My Strange Icelandic Journey To Find TV Shows That Don't Suck

When I was a kid, there was a tv show called Coach. It was about the life of Hayden Fox (Craig T. Nelson), who coached the fictional Minnesota State Screaming Eagles football team. It followed Coach Fox, his girlfriend (later wife) Christine, and his assistant coaches Luther Van Dam (played by Jerry Van Dyke, the funnier Van Dyke brother), and Michael “Dauber” Dybinski (who now does the voice of a starfish on some little-known cartoon involving sponges).

I was probably a little too young to watch a sitcom intended for adults, but who cares! I turned out to be pretty well-adjusted in the long run. When the show ended in 1997 I was 16, so it was a moot point by then.

Anyway, the show was great, and I really enjoyed it. One the rare occasion that I was off during weekdays, I would watch Coach on the USA Network (“characters welcomed”). It was always a pleasant surprise to see it playing in the middle of the day as I channel surfed.

Earlier this week, I thought it would be fun to watch a couple of episodes of this great show. As I usually do when I want to watch a great older sitcom, I turned to the internet. There are great, legal, websites like HULU and In2tv where people can find full episodes of classic television shows. I scoured the Google search results, but didn’t have any luck finding episodes online (legally or otherwise).

Naturally!

Since I didn’t have any luck finding it online, I decided that I would crack the wallet open and buy a season or two of Coach on DVD. After a quick search, I found that the first three seasons have been released for retail sale. It shouldn’t be too hard to find locally, right?

I went to the Wal-Mart website, and did a search. Apparently, there are no seasons of Coach sold in Wal-Mart stores locally.

Strike One…Or Second and Long if we’re going to stay loyal to Coach’s football theme.

So, I thought I’d try old, faithful Best Buy. I did a quick search, and there are no Best Buy stores within a 100 mile radius that sell the show on DVD.

Third and Long.

I decided if I wanted to find my DVD’s, this horse would have to lead himself to the water. After work on Tuesday, I went down to the retail district. Since Best Buy is right in the middle of everything, I figured I’d pop in there just to double check whether or not the internet search results were correct. They were. They had just about everything ELSE on DVD, but not Coach…Oh, and they had books too! Best Buy had books! I could buy a copy of the latest conspiracy theory pabulum crapped out by Dan Brown, but I couldn’t find the TV show I was looking for!

I was informed, however, that I could purchase all three available seasons at Bestbuy.com

Yeah. I dragged by ass across town, during the afternoon rush hour and after a day of work, to a busy retail store so I could buy the f**king thing online!

Fourth Down

Speaking of books, my next stop was Barnes and Noble. Sure, Barnes and Noble inflates their movie prices by about 700 percent (seriously, anyone who buys music or movies at Barnes and Noble, is either stupid or desperate…I’m both), but sometimes it’s worth it. B&N happens to be just two doors down from Best Buy (with a Pep Boys conveniently sandwiched betwixt them), and its music and movie section usually has DVD’s that can’t normally be found elsewhere. Surely THEY would have at least one of the three seasons of Coach that have been released on DVD!

Nope…And don’t call me Shirley.

For the record, this would have been Fifth Down if such a thing existed.

Barnes and Noble had a s*itload of ALF on the shelves. They had programs that only lasted one season (or not even that). They had British sitcoms on DVD. They even had According To Jim for Christ’s sake! Yet, they didn’t have any Coach.

It’s ok, though. I was informed that I could buy all three seasons available for sale at BN.com.

These damn retail stores are keeping their stock o’ stuff in warehouses for online sale. Yet, websites like eBay are opening up retail outlets to keep the stock o’ stuff they have for sale.

I’m starting to think it’s all part of a massive Freemason, Vatican, Illuminati conspiracy to piss me off!

Maybe I should call Dan Brown. I can help him crap out another book.