Yesterday I received vol. 8 of The Three Stooges collection. Nice. Finally the whole series. I paid nearly 100 bucks to own them all. Yet for years, I could have bought the same Stooges content on public domain type dvds or dollar store merc.

So why was I willing to spend a lot more for the Stooges collection? Why were these collections red hot sellers and the countless other Stooges dvds totally forgotten? I asked the same question with The Beverly Hillbillies. Tons of dvd releases all over the place. Yet, people started buying when they released The Official Seasons in a nice packaging.

So what's the difference? Are we willing to pay a premium for packaging? Packaging does play a part in my own perceptions. Last week, I paid $44 bucks to own The Virginian, thanks to the great reviews here. Even though the package was in a nice tin container with the characters embossed on the front, I still felt like I over paid. I have this perception that tin dvd cases are bargain bin crap, along with anything from Mills Creek and TMG.

Now if NBC had released an official The Virginian set, I bet my perceptions would be different. Same content, different company and packaging. Another example is Bonanza. I forked over 50 bucks last year for season 1 when I could have bought a 35 episode set for 6 bucks. I'm sure I wasn't alone.


I believe dvd buying boils down to these factors:

1. Content
2. Packaging
3. Releasing shows or seasons in chronological order

If it were content alone, I would just netflix. lol


What do you think?

Speaking of The Beverly Hillbillies...How come I can only find the Official 2nd & 3rd seasons on DVD but not the Official 1rst season? Anyone know??? I would be interested in collecting these but not without the 1rst season!

As a rule of thumb I'd agree with Dominay--cheaper product usually equals cheaper quaility. Not always, but usually.

I'd also say in regards to the OP, in a case like Bonanza, the plus to a full season production is that the episodes will be in order and follow the stroyline and progression of the characters...many PD collections are completely random collections which jump around the entire series or (in worst cases) even give you only half of a two part episode, etc.

Not sure what the beef is with Mill Creek or TMG...so far as budget companies go they treat their properties pretty decently IMO.

I do think there is some mental cachet to having the "official set"--people just like that it is the "official" one. But I think the other things are just as important.

Have to agree with the OP on the tin sets...every time I see one I think "look at them trying to put lipstick on a pig".

Different rights owners. The 1st season is out on DVD in the "Ultimate Collection" in 2 volumes. However, the quality of the prints used is questionable (not my firsthand opinion--from reviews, and the reason why I haven't bought the sets myself).

Back to the OP: for me, it's quality of the prints. I could not care less about packaging or uniformity of releases. Chronological order does matter, too, but to be honest, with something like the Stooges, it might be better to watch them out of order. I feel the same way about the Looney Tunes. Little chunks of time for Road Runner cartoons are good, but watch 10 of them in the row and they quickly lose their charm. Same with Our Gang/Little Rascals. I hadn't thought about it before, but I guess the pattern here is that these are all shorts. Even a sitcom like King of Queens doesn't have much continuity or narrative, but I still prefer to watch it in order, as I think there is subtle character development.

But now that I'm thinking about it, I don't like the Simpsons in chronological order, either.

Some albums are meant to be listened to with all the songs in a row as one artistic presentation. Some are better on "shuffle," mixed with other things.

I was recently talking to a sales rep for a print shop that specializes in DVD packaging and he mentioned how the Steelbook cases were a cash cow.

It depends on what movies or TV shows you use them for. Cult/horror and sci-fi titles would sell extremely well. The cost per unit was about $3 to make and they would charge an additional $10 over the standard DVD packaging.

Of course someone buying "Bride Wars" isn't likely to care about the extra $10 packaging as someone buying "Lord of the Rings".

There's a reason we keep seeing the same titles re-released with unique packaging and they still continue to sell well.

Very few of the total number of Stooges shorts have ever been released in public domain. They all mostly have the same shorts on them.

Paramount could put out a season one Beverly Hillbillies if they wanted too. It's PD. The Ultimate Collection of season one and part of season two was released in conjunction with the Henning estate. These sets have the complete opening credits with the third verse of the theme song mentioning the sponsor as the Clampetts drive by a billboard. In syndication you see Jed start to point at something as the credits end, it's the billboard they drive by. Do the Paramount releases have the complete opening credits?

It's not just the quality, but also the fact you KNOW you have all the episodes. I've got so many Beverly Hillbillies collections (bought in the early days of DVD), that I don't know what parts of what season I own (Yes, I could take the time to go through each set, but I don't). When you buy the official season 2 or 3, you know that you only need to get seasons 4-x.