"The Adventures of Brisco County Jr." is a 1993 Western Sci-Fi Comedy featuring Bruce Campbell with a Looney Tunes sensibility and a great deal of punnery. It has dialogue that can be painful, situations that can feel incredibly forced, and a ton of really stupid gimmicks. In other words, this show is my 13 year old self's favorite thing in the entire world. I love it now!
Bruce Campbell plays Brisco County Jr. a Harvard educated lawyer/cowboy whose father, Brisco County, was killed by the notorious outlaw John Bly in search of a mysterious Orb that has some sort of supernatural power. His best friend is Lord Bowler, a habitually angry bounty hunter who is the best tracker in the west. His girlfriend, Dixie (she whistles a lot), is a showgirl. He also has a talking horse named Comet that only Brisco can communicate with. They both work for a society of Robber Barons who give them tasks that supply the show with problem of the episode when the overall plot isn't being addressed.
(The McGuffin.. I mean Orb)
What is this show about? It's about 44 minutes per episode; har, har har. Seriously though, it's about the importance of progress, living up to your father's legacy, time travel, faith, and whatever lesson is being imparted that week. It's also about 26 episodes total. The lessons are dealt with in a very neat & tidy, after school special manner; but that fits the tone. They aren't trying to speak to the human condition on any deep level. They are trying to entertain you; 44 minutes at a time. And any time Bruce Campbell is on screen is time that I will be entertained.
This show is incredibly PG. I'd say it is PG as fuck. People forget to fire their guns constantly and I don't think anyone is ever actually shot, just shot at. If anyone is incapacitated it is usually in a non-lethal often comical manner (that sign for the Hard Knocks saloon fell down and hit that guy. Visual pun!). Additionally while there are plenty of African-American characters, there are no racial politics. Lord Bowler is black and this is never mentioned, not even in the ham-handed way that the show deals with other issues. The civil war is over, right! It's not a knock on the show- I don't think it would fit, but there is a missed opportunity for an after school special.
This show is obsessed with word play. It often feels like entire episodes are just elaborate set-ups for lame puns. Which is exactly how I would write a TV show. There's an episode where he goes back home and meets up with his high school sweetheart named Annie. When things inevitably go south with a bunch of outlaws, she asks him, "What should I do?"
His response, "Annie, get your gun."
(This guy is Elvis)
In another episode Brisco and Bowler go to a town where the sheriff is a ridiculously bad Elvis impersonator. In the course of the episode he invents sunglasses(aviators, of course) and, in a nod to Elvis's later years, he eats outlandish amounts of food. At the end of the episode it's revealed Brisco was staying in "The Heartbreak Hotel" the entire time! HILARIOUS!! In that same episode a bull is chased into a china shop. Actually, all sarcasm aside, my 8-13 year old self would be repeating the episode synopsis to all his friends at school. That is if my 8-13 year old self actually had any friends... sad face :(
Additionally, Brisco County is obsessed with "the coming thing" which leads to a lot of obviously telegraphed gags like when they invent the drive through, the hamburger, the shower, the motorcycle, etc.
One of my favorite things about this show is the really stupid word play. Sometimes a conversation will start to rhyme for no reason, other times things turn unnecessarily alliterative. In one episode they have to track down outlaws named Bill, Will, Phil and Gil Swill. Is this clever? I don't know. But it is something I do in casual conversation with other adults outside the context of an all ages TV show. Wait, is this something I could get paid, rather than humiliated, for? four? fore? 4?
(A Snidely Whiplash Moment)
I mentioned earlier that the shows has a Looney Tunes sensibility. It is incredibly silly. The way the outlaws hijack trains is by placing a giant boulder in the tracks and then painting a photo-realistic landscape of what is directly behind it so that the train will crash into it. Vintage Bugs Bunny. There is an episode where a band of outlaws are all displaced pirates with costumes that are hybrids of Treasure Island and Bonanza. They have cannons on their stage-coach, make people walk the plank and are generally as over the top as Dustin Hoffman in Hook. Yup, this show was made for the me of 10 years ago.
To draw a parallell to another high point in Bruce Campbell's career, this show has sensibilities similar to Army of Darkness or Evil Dead, without the blood, nudity, swearing or horror. Which is to say it's a sanitized version of the silly parts (aka, the best parts). Unlike those movies, this show is 100% free of tree-rape. But both are campy as hell.
(Right actor, wrong century)
So, is the show actually any good? Well, I like it a lot. Objectively speaking, it's no Mad Men, but I think most people would think it's good to MST3K with a 6 pack and a bunch of friends on a Friday night. Or, if you are a Bruce Campbell enthusiast like me, it's pretty good for watching straight through and pretending you're a kid again.
Series Finale Update: Terry Bradshow is in the series finale and it is awesome. He plays a US army general who treats missions likefootball plays and gives his men orders that sound like half-time locker room speeches. Also there are a series of contrived plot devices that create football like scenarios, such as wagon wheels covering a street, leading to everyone having to do high-knees.
(He likes puns as much as me)
There's also a great gag where one of the soldiers was raised in Italy. All his dialogue is heavily accented English but is subtitled as if it is a foreign language with things that are often completely different. This entire episode gets really silly: a capella dueling banjos, a zeppelin filled with helium so everyone speaks funny, architecture jokes. Also a great pun where a convicted criminal gets in a debate about the design of the jail and says "I am an expert in penal housing." Everyone looks at him and goes, "I'm not into that." Great moment. Also, Led Zeppelin puns!
This show really ended on a high note. Tons of meta- references, which I love. It was clear there was uncertainty over whether or not they were cancelled. It ended with a new status quo, which could have been the ending or opened the door for another season. The Last episode might have been the best, it's too bad there weren't more.
