Drake

I don't understand why only one season was released I would scoop up the rest in a heartbeat. Recently I picked my wife up at work and there is a YMCA in her building and they have this huge TV in the Rec room and one day there were 5 kids sitting around watching a cop show and lo and behold it was ..Kojak!

The Monkees

That doesn't mean anything. He was portrayed as being a jerk back in the 70s too, the reason it worked so well and the reason the show lasted as long as it did was because yes Archie was a bigot and a jerk but he was also an idiot who thought most of the things coming out of his mouth were correct when they weren't and that is what made him funny. I Love Lucy and All in the Family are 2 completely different shows from 2 completely different decades. I said earlier that All in the Family is dated and still stand by that.

And Archie IS an iconic figure in American cultural history (his chair is in the Smithsonian for God's sake!) All in the Family was a groundbreaking series when it was first aired. It's just that, audiences have seen so much worse in the past 35-40 years that All in the Family does really strike them as being that way anymore.

MR Round

American Dreams- they have only released season one and they've been sitting on 3-4. I wouldnt even care if they changed all the broadcast music at this point I just want the show on dvd

davidh777

It's totally your right to buy or not buy. But the studios are making a business decision whether it'll make them money so it's hard for you to complain when they don't put something out that you refuse to buy. Maybe they shouldered the risk for seasons 1-3, and the bean counters said it's not worth it any more.

But will that make them any money without doing a Mill Creek-type of release? Or DVD-R?

And this is the big conundrum. People will complain when they have to pay more than $20 per season (or series, I guess), but then they'll also complain when the show isn't "done right" with music rights or picture quality.

I'd like a complete Dawson's Creek with all the original music and fewer episodes on each disc. But would I pay $200+ for it? Probably not, and few people would, so I'm stuck with what Sony released.

hasslein

I think All in the Family didn't do well for several reasons.
1. It was shot on videotape and looks terrible - Three's Company was on videotape, but Anchor Bay was smart to release it dirt cheap.
2. The increasingly ageist society we live in... it's two old people in a drab set...
3. Lucy & Golden Girls have a large female demographic, All in the Family does not.

The show that surprises me that it wasn't more successful is One Day at a Time... and to a lesser extent Fantasy Island...

man*machine

I'm not 'surprised' it's not out yet, but I'd love to see the third and final season of NIGHT GALLERY from Universal. It took four years between season 1 and season 2 (which has most of the best episodes and is the longest season) - and I am thankful they finally put out season 2 as sales apparently weren't all that great for the first one. Please, just finish it, though...

Rainet

No love for HBO's Dream On. A huge hit in the 90's. 1st season came out on dvd like 5 years ago. Nothing since.

Josh-da-man

I think that situation comedies are going to be a hard sell on DVD since they tend to be formulaic. When you're sitting there watching episodes back-to-back, they tend to recycle the same running gags and the plots follow a similar formula. There will be exceptions for things like Seinfeld, but something like Perfect Strangers or Facts of Life are going to struggle.

As far as "All in the Family," goes, I can see that show not working for modern audiences. Someone watching it today is going to look at Archie Bunker and see a big racist asshole, but if you were watching it in the 1970s as a young adult, then Archie and Edith were probably a lot like your own parents, and that's where most of the humor came from.

Travis McClain

I would modify this to reflect older sitcoms. Current series, like 30 Rock and The Office seem to do alright. But then, their viewership is largely comprised of the same demographic that doesn't see a problem paying to own a TV show.

I can only speak for myself, but I grew up in the 80s and Archie was still pretty reflective of most adults in my area. To be honest, I think that there's a very vocal part of our society today that would point to him as a paragon of virtue for not being afraid to "tell it like it is" or whatever bumper sticker slogan they'd employ. On the left-wing side, I'd say pretty much anything on Comedy Central is a direct descendant of that series and its humor, and wouldn't be particularly alienating for that demographic, either.

No, I think the big thing going against All in the Family is that it was largely absent from exposure in the 80s. Syndication was dedicated to I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, M*A*S*H, The Brady Bunch and The Beverly Hillbillies. Nick-at-Nite launched with shows from the 50s (Mr. Ed, Car 54, Where Are You?, The Patty Duke Show, etc.).

All in the Family, I think, was "too recent" for TV programmers in that era, and so its original audience sort of drifted away from it, and my generation wasn't nearly as exposed to it until much later...by which time basic cable TV series had become actually worth watching, and our interest in older series fell by the wayside.

DerangedHermit

King of the Hill

JOE29

I would of bought Night Gallery when it was first released but it was ( and still is ) so damn expensive that I had to pass. I would still love to buy it and I keep looking at the price to see if there is a price drop but there hasn't been.
I would buy this today but it just costs too much for me to buy.
Thats a shame because I would love to have it in my collection.

