MORE DVD release fodder for the fire

Newsday

Re-disc-overy Channel Studios are taking a second look at TV shows, bringing more and more on DVD, and fans can't get enough By Diane Werts Staff Writer

December 15, 2002

Here's the studios' thinking: You get fans hooked on a movie, you sell 'em one DVD, maybe two or three with added features. But you get fans hooked on a TV series? You sell 'em one DVD, or a DVD set of three to nine discs, or nine sets containing one season each. Or a steady stream of individual episode releases until it runs into tens and dozens and ...

You get the idea. That's why we're getting so many more TV-spawned DVD releases. What began five years back as a trickle of titles aimed at digital video's early adopters -- young tech-heads offered "Beavis and Butt-head” and Stephen King miniseries -- has ballooned into a torrent of backlogged product that distributors can't release fast enough. The comprehensive Web site www.tvshowsondvd.com lists more than 1,600 DVD releases of TV shows that ran from the 1950s to 2002 (including multiple titles from popular series: 12 from "Saturday Night Live,” 40 from "Star Trek”). And site founder Gord Lacey knows of another 600 releases he hasn't had time to post yet.

Only three TV DVDs came out in November 1997, by his count, but by 2001 the month offered 52 new titles, just in time for the holidays. This past March was a sort of tipping point, Lacey says, with 56 tube releases, including such biggies as first-season sets of "All in the Family” and "Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The 25-year-old Web designer from Edmonton, Alberta, launched his Internet labor of love in the fall of last year to demonstrate viewer support to Hollywood studios when "it seemed like every bad movie was out on DVD but the good TV shows were missing. That's obviously changed in the last year. The studios are going, ‘Holy smokes, look at all the stuff we have in our vaults. This can make us big bucks.'”

Fans of "The X-Files” theatrical film, for instance, might buy it on DVD once, or twice if the re-release had added features, for a total of maybe $50. But those devoted to the Fox series might buy separate DVD sets holding every episode of each season, which totals nine sets, or nearly $1,000. Though Fox Home Entertainment had seen only so-so VHS sales of selected "X-Files” episodes, it decided in May 2000 to release the first season's 24 episodes on DVD in one seven-disc set, list-priced at $150 and widely sold near the $100 mark. "We did 100,000 units in the first six months,” says Peter Staddon, FHE senior vice president of marketing. "It blew away our expectations. And this at a price point easily 10 times higher than the video product. Five years ago, the television business was worth 10 percent of what it is now.” The company has since released six "X-Files” seasons in separate sets.

Now studios that previously released episodes on DVD in single or "best of” formats are reconfiguring those series into elaborate fold-out season sets -- individual years of "Friends,” "South Park” and "Farscape,” all 45 episodes of "Monty Python's Flying Circus.” They're often jammed with video "extras” that fans really will pay extra for -- behind-the-scenes footage, "making of” documentaries, running commentary by cast and crew as the episodes unreel, script pages, storyboards, network promos, even foreign language dubs to see Bart Simpson speaking Italian or Japanese.

Movie DVDs also can add extras, of course. But TV releases almost have to. They compete with virtually free home-taping that viewers have been doing for 20 years. Fans need to be very impressed to drop up to a thousand bucks on multiple DVDs from a series they may well have taped already. Collectibility is crucial. "You need to go beyond the show,” says Staddon. "There's got to be added value on DVD. You need to get cast members and production people involved in it.”

After learning with "X-Files,” FHE got ambitious with its extras for season sets of shows such as "Malcolm in the Middle” and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer.” Its packages for "The Simpsons” take fans into the animation process, even scanning in actual script pages doodled on by creator Matt Groening. "Malcolm in the Middle's” DVD set has bloopers, deleted scenes and optional name labels identifying crew members in backstage footage.

These features may be easily obtainable for current series, but they're tricky when digging into the archives. It's harder to find crew members or old outtakes, yet it's also more imperative. Haven't we all seen episodes of "The Mary Tyler Moore Show” dozens of times? So FHE's first-season "MTM” set adds an 87-minute documentary exploring the show's creation with Moore and many others. It also contains Emmy speeches, trivia questions with Ed Asner, even shots of vintage TV Guide covers. For "M*A*S*H,” the studio located alternative-episode versions that aired internationally without a laugh track. Both versions are on DVD, where users can choose.

