TV and Sympathy

Blast from the past: Beauty and the Beast

I'm not talking Lumiere and Gaston and singing cutlery. I'm talking Ron freakin' Perlman.

Does anyone else remember this show? Beauty and the Beast ran for three years, from 1987-1990, so someone else must have seen it.

The basic premise of the show: beautiful attorney Catherine Chandler (Linda Hamilton) is saved from attackers one day by Vincent (Ron Perlman), a beast in appearance but a hottie at heart. (Did I really just use the phrase hottie to describe him? What are those four horses doing in the sky...?)

Catherine and Vincent make an immediate connection, but Catherine has a life and a job above ground, while Vincent and his Father are below-ground dwellers. He woos her guardedly, but poetry and candle-lit mystique can only go so far. You need a guy who you can show off to your friends! However, Vincent does benefit from the well-known bonus of underground habitation: your main mode of transportation is riding around on top of a subway car, wind blowing majestically through your mane of hair.

Will these two crazy kids get it together? Will Vincent exchange his 80's hair band do for something less leonine, perhaps a faux-hawk? Will Catherine convince big V that New York is full of the bizarre and beastly, so he should quit his self-pitying shame spiral and join her above-ground?

Unfortunately, it's not out on DVD, so perhaps I'll never know.

posted by Veltman @ 6:19 PM