rennervision

Today in Walmart, I was holding in my hand All in the Family - The Complete Series from Shout! Factory for $59.96. Since Shout is selling this at twice that amount, I thought surely this must be a mistake. Then I noticed on the spine it reads "27-DVD Set" rather than "28-DVD Set." As you can see in the photo, there is no mention on the back of the bonus disc/bonus features or the 40-page book.

So is Walmart now selling bootlegs? Or is that bonus disc really worth $60 and this is just a Walmart exclusive? I can find no information anywhere of a legit "27-DVD Set." Even the UPC code doesn't come up in a Google search.

Josh-da-man

I would wager that that is an official release, though stripped down for either Walmart exclusively, or discount retailers in general. Walmart has been carrying a lot of complete tv sets -- Taxi, Cheers, stuff like that -- for a while now at prices in the $50 range, so this is consistent with them. It might a de facto Walmart exclusive, since there are very few places that even carry movies on disc these days.

The $200 MSRP (discounted to $120 on the Shout site) on that set is probably too high for the casual shoppers at most retail outlets, so Shout Factory made a basic set for that market.

I doubt Walmart would carry bootlegs unless they somehow slipped into the legitimate distribution system.

Josh-da-man

That $60 All in the Family set shows up on a search of the Walmart site. (The more expensive one is also available from a third party seller.)

If you have questions about it legitimacy, I suppose you could contact Shout Factory and ask them if it's an official release.

BobO'Link

Just buy it - check to be sure the discs are dual-layer (i.e. ~8GB in size) - and if not, return it to WM. The dead give away on Shout! bootlegs is the vast majority (all?) are single-layer (~4GB discs) while Shout! produces dual-layer discs.

https://www.shoutfactory.com/blog/co...leg-media-faq/

joltman

It's not at all out of the ordinary for Shout to have cheaper versions with less features for places like Walmart. They had a version of the Freaks and Geeks Blu-ray set with only 4 out of 9 discs and a version of Gravity Falls on DVD without the bonus disc.

PhantomStranger

Walmart loves labels hitting certain price points, so some studios have made stripped down versions explicitly for Walmart.

Alan Smithee

So what's on the bonus disc that I'd be missing if I got this? Remember my parents watched this when it was on, if it included all the original commercials I'dve already bought it.

rbrown498

There are a couple of documentaries, an interview with Norman Lear, the pilots for Gloria, Archie Bunker's Place, and 704 Hauser, and both pilots for All in the Family, "Justice for All" and "Those Were the Days."

You can find most, if not all, of the pilots on YouTube, so it may not be worth paying the prices that are being asked for the 28-disc set, as it appears to be out of print.

rjh_54

They're official Shout releases, at cheaper price points. Walmart also carries The Nanny and The Facts of Life Complete Series sets stripped of their bonus discs. I've seen them at FYE and other online retailers too. I've also seen this done for The Bob Newhart Show and Maude online, but haven't seen those two in stores yet. Seems most of these reissues happened last year.