TV NEWS ON JUNE 30

http://blog.sitcomsonline.com/2012/06/digital-digest-jack-benny-from-shout.html Welcome to Digital Digest! It's a light news week this week, but we're here once again for all of your news, a look at Tuesday's releases, and this week, we have a review of GCB - The Complete First Season. Let's get going! DIGITAL NEWS In the on-going story of 2011-2012 seasons of continuing sitcoms on DVD, we have one more entry this week from Universal. On September 11, Universal will release Up All Night - Season One on DVD. It isn't available to pre-order just yet, but with only a little over two months until release, it should be available some time soon. The Jack Benny Program has had several DVD releases over the past decade, but all of those releases have been from low-budget studios and have included (exclusively) public domain material. But on September 11, it appears that Shout! Factory may be bringing us something a little bit better with The Jack Benny Program - The Lost Episodes! We haven't heard anything about this anywhere else, but according to another listing for the item on Movies Unlimited, the set will include 24 episodes of the classic series, not seen since their original airing, with guest stars including Milton Berle, George Burns, Gary Cooper, Frank Sinatra, President Harry S. Truman, John Wayne, and others. The information also suggests that there will be a few special features as well. There is no word on the source for these episodes, but an article appeared in The New York Post in early 2010 indicating that CBS had discovered "roughly 25 episodes" of the classic series in their vault, but was being "stingy" (remember, The New York Post is a paper which likes to sensationalize news) and refusing to let them ever be seen again... but the real news in the article is that the real problem is likely costs for music clearance, something which CBS is not necessarily always eager to pay for on their DVD releases. So, is it possible that these episodes being released by Shout! Factory are indeed these episodes? Perhaps they are some other lost episodes? Or are they just more of the standard public domain releases we've seen in the past? We don't know just yet, although given Shout! Factory's history, it is unlikely that it would be more like the releases we've seen in the past. We'll let you know when we know more. Our appreciation goes to the poster of this message on the website Home Theater Forum for bringing the matter to the attention of others! By the way, if you're hungry for some of the standard public domain Jack Benny fare already out there, check out Mill Creek's 39 episode collection of The Best of Jack Benny... it may be public domain, but it is a much nicer public domain release of the series than the other collections out there. CBS has been planning a MOD release of Becker - The Fourth Season for a few months now, but we hadn't heard much about it... until now! According to the listing on amazon.com, it will begin shipping this coming Tuesday. But that isn't all for CBS! Another listing popped up on amazon.com recently for Dave's World - The Third Season. No date is given for this yet, but we'll let you know more when we know more. Speaking of CBS, some people out there may be aware that the studio keeps a syndication bible available online. It isn't really something that is really designed for the general public, but rather as information for TV stations which air series from their library. On the surface, this appears to have little (if anything) to do with DVDs... but it has a lot more to do with them than it sounds. This is because it keeps updated information on when the studio remasters series and individual episodes in high-definition, and over the years, many "DVD-philes" have come to discover that things only get remastered in preparation for DVD (although the database is sometimes not totally up to date, there is evidence to support this; the best example is for the series Dynasty, where CBS has transferred seasons two through five to HD, but skipped the first season, which was released by Fox). So, why are we bringing it up this week? In recent weeks, seasons three through five of The Streets of San Francisco have been added as being remastered or in-progress (and we know both the third and fourth seasons of that series are forth coming), and recently, HD versions of the remaining (unreleased) seasons of Perry Mason and The Lucy Show have been added to the website. So, although we can't draw any definitive conclusions from this, it seems to suggest that releases of these series may be on track for completion. We'll let you know more once we know more! Finally, an unusual bit of news popped up on TVShowsOnDVD.com regarding Fantasy Island. It suggests that Sony will be releasing Fantasy Island - The Complete Second Season as a MOD title on September 4. This is unusual, though, because this set was already released just a few weeks ago by Shout! Factory as a standard pressed title. We have no clue what is going on with this release, and even Shout! Factory is confused by it as well, as indicated on Twitter by producer Brian Ward. So, is this release really coming? Or is this just some sort of error by Sony? We don't know, but hopefully things will become a bit clearer in the upcoming weeks, and we'll let you know what we find out! UPCOMING WEEK PREVIEW Tuesday (July 3) is a moderately busy day for DVD releases, with CBS leading the pack. As we mentioned a little earlier, they'll begin shipping Becker - The Fourth Season exclusively as an amazon.com CreateSpace MOD title on Tuesday, but that is far from the only release from CBS. Other releases for Tuesday (and these are all standard DVD releases available at all retailers) from CBS include Mannix - The Seventh Season, The Streets of San Francisco - Season Three (Volume 1 and Volume 2), and Dynasty - The Sixth Season (Volume 1 and Volume 2). You can read our review of Mannix from last week's Digital Digest, and reviews of The Streets and San Francisco and Dynasty will be coming up in the next few weeks on Digital Digest. Shout! Factory has more of Rocko's Modern Life with Rocko's Modern Life - Season Three. You can read our review of that set here. If you're a fan of The Cosby Show and just don't want the season sets, First Look Entertainment has a value-priced collection of episodes with The Best of The Cosby Show - Volume 2. Finally, Universal releases a special which looks back at the females, going as far back as the days of Gilda Radner, Jane Curtin, and Laraine Newman, of NBC's long lived Saturday night program with The Women of SNL.