A number of folks have written me to tell of recent DVD releases that are advertised as "complete" collections of certain seasons of a TV show but are not. In a few cases, songs are missing, presumably because someone wanted too much money for the rights to a tune they controlled. This is apparently the case with the new release of Season One of The Muppet Show. A few numbers are omitted from the set, including Charles Aznavour singing "The Old Fashioned Way," Jim Nabors performing "Gone With the Wind," Paul Williams doing "All of Me" and Vincent Price warbling "You've Got a Friend" with a Muppet Monster. On some sitcoms and dramatic shows, familiar (and expensive) tunes have been replaced with something generic and cheaper.
It is also sometimes the case that what gets collected on the DVD set are syndication prints have long since been trimmed by a minute or three or five or six to accommodate more commercials. I am told this is the case with the new releases of The Cosby Show and at least the first season of Alf.
This is annoying for many reasons, not the least of which is that something that's advertised as "complete" oughta be complete. I suppose one could mount an argument that "complete" means every episode and not that the episodes themselves are complete…or maybe they'd claim that the syndication versions are now the official versions of the episodes in question. But really, honestly, that's not what customers think they're buying and we all know that. What concerns me also is that at a few of the companies that release material on DVDs, there is sometimes a conscious thought that they will put out a product and then, after everyone who loves that show or movie has purchased it, they will put out an enhanced version with better video, more footage, special features, commentary tracks, etc. that will force the lovers of the material to buy another edition. (Let us remember that the main purpose of new home video formats is to see how many times they can get me to buy Goldfinger.) How will you feel if you pop for a hundred bucks to purchase the several volumes that comprise the "complete" collection of your favorite TV show and then, a year or so later, out comes a "more complete" collection of the same series? Yeah, that's how I'll feel.
The folks assembling these DVDs are not the villains. Most companies have had the wisdom to hire devout fans of the material who truly knock themselves out to bring forth the best-possible products. I've seen some of them remove large handfuls of hair from their own scalps in frustration over the legal issues and rights problems, as well as the many cases where material has been lost and only incomplete prints are available. If one took the position that nothing will be released unless it's absolutely complete, a lot of things we want would never see the light of Netflix. I am willing to accept a set that's almost complete if that's the only option but I would like to know about the omissions in advance, and not because I happened to stumble across an online message from some irate buyer.
Video companies should have the gonads to, at the very least, put up this information on their websites in advance so the purchasers don't have to find it out from one another after they've spent the bucks. Before I order, I'd like to know not just what's on the DVD but what's not on it that a reasonable person might assume is there. Are the episodes of a TV series the full, original network versions? Are they cut-down syndication prints? Or sped-up ones? (That happens, too.) What had to be cut or changed because a song could not be cleared for a reasonable fee or even at any price? Has something been omitted because it didn't offend anyone when it first aired but it might today? How about because of legal action? I can think of a couple of things that ran on network television and led to lawsuits, and the settlement was that a certain episode or segment would never be seen again.
That this is generally not done is not wholly because someone's afraid it will harm sales. Heck, in some instances, I think it might help sales. I think it's often laziness. They don't think to make this information available anywhere so we all have to wait at least until the review copies come out and check them, and sometimes the reviewers don't know. This is not a very good system and it's made me a lot more cautious about buying DVD sets and especially about advance-ordering. If the companies would just be candid about this kind of thing, maybe we'd all benefit. At the very least, it would be more honest and that is not without its value.