sledgehammer (american tv program, not the peter gabriel song or the tool)

"you can't do that!"

"what, there's no setting for sandwich?"

Gotta rise this thread from the grave. I bought both DVD sets and they are incredible. There's an interview I read somewhere with Alan Spencer (show's creator) where he said that the studios originally wanted someone like John Candy to take the role of Sledge, but Alan basically held out unless he could get Rasche to do it, in retrospect what a brilliant home that was, having an actual "comedian" in the role would have just killed it. The show just existed in a weird plane of meta-humor and postmodernism that I don't think many people understood at the time. They couldn't show much actual violence so they had the enemies dispatched in weird ways. Like Sledge throws a hammer that bounces off four walls and knocks the gun out of a dude's hand, and then the next scene is just a short shot of Hammer doing a small fist pump...the kind of things that would make most viewers get upset, but if you really "got it" then that was part of what made the whole thing amazing. IIRC one person slips on a banana peel and falls out the window. Yep

I particularly loved the episode where Sledge gets poisoned. Lots of great parts there but I love when he learns he's been poisoned and starts to take out his rage on his boss's office, but he's still sedated so he does it so straight-faced and casual, just dropping everything on the floor, pushing stuff over, then he gets to the American flag and salutes it. Later on he gets in a fight with a snake and says "You've had this coming for a long time" and punches it in the face. Serious WTF moment.

I'll stick your head in the microwave and set it on "sandwich".

Most of the series is on youtube and I've been going through it for the first time since I was a kid. Great stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ9h3nxL1pY&list=PLAPGcD5LGrp4g9pNQVn-UGl7IuZ9cgiD-

Uh, try again. The account that uploaded this one has a whole playlist of them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJ9h3nxL1pY

I recently saw Burn After Reading for the first time and was delighted to see David Rasche in even a small role.

That's what inspired me to go check it out again. I'd seen that movie a few times and on the most recent re-watch was like "who is that?" I had forgotten all about Sledge Hammer, but I loved it when I was 9 or so.

I watched about 4 minutes of the episode posted above and I'm dying rn.

"It's disgusting. Real men don't need women."

"Hammer, without women, you would never have been born"

"Prove it"

hmm this scene was a little prophetic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pFh09hF6qlA&feature=youtu.be&t=6m8s

one moment in this show I think about all the time is one where he's in a plane, freaking out because he's afraid of a plane crash, and the pilot assures him that it's safe because all their pilots have at least 1000 hours of training logged. he calms down, then turns around in a panic and says "Hey!! That's not that much!!"

Trust me. I know what I'm doing.

the studios originally wanted someone like John Candy to take the role of Sledge, but Alan basically held out unless he could get Rasche to do it, in retrospect what a brilliant home that was, having an actual "comedian" in the role would have just killed it.

Leslie Nielsen effect in a way

David Rasche was a Second City guy too.

Always amused when he shows up on hbo premium teevee