Erasing canned laughs is also possible with Chris Elliott's more recent sitcom, "Get a Life,” released on DVD by Rhino's Retrovision label, which specializes in cult shows and obscurities. Its intricate $100 "Gumby” set offers all 110 of the green-guy animations on seven discs, including an entire disc of animator interviews, production footage, storyboards and creator Art Clokey's earlier "art” films. Not to mention your own 3-inch bendable Gumby figure, smiling through a clear front window of the multifold box.

"You have to think like a fan,” says Rhino Home Video senior vice president and general manager Arny Schorr. "If you loved Gumby, what would make you sit up and say, ‘This is cool,' something that you wouldn't know or see unless we gave it to you?” Who knew we needed "Pink Lady and Jeff,” NBC's 1980 variety fiasco co-starring comedian Jeff Altman and a comely Japanese duo that couldn't speak English? Rhino compiled background on the ill-fated series and taped Altman remembrances for all six episodes, one of them never seen before. Why even release such a show? Precisely because it's notorious.

"There has to be a cachet to the series,” Schorr says. "It's got to be something that was unique or ground-breaking.” Or, says Staddon, it has to be a hit like "Malcolm,” where "you only have to get 1 percent who watch that show on Sunday to buy for it to be wildly successful.” Appealing to the kid in adult consumers doesn't hurt. The three-disc set "The World of Sid & Marty Krofft” collects episodes from a dozen different shows in that singular 1970s oeuvre of Saturday morning kid-puppet action-adventures ("H.R. Pufnstuf,” "Electrawoman and Dynagirl”). No extras at all, but this eccentric compilation is mind-blowing enough. Rhino's TV bestseller -- the 1980s toy-based animated "Transformers” -- exemplifies DVD buyers' tilt toward titles from their childhoods. "We stick to classic shows,” Schorr says, "shows that are like mashed potatoes. Comfort food.”

Or not. Universal, a studio slow to get its TV product onto DVD, released the first season of "Baretta” this year after star Robert Blake was charged with murder. Series creator and prolific TV producer Stephen J. Cannell didn't participate in any extras; there were none. Cannell's view of DVD release patterns: "It's the second and third runs where they start to add those writer-actor interviews, to try and freshen them up. They figure fans will buy it the first time based on name value, a second time for extras, a third time for ‘lost' episodes.” Fox exec Staddon says his studio feels differently, and that's why it's so long between season releases. "We take time to make sure the quality of the product is as good as it can possibly be.”

That means not just "extras” but video quality as well. He says the "DVD experience” has to be "bigger and broader and different.” Suddenly, even 30-year-old "Mary Tyler Moore” episodes look surprisingly vibrant. "That's because we restored it,” Staddon says. "And there's a serious point there. It's not just TV, but also movies, where [source materials] have deteriorated to such an extent that if it wasn't for DVD, they would be lost. It actually gives us a reason over and above the pure altruistic” to rescue the original negatives. Cannell says, "I just spent millions of dollars taking my entire library” -- more than 1,000 episodes produced by his self-named studio ("The A-Team,” "21 Jump Street,” "Wiseguy”) -- "and making digital masters. We took out the scratches, cleaned the negatives, and they're better-looking now than when they first aired.” (Universal owns "Baretta,” so it wasn't part of Cannell's spruce-up.)

Even audio, traditionally TV's poor stepchild, now gets high priority, thanks to home theater. "There were DVDs done early on,” Rhino exec Schorr says, "where Dolby 5.1 wasn't as critical.” Today, many viewers expect stirring directional sound from their five-channel surround systems. TV-DVD Webmaster Lacey says HBO's new "Band of Brothers” is the only release he's awarded a perfect 10 for audio, so vivid in its gunfire that "I thought the neighbors were going to complain.” But he also hails A&E Home Video's "Thunderbirds” marionette adventures from the 1960s, remixed for DVD in 5.1 so "you can hear them flying from front to behind and side to side.”

Viewers can move around on discs, too -- another huge advantage in hours-long tube releases. To watch only Gumby cartoons numbers 47 and 68, you'd be fast-forwarding on VHS for minutes on end. But on digital video, a few clicks of the remote take you instantly to any spot. That's a compelling argument for anthologies like Rhino's new "Ed Sullivan's Rock and Roll Classics,” with its 144 performances spanning three diverse decades and nine discs. Where selected songs on a single disc might not have wide appeal, this expansive assortment -- in a fancy hard box designed to resemble a TV set -- goes beyond tempting to that elusive status of Imposing Gift Idea.

Packaged the right way, TV series offer the possibility of recycling themselves into various formats forever. "We've got enough TV shows,” Staddon says, "to keep people glued to DVD 24/7 for the next several years.” A threat or a promise?

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