Cameron

From Davis DVD

SCTV

On September 13th, Shout! Factory will release SCTV vol. 4 with 33% more episodes! This collection includes the series' entire fifth season which bid adieu to Dave Thomas, Rick Moranis and Catherine O'Hara, but featured newcomer Martin Short in a more prominent role. Featuring such classic shows as "Towering Inferno," "Christmas Special," "Midnight Cowboy," "Sweeps Week," and "Jane Eyrehead" the fifth season also included guest appearances by Robin Williams, John Mellencamp, Joe Walsh, and Crystal Gayle. Bonus materials in the box set include commentaries with Martin Short and Catherine O'Hara, a new interview with Short, the featurettes "The Producers Part 2," "The Firehall," and "Sammy Maudlin Today," a bonus sixth disc featuring an additional three episodes and a collectible set of character trading cards. Retail is $89.98.

Bill Needle

Excellent! But an additional three episodes of what exactly?

RevKarl

After getting the great deals on SCTV Vol. 1 & 2 from Blockbuster, I still haven't been able to "bite the bullet" and pay a sensible price for Vol. 3.

Bobbin

Sweet, and it'll be $43 in the next DDD sale.

scott shelton

Ahhhh, Martin Short. Finally someone lively for the commentaries...

calhoun07

You should have bought it from DDDVD during their last sale. I got V3 for 43.00. Not as good as the BBV deals for the first two, but better than paying full retail!

speedyray

So, someone with a better sense of the shows history and episodes might could answer this. Will this complete the series except for some early stuff and the spinoff that was on Cinemax?

Disc-Flipper

No, there's still Seasons 1, 2 and 3 plus the Cinemax Season 6 - so hopefully two-four more box sets to come after this fourth set. They started SCTV set 1 with Season 4.

calhoun07

As to the reason why they did that, they started with the "Network 90" episodes, the episodes they made when the series went to NBC. This was the show at it's highest profile, and generated the most attention to them.

I just thought I would throw that in there for the sake of the person asking the original question who didn't seem to know the history of the show.

That is not to say the other series are not as good. In fact, NBC reran the half hour episodes a few years back late night after Conan and Late Call(? was that on back then?) and it was quite funny.

I've never seen the cable version.

Bill Needle

I did a little checking, and it appears that what they mean by three bonus episodes is that both Network 90 Cycle 5 and 6 - which makes up all of season 5 - will be in this release, which is a total of 12 episodes. The first three volumes on DVD (season 4/ Network 90 cycles 1, 2, and 3 respectively) were 9 episodes each, as opposed to 6 each in cycles 5 and 6 once you remove the "Best of" episodes. This is good news, as I was afraid they were going to release the season 5 cycles as seperate volumes. So this release will complete the entire Network 90 run.

Now I am wondering if next they are going to go back to season 1, 2, and 3, or try to get the Cinemax season 6 out (which I have never seen). I wonder what legal tie-ups if any there could be with getting the Cinemax shows out, or for that matter the first three seasons as they were not produced by NBC. I do remember some comments to the effect that the reason they started releasing what they did first was that these were many of the best known episodes, and there wasn't any mention of legal hangups with the other seasons.

The four seasons would likely be 1 release each, which means probably another 2+ years until all are out. But it will be worth the wait, as other than BBC series which are difficult to catch in the US, this was probably my #1 TV on DVD want, with only the Adam West Batman coming close.

whotony

anyone remember an ep that was just them dubbing thier voices onto an episode of the cisco kid?

was one of the funniest things i ever saw.

Bill Needle

I ran across something called "SCTV-Best of the Early Years" on DDD tonight, set for release on 10/24/2006. According to SCTVGuide this may indicate an abandoning of plans to release the full Season 3 set due to music rights issues, sluggish sales of the last release, or a combination of both.

I am worried that Shout! Factory may intend to throw this bone out there and otherwise wash their hands of the first three seasons. A 1 or 2-disc compilation of what was planned to be 3 4-disc releases would be a crime. The Cinemax season may end up being a total no-go.

BassDude

I have the first 3 box sets but I am passing on this one. IMHO, the show 'jumped the shark' with the addition of Martin Short. (Just wasn't as funny I must say...)

So...wasn't the first season of the NBC 90 min shows compilations of the first three seasons? If so, maybe they could release a "lost episodes" featuring the skits and such that weren't in the "network 90" shows. (I'd rather the full seasons, but...)

Bill Needle

There is nearly as much material in the first three seasons as there was in the first three box sets, and season 2 and 3 might be the best of all of them. The Martin Short season did drop off a bit for me as well, and I don't miss the Cinemax shows only because I have never seen them (however I would not hesitate to buy them for the same reason). But there will be a big hole in this collection without those first couple of complete seasons. Hope this turns out to be a temporary holdup just to keep the releases flowing.

Bill Needle

I forgot to answer your question. The NBC "Network 90" (first three sets on DVD) were actually SCTV season 4, though it did show the occasional repeats from the first three seasons. The fourth collection that came out was SCTV season 5. This was the last season on free TV. After that, they went to Cinemax for a time.

The first 3 seasons were half hour shows that were done before NBC picked them up. The total run time of the first 3 seasons is roughly equivalent to the entire season 4 run time (when they went to 90 minute shows). The Cinemax shows were 45 minutes, and run time-wise roughly equivalent to one of the first three seasons as well. So all told, they have released about half of the total compendium of SCTV if you include the Cinemax run.

But getting back to the first 3 seasons, I just can't see how a "best of" release can possibly do justice to what was going to be 12 (or more) discs of material.

Sex Fiend

Uggh, yeah... I'm a little leary of this news, too. I was hoping for full season releases of the first three syndicated seasons as well.

I'm curious that no mention of this best-of set was ever made on TV Shows on DVD's website. They're usually all over this kind of news.

BassDude

Thanks for the reply "Bill N!" I was thinking a larger amount of material was duplicated when they came to NBC. So yes, it would be a shame to lose these complete seasons, especially since they have the original cast.

Buford T Pusser

Hope they end up getting the sets out.