The 2009 TV Land Awards will take place on Sunday, April 19th, at 8 PM and Sid and Marty Krofft are scheduled to be given the Pop Culture Award, which is given to producer(s) whose series have a major impact on pop culture. Cyndi Lauper and David Cassidy are scheduled to pay tribute to the brothers.
A week later on April 26th at 8 PM ET/PT, the award show will be aired on TV Land.
Back Issue Magazine, which is devoted to comic books of the past, has recently published new interviews with three of the main actors on Shazam!
The most recent issue, 33, is devoted to teen super heroes and has an interview with Michael Gray, who played Billy Batson on the series.
Issue 30 was devoted to Saturday morning super heroes and features interviews with both Captain Marvels, Jackson Bostwick and John Davey.
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Someone forwarded the previous blog post about the Monster Squad DVD set to TV Shows on DVD. They did a news story on the upcoming release and gave a link back to this blog – thanks, guys!
As mentioned in the previous blog post, the release date for the set had been pushed back from May to June. TV Shows on DVD followed up with the studio and they confirmed it and found out that the new release date is June 23rd. They also mentioned that there will be some sort of extras on the set, which is great news.
Thanks again to TV Shows on DVD for the links and to Monster Squad fan supreme (and site regular) Dave Sykes for originally letting me know about the delay!
The Museum of Broadcast Communication recently started offering portions of their tv archives online.
The online archives include episodes of several Saturday morning shows from the 1970s, including live action series like Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost, and Lidsville, as well as animated series like The Archie Show, Scooby Doo, and The Challenge of the Superfriends. The archives also feature a lot of prime time series and news broadcasts, some of them still have their original commercials included.
To go directly to the archives, go here. You will need to set up an account, but that shouldn’t take more than a few seconds.
I’ve been meaning to upload this for awhile. Here’s the trailer for the upcoming big screen version of Land of the Lost.
The movie’s official site can be found here. For more Land of the Lost fun, check out one of the best fan sites for all things Land of the Lost (both tv series and the new movie), Tyrannosaurus Lex.
Monster Squad series coming to DVD
The 1976 series, Monster Squad, is coming to DVD in the next few months. For those not familiar with the series, here’s some clips from “The Astologer” episode:
Amazon lists the release date as May 12th, but it looks like the set has been pushed back to June. As of now, there is no word on what, if any, extras will be on the set.
It will be the first Saturday morning show that was produced by D’Angelo-Bulluck-Allen team to be released on DVD in the US. D’Angelo-Bullock-Allen were responsible for several NBC Saturday morning series, including Run, Joe, Run; Westwind; Big John, Little John; McDuff, the Talking Dog; and the Red Hand Gang. The Red Hand Gang was previously released on DVD in the UK last year and is supposed to be released in the US later this year. Hopefully, the other series will be released in the future.
Pre-order the Monster Squad from Amazon:
Krofft DVD news
The Pufnstuf movie, which was released in 1970, the year after the series premiered on NBC, will be debuting on DVD on May 19th. So far, no extras have been announced.
Pre-order the sets from Amazon:
With their Land of the Lost movie coming out this summer, Universal is re-releasing the entire 70s series as a box set on May 19th. The series is being release in two different configurations, a standard version and a deluxe version that comes in a lunch box case. The lunch box is a replica of the original Land of the Lost lunch box from the 1970s. Both series are supposed to include bonus material, but it hasn’t been announced as to whether the content is new or just the same extras that were included on the original release.
Pre-order the sets from Amazon:
The entire series was previously released in both season and series sets by Rhino Home Video. Rhino also released several other Krofft series and compilations on DVD, but they no longer have the rights to the shows. As of now, all of their releases are out of print now, with a few already starting to go for higher, collectors’ prices. So if you want to get some of the other shows, now is the time to get them!
If the Land of the Lost movie and the new DVD release do well, hopefully it will lead to more Krofft releases. As of now, the second season of Sigmund and the Sea Monsters, as well as complete series sets of Far Out Space Nuts, Lost Saucer, the Krofft Supershow and its various segments, and the Krofft Superstar Hour/The Bay City Rollers Show haven’t been released on DVD.
In other out of print DVD news, BCI Eclipse, who released several live action(Ark II, Ghost Busters, Isis, and Jason of Star Command) and animated Filmation series over the last few years, is no more. From what I have read, that means that they won’t be making more copies of any of the sets they have released, so your best bet is to get them now before they become collectors’ items like some of the Krofft shows.
If you want the individual series sets,Oldies.com is offering some of them at low costs including Space Academy for $8.95 and Ghost Busters for $7.95.
