Product Description

It all begins here, as baby-faced rookie Officer Tom Hanson (Johnny Depp) is assigned to an elite squad of young undercover cops - Judy Hoffs (Holly Robinson Peete), Doug Penhall (Peter DeLuise) and Harry Truman Ioki (Dustin Nguyen) - to infiltrate high schools and fight crime. Frederic Forrest and Steven Williams co-star in this classic first season that also features such guest stars as Jason Priestley, Josh Brolin, David Paymer, Sherilyn Fenn and Blair Underwood in what became Fox’s first runaway hit and remains one of the coolest cop shows in TV history! 21 JUMP STREET - SEASON ONE includes all 13 explosive episodes - including the rarely seen two-part premiere - and is now packed with extras that include all-new interviews with stars Holly Robinson Peete, Dustin Nguyen, Steven Williams and series co- creator Stephen J. Cannell and an exclusive audio commentary with star Peter DeLuise.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #13389 in DVD
• Brand: 21 jumpstreet Seasons 1-4
• Released on: 2004-10-26
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Number of discs: 4
• Formats: Box set, Color, DVD, Full Screen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 4
• Running time: 585 minutes

Amazon.com
Best known today as the series that helped launch Johnny Depp to stardom, Stephen J. Cannell's 21 Jump Street was also one of the first hit programs for the fledgling Fox network, a status that lasted for most of its five-year run (1987-91), thanks to its engaging mix of youth culture and police drama. As outlined in the pilot, Depp's baby-faced Ofc. Tom Hanson is transferred to the special Jump Street division, a unit that utilized young cops to infiltrate juvenile crime. Unlike many of Fox's youth-oriented shows of the period (i.e., Beverly Hills 90210), Jump Street took its stories seriously, and addressed numerous social issues in its episodes; though some of the fashions and slang seem dated, the program remains entertaining decades later. The Jump Street set compiles all 13 episodes of the debut season, including the two-part pilot; the solid extras feature commentary by co-star Peter DeLuise, as well as interviews with fellow Jump Street officers Dustin Nguyen, Holly Robinson Peete, and Steven Williams (whose Captain Fuller replaced Frederic Forrest's Jenko halfway through the first season), as well as the prolific Cannell. --Paul Gaita

Customer Reviews

WARNING! Great stories ... terrible music
I was very excited that they released 21 Jump Street on DVD. It was a launching point for many careers and provided entertaining moral lessons. So I go to play the first show and within the first 15-20 minutes I notice something. They redid the music. Maybe it was just a couple of songs. Nope, it was pretty much all of them. And it was done in such a way that it was obnoxious and often detracted from the stories. I had a VERY hard time watching the remainder of the season because the the remastering was done so poorly.

21 Jump Street was that really cool hip show that had some of the latest music of the time. And whether it was record companies wanting to charge for using their music or someone deciding that the music needed to be less "dated" ... whatever the reason, they made a bad choice.

I highly recommend that people rent this DVD before they buy it to make sure they are okay with it. I am not and will not purchase any more seasons until they put the original music/soundtracks back in.

Later Gators!

Jump!
21 Jump Street launched two careers: one, most notably that of Johnny Depp and the other would be that of the young upstart TV network called Fox. It premiered in 1987 and was, in a way, a 1980's version of the mod squad. But it was original in storylines and ahead of its time in storylines as well. The storylines were dark and gritty as was the subject matter that fueld the episodes back then. There were topical issues touched upon on this series such as AIDS, death, rape, even incest and abuse. But despite those subject matters the series had many great comical aspects to it as well due to the fact that the cast through seasons 1-4 had great chemistry. Two people on the series that had the best chemistry were probably Johnny Depp and Peter DeLuise and that shown through when their characters "Hanson" and "Penhall" donned the alias' of "The McQuaid Brothers" in episodes where their characters had to go undercover in high schools.

The series ran strong for 4 seasons as a first run show, but during his last season (season 4) it was well known that Johnny Depp wanted out of his contract to move on to bigger and better things, and he also disliked the concept of cops going undercover in high schools and had some sort of moral objections. Season 5 is easily forgettable as Johnny Depp and Dustin Nguyen had left the show and the ratings dropped drastically so the show was put into syndication. So that was pretty much the death of the show as it became a shell of its former self.

Another thing about this series, though it was a show about young officers that looked young and were able to go undercover in high schools, in actuality a lot of the episodes didn't even revolve around that type of scenerio. As the series progressed and characters had developed personalities a lot of episodes revolved around their own struggles on the show most notably the episode about the death of Johnny Depp's character's girlfriend and his character's struggles with the death, and also Peter Deluise's character's struggles in the later seasons involving his wife in El Salvador.

It's great to see this series finally be put out on DVD and despite being a show from the late 80's the only thing dated about the show would just be the fashion of the time. The episodes and topic matter still hold up I believe. One other thing about the show was it's choice of great late 80's music, as REM and U2 songs were featured in episodes along with a handful of other songs from hit bands of the time, hopefully the songs featured in episodes will be kept on the DVDs as they are released. One also has to wonder if season 5 will even be released.. Time will tell. And though shows like Married with Children and The Simpsons helped Fox become a major player, this show did help a lot as well by drawing in a young teenage demographic and helped shape Fox into a "hip" and "edgy" network.

Requesting Anchor Bay remove head from butt
A fantastic TV series should be:

1. Groundbreaking - There is no show like this on television. It is not some clammy rehash of a rehash like, for instance, "The OC".

2. Has a sense of gritty realism - Watching a kid do a speed ball, or watching a kid fleeing from the police, crash, seemingly not on purpose.(I'm saying to myself, someone got hurt doing that stunt.)

3. Advances on its own terms - 21 Jump Street doesn't succumb to political correct speak around. A pleasant surprise upon viewing will be how people talk to one another. The first episode displays this when a kid refers to another kid as a "Homo". What show in recent memory has that type of dialogue? I can't think of any that are geared toward the age group that are viewing 21 Jump Street. And not to say that it's good or bad either way, but at least the show allows you to make up your mind about what you are viewing. Most will buckle and just take a phrase like that out for fear of reprisal.


4. Acting sincerity - I can't stand people who can't act and or get miscast. They can ruin an otherwise decent film/tv show, see Rhada Mitchel in "Man on Fire". The acting in this show is superb. Everyone flows together seemlessly and no one actor feels out of place, with the exception of the Capt. Richard Jenko, played by Frederik Forrest; Who is a very good actor, whom I felt was miscast in the part, and mightily replaced(was this the case?) by Steven Williams.

My girlfriend had never even heard of this show when I told her about it and upon viewing the first 1/2 of the pilot episode insisted we finish it that night.

Unfortunately I cannot recommend the company that put this to DVD. They did an abismal job. The picture looks grainy, I noticed some serious dubbing over the word "Ass"(throws shoulders in air? Who cares!) and like all of the others, the music. If you can't release it in the shows original form, don't release it.

The show gets 5 stars and the release gets 2. 1 for releasing it period, and another for decent packaging.

Let's hope the second season is original.