structured with good old fashioned family values, something that is so incredibly lost today. A time where all American's fully believed in their country.
American Dreams Season One September 19, 2009
Kevin Cuccia (Ruston, La)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This was a great show which unfortunately got cancelled too soon. Thank God for DVDs. I am enjoying it all over again. The seller shipped this very promptly so it arrived shortly after ordering. Thank you. And it was a steal on Amazon for the price for an unopened brand new set.
Thank you, thank you.
Amazing September 15, 2009
Faith Fleagle
I thought that this box set was to good to be true. Never opened, brand new, and a price that was out of this world! DVD's came fast and I have enjoyed watching them. You would be out of your mind not to business with this seller! Could not be happier with this purchase!
American Dreams: Certainly not a nightmare! August 29, 2009
Ms. B. Pearce (Sydney, Australia)
What a great show! Set in the 1960's, this show deals with all the issues of the time. Intergration, female independance and so much more. It is done tastefully, colourfully and musically, the show being based around Meg and her friend who dance on American Bandstand after school.
This boxed-set comes in a cool fold out case, very impressive as is the show itself. I cannot wait to own Season 2 on DVD (if they ever release it!!!).
Stars Hairspray's Brittany Snow :-)
10/10.
Great series August 10, 2009
J.L.A. (Missouri United States)
There are plenty of long-winded reviews of this short-lived series. Sufficed to say it was great and I was very dissapointed it was taken off the air. If you haven't seen it you should...if you have...you probably already like it. I suppose it was lost in the post 9/11 fallout of anything anti-war...or it was just lost on a reality-TV loving under-educated public. Whatever the reason I'm glad to see it's on DVD...widescreen or not.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 105
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