JOE29

There was a reason why O'Connor wanted Archie to be the way he was.
He wanted to show everybody how stupid being a bigot can be.
He wanted to show how being a bigot is such a foolish thing to do.
In real life he was the complete opposite of his Archie Bunker character.
Ever wonder why his daughter married a Polish man, why a black family moved in next door? Why Edith befriended an Italian family ( Irene )
Why he tackled the issue of the draft dodger in an episode? The list goes on and on. He wanted to break down the racist stereotypes that plagued the nation at the time of the show. Womens Lib, the hippie movement, Jewish lawyers, ex- convicts working in his home, the list goes on and on.
A lot of people don't really understand what was underneath the show that he wanted to present. All they saw was what the top layer was, a racist bigot. This is why O'Connor made Archie as a foolish uneducated naive man, because that's exactly what he wanted people to understand. But a lot of people couldn't catch on to what he was really trying to say. O'Connor was a brilliant man

calhoun07

I am going to toss St. Elsewhere out there. Really? Only one season so far? REALLY?

I heard rumors they might just do a complete series set but I haven't heard much more yet. I hope it comes out eventually. It's one of the few shows I would watch all the way through in a huge marathon.

Rainet

Well said.

drmar35mm

This is one that I don't understand. Six seasons still available, on the shelves in the big discount stores on and off for years, turning up frequently in sales. I can't believe the DVD sets haven't been profitable for Fox. I sure hope someday the last seven seasons make it to disk. Short of Futurama and the Simpsons, my favorite animated show.

WMAangel

Perhaps they just don't get a big enough cut from the sales for them to continue it? I don't know any of the ins and outs of the contract they have with Mike Judge, but when he was on both Stern and Letterman in the 90's during the height of "Beavis & Butt-head" popularity, he talked about how he never expected anything to get to that level, and his contracts with MTV were not very favorable to him monetarily (compared to what the network was raking in)....I'm sure Judge signed a much better deal for himself with Fox for "King Of The Hill", so maybe if he is getting a bigger cut of DVD sales revenue then Fox is typically paying talent for their other shows released on DVD, then even if sales would be considered "decent enough to continue" for a typical release, it is not quite worth it for Fox in this specific instance....

Texan26

Mike Judge was asked about the DVDs in 2008 and he did not know why they have not released them.

http://dvd.ign.com/articles/897/897050p1.html

Super X

I second this. I enjoyed revisiting the first season on DVD, but the series really picked up after the first season, especially as they started introducing characters played by Mark Harmon, Stephen Furst, and Bruce Greenwood. So many great actors came out of this show, you'd think they'd gear the promotion towards that. I was somewhat surprised that they didn't more heavily promote the first season off of Denzel Washington being in it (though he did feature prominently on the cover).

bigjim25

A man, his truck and his monkey.... You bring me unedited versions of B.J. and the Bear and it's spinoff The Misadventures of Sheriff Lobo / Lobo on DVD and I'd gladly give $30 - $50 a set for both complete series sets.

I also have to say American Dreams. Great show that NBC f*cked up. They do that well.

RickWJ324

There are so many shows I'd like to see finished on DVD (such as King of the HIll), but the one that really pi$$es me off is Disney's Gargoyles!! I want that last season, as well as the Goliath Chronicles!! One of my all-time favorite cartoons. I was never able to watch the Goliath Chronicles as my local affiliate didn't pick it up when it aired. As I bought the first two seasons, I was really excited at watching this great show again and was looking forward to finally seeing the Goliath Chronicles (even though I heard it was bad). Can't believe Disney stopped producing this show on DVD.

I'd also like to see the last season of X-Men Evolution released. Not a GREAT show, but I did buy all of the other seasons and hate having them incomplete on my shelf.

Rick

dvdjunkie32

Survivor - still one of the biggest tv shows of all time. Fans are begging for dvds. They released about 5 seasons and then quit several years ago.


Gunsmoke - one of the longest running tv shows of all time yet no new releases in over a year now.

Dennis the Menace - timeless classic, yet completely forgotten on dvd

JOE29

Yes, Dennis the Menace would be great!
Anyone have an update on My Favorite Martian?
I thought I heard somewhere Car 54 Where Are you? Was being released
but i'm not certain about that.

slop101

Yeah, as some have already mentioned, it's all about how much or how little a show has dated. A lot of the shows from the '50s and '60s are actually less dated than most of the '70s and '80s shows, for a myriad of reasons. For example, as much as I'm looking forward to Max Headroom, it is incredibly dated when compared to the average Twilight Zone episode.

smurr05

Definately well put.! I grew up with the Bunkers and still find the show hilarious but won't buy the DVD's until they release all the seasons. Hell I can remember sitting in a hospital bed after stomach surgery and trying extremely hard not to laugh cause it hurt my gut so much! Please bring on the other seasons-

Spottedfeather

WKRP would probably be at the top of my list. I know that music rights held up the first season, but really.....I don't know anyone who watched it for the music. We watched it for the funny situations and characters, not the music. I have the first season on dvd as well as, I think, every episode on tape, and watching the first season dvd and the first season on tape, I couldn't tell you which songs are replaced and which ones weren't. The only songs that they'd absolutely have to pay for would be ones that the characters mention by name.