Product Description

With her winning smile and hilarious motor-mouthing Ellen DeGeneres rose from stand-up comedian beginnings to become a well-loved icon of good-natured fun. DeGeneres, however, first made a name for herself playing Ellen Morgan, a neurotic bookseller who frequently and hysterically gets lost in the dating world originally aired as "These Friends of Mine". Now, fans old and new can catch all 11 episodes from Ellen’s debut season – with two bonus "reclaimed" episodes – a sure bet for de-generous laughs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #14867 in DVD
• Brand: A&E
• Released on: 2004-09-28
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 299 minutes

Amazon.com
The first television season of Ellen was actually called These Friends of Mine, and while the series sought to define itself through various tones and shades of comedy, the best episodes captured a middle ground between Seinfeld and Friends. Ellen DeGeneres is both a brilliant centerpiece and generous ensemble player, constantly finding fresh ways to mine laughs from her ever-rambling, guilt-ridden, and perpetually dissatisfied heroine. As Ellen Morgan, bookstore employee and platonic roommate of semi-loser Adam (Arye Gross), DeGeneres finds plenty of opportunity to explore humiliation. In the pilot episode, Ellen's unhappiness with her bad photo on a driver's license prompts an obsessive (and unsuccessful) quest to beautify her ID. "The Promotion" finds Ellen and her posse (besides Gross, costars in these first 13 programs include Maggie Wheeler and Holly Fulger) trying to figure out how to bribe Ellen's boss into giving her a job boost, a futile adventure that ends (don't ask how) in a bad way at the Mexican border.

Among the best episodes is the Seinfeld-ian "The Mugging," starring Mariska Hargitay as a gorgeous woman mugged on her way to Adam and Ellen's front door. A cowardly Adam saw the crime and not only fails to help, he won't admit being an eyewitness lest he lose his shot at romancing the victim. Along those same black-comedy lines, "The Anchor" finds Ellen neurotically pursuing a friendship with a woman she can't stand, simply because the latter heard Ellen speaking badly of her. The 13 shows in this set are presented out of season one's chronological order, but that makes little difference to the best material here. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

WHERE'S ELLEN?
It seems every sitcom that was ever on TV ( and many that SHOULD NEVER have been on tv ), are on DVD...where's Ellen? No show has made me laugh ( though Ellen's successful talk show comes awfully close! ) so hard. Please, please, please release Ellen on DVD so I can finally discard the last of my worn out VHS tapes..my Ellen collection.

Make my day!
What a great sitcom. My VHS tapes are so worn that I am arfaid to play them anymore. The release of these DVD's would make 2004 a great year for those of us who appreciate a good laugh from a hilarious woman. PLEASE!!!!

Excellent start to an excellent series!
Ellen: The Complete Season One might as well be considered completely seperate from the rest of the series. When the first season originally aired, it was titled 'These Friends of Mine' and was much more Seinfeldish than it grew to be by the second, and especially third seasons. In the first season, Ellen has not come out of the closet yet (that is still 3 seasons away). It is kind of weird seeing her dating men, as you can totally see there is no chemistry there at all. Also, later series regulars Joely Fisher and Jeremy Piven have not yet joined the cast. There are two other female friends featured here that are inexplicably gone by the end of these 13 episodes and never return. Joely Fisher is then first introduced in the first episode of Season 2 with no explanation as well.

With that being said, even though there are major differences between this first season and the rest of the series, it is still a great, funny show. Ellen truly is a comedic genius and she works well with this first season cast (though I must say she has much better chemistry with the later casts). Amazon Marketplace has this set for sale pretty cheap; it's definitely worth a look, whether you are a current Ellen fan, or new to the series. The DVDs do not have many special features; there is a commentary or two (with Ellen herself conspicuously absent) and some biographies and that's about it. But you do get 13 pretty darn funny episodes! Highly recommended!