Ever since I posted about the upcoming DVD releases of The Yogi Bear Show and The Huckleberry Hound Show, I've received a slew of e-mails from folks asking me if this or that classic series will be coming out on DVD. The answer to that question is that darn near everything will be coming out on DVD until such time as it starts to look unprofitable.
At most companies, there is a "wishful thinking" kind of master plan to keep putting stuff out until the vaults are empty. I've seen some pretty long lists of planned releases…but it would be wrong to say that any particular show or film is definitely coming out on DVD in the near future until it's formally announced. Up to that point, and occasionally even after, it's always subject to changes and postponements, usually based on the way the market seems to be skewing at any given moment. The sales on the Huck and Yogi DVD sets will in some way determine how swiftly we see the rest of the other early Hanna-Barbera shows released…but we will probably see them. In most cases, these decisions are not a matter of "if" but "when." And of course, two other questions are what kind of special features will be included and what source materials can be located and used.
Lately, I've found myself talking with various folks about how some DVDs are full of extras and deleted scenes and wonderful commentary tracks and "making of" documentaries, whereas on others, you just get a trailer or two…if you're lucky. The forthcoming DVD of the 1959 Li'l Abner movie has, like most Paramount Home Video releases, almost nada in the way of bonus material. This may be laziness but it's more likely a matter of "price-point" strategy. By not investing in adding material to the DVD, the Paramount folks are able to price it very cheap. The Abner DVD is ten and half bucks at Amazon, and I'm guessing someone figured that would be more profitable than adding features and having to sell the item for a few dollars more.
But there may also be another strategy involved, which is the notion of getting us all to buy the same movies again. As anyone who has collected comic books in the last few decades knows, companies spend a lot of time trying to figure how to get us to buy variant and upgraded editions. First, they put it out on cheap paper and we buy it…and maybe they also put out an edition with an alternate cover — and we buy that, too. Then they collect a bunch of issues into a deluxe paperback and we buy that. Then they reissue the same stuff that was in the paperback, only in hardcover and we buy that and…well, you see how this goes. I must have twenty publications in my collection that reprint the first Green Lantern-Green Arrow story by Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams, ranging from the first (which cost 15 cents, I think) to the fancy deluxe hardcover for seventy-five smackers. DVD companies are already starting to employ the same tactics.
I've ordered the Li'l Abner DVD. And a couple years from now, when they put out a Silver Medal Edition or a Collectors' Series or whatever they'll call it with interviews and extra footage, I'll buy it again and so will a lot of you. Don't think we won't. That's above and beyond the fact that we may have to buy it again when the DVD format becomes outmoded and we all have something better in our video rooms. As I explained here, I think the entire science of improving home equipment is just a sneaky plan to see how many times they can get me to buy Goldfinger. (Which reminds me: There hasn't been a new, upgraded release of that in over a month. What the hell is wrong with these people?)
If this is anyone's conscious plan — and I know it is in some cases — they're being both farsighted and nearsighted at the same time. It's shrewd to figure on doing these extras and special features a few years from now…but they're forgetting that potential interviewees get older and die. The folks putting together a lot of the material for animation DVDs lately have had to cope with the fact that in some cases, everyone who worked on the original cartoons is deceased or too ill. There's also the unpleasant realities that a lot of material that one might like to put on a DVD was thrown away or allowed to rot because someone, years ago, did not see an immediately financial benefit to its preservation. In some cases, a release date is selected and then the hunt for negatives and prints commences, often with insufficient time or funding. With the general exception of Disney, most studios have not been good about spending money to preserve and catalogue their library unless there was a specific and immediate market for the material.
The home video revolution has taught us that just about every movie or TV show ever made has some value. If it doesn't now, wait a year or three. In 1985 when the Writers Guild went on strike over revenues from videocassettes, several industry figures loudly predicted that there would never be a market for old episodes of shows like M*A*S*H and I Love Lucy because anyone who wanted them would just tape them off the air. That has not proven true. In fact, I've heard very few predictions that included the phrase, "no one will ever pay good money for that" which haven't been disproven, insofar as home video is concerned. You'd think companies would spend more money to preserve their old TV shows and films, and to prepare commentary tracks and interviews with the performers and creative personnel who are still available to be interviewed. Yeah, you'd really think that.