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Two new animated Saturday morning themed DVDs coming in May
On the same day that the Land of the Lost Box Set is being released (May 26th), Warner Brothers is releasing two compilations of Saturday morning material, one from the 60s and one from the 70s. Most of the material is from the Hanna Barbera library and unfortunately, there are no episodes of the Banana Splits, Danger Island, Korg 70,000 BC, Skatebirds, or Mystery Island on the set. The sets feature a mix of shows that are already on DVD in season or series sets, along with other shows which are making their debut on DVD. Each set will also feature extras highlighting some of the shows on the discs.
Here’s what shows are on the 1960s set: Top Cat, Atom Ant Show (with Precious Pup and the Hillbilly Bears), The Peter Potamus Show (with Breezly & Sneezly and Yippie, Yappee, & Yahooey), The Secret Squirrel Show (with Squiddley Diddly and Winsome Witch), The Flintsones, The Porky Pig Show, The Quick Draw McGraw Show (with Snooper & Blabber and Augie Dogie), The Magilla Gorilla Show (with Punkin Puss and Ricochet Rabbit), The Jetsons, Marine Boy, Space Ghost/Dino Boy Show, Herculoids, and Frankenstein Jr. and the Impossibles.
Pre-order it from Amazon:
Here’s what series are on the 1970s set: The Jetsons, Hong Kong Phooey, Goober and the Ghost Chasers, Speed Buggy, Wheelie and the Chooper Bunch, Yogi’s Gang, Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan, Roman Holidays, Josie and the Pussycats, Funky Phantom, the New Scooby Doo Movies, and The Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour.
Filmation’s version of Tarzan was one of my favorite Saturday morning shows of the 1970s, so hopefully this will lead to a full series release.
Pre-order it from Amazon:
With the Land of the Lost film coming out in June 2009, it looks like more Krofft series will be remade into feature films. According to this article in Variety, feature film versions of H. R. Pufnstuf and Sigmund and the Sea Monsters are in the works.
Even though no US Saturday morning tv DVD releases have been announced, there are a couple of 70s live kid themed releases coming out in the upcoming months.
On October 14th, a two DVD a 1 CD set of episodes and songs from The Magic Garden will be released. For those not familiar with the show, the Magic Garden was a daily kids show featuring the two hosts, Carole and Paula, singing songs and telling stories. It was originally produced in New York in 1972 and then syndicated all over the country, with reruns of the 52 episodes airing in some areas, including New York, through 1984.
As far as I can recall, the show didn’t air in my area (or I was too young to notice it), but I was able to view the few episodes of the series that were released on VHS in 1994. Despite the shows’ age and low budget, I thought it was a fun show. The two hosts were great and the show worked as a nice example of non-network childrens’ tv from the early 1970s.
The DVD set features 10 episodes on two DVDs, with a bonus CD featuring six songs. Unfortunately, it doesn’t contain the opening or closing theme.
Carole and Paula are still performing together in the New York and New Jersey area. Here’s another clip:
Check out their official site for dates, as well as background information on the two hosts and the show.
Coming out either two weeks later (October 28th) or one month later (November 11th), a two hour DVD, ZOOM – Back to the ’70s, will be released featuring clips from the PBS produced show that ran from 1972 to 1978. The show featured children and young adults performing skits and songs sent in by viewers.
Currently, there is not much information about the release, but the two hour running time suggests that it will not be just a DVD version of the ZOOM – Best of the ’70s VHS tape, which was released in 2000 and ran 40 minutes. If/when any additional information pops up, I’ll post it.
The UK release of the Red Hand Gang has been postponed again. Originally, it was supposed to be released at the end of June, then pushed back to September 1st, then postponed until September 30th. The cover image has also been changed:
Since reviews are starting to show up some UK DVD sites (here and here), I am assuming the set will be released at the end of the month.
As mentioned previously on this blog, the series’ owners are attempting to get the show released on DVD in the US, but nothing has been announced yet.
If you are in the United States, you will need to a multi-region DVD player to watch the UK DVDs – DVD releases in the US are Region 1, while the UK ones are Region 2. For more information on Region Codes, go here.
You can pre-order it from Amazon UK
I’ve already pre-ordered my set and hope to have a review for it once I get it in.
Last night, the Home Theater Forum had their annual DVD online chat with members of Warner Brothers’ Television and Animation Department, someone asked about a release Shazam!, probably the biggest show on the site that hasn’t been released on DVD – here’s the response: “No plans for (it) at this time.”
That doesn’t mean the show will never be released. Later in the chat, someone else asked about some other Filmation series based on DC comic characters and was told “Rest assured our goal is to release the entire dc comics library at some point.”
So there is still some hope it will be released, but don’t look for it on your local retailer’s shelf anytime soon.
