TV show DVD featurette observation

minor muppetz

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I have noticed something about featurettes that are made for DVD season sets. Usually when a seasons et of a TV show on DVD has an all-new featurette, the featurettes only include footage from the epsidoes on that set (and often previous sets). They don't normaly include clips from epsiodes from later seasons.

For example, the Dinosaurs featurette on the Complete First and Second Season set only has clips from the episodes on the set, while the featurette on The Complete Third and Fourth seasons set has clips from a few episodes from the first two seasons. A featurette on Newhart: The Compelte First Season only includes clips from the first season, and stills from later season episodes (or publicity images). But that featurette doesn't just focus on the first season. The featurette doesn't discuss Leslie or Kirk, characters from that season, but it does discuss Stephanie, who only appeared in one episode from that season (and all of her clips in that featurette are from her one season one epsidoe, while stills form later seasons are also included). There is also a lot of talk of Larry, Darryll, and Darryll, who only appeared in two episodes from the first season and became main characters in the third season.

I only have the first season of Fraggle Rock, but that hardly has any clips from later seasons in the new featurette. I think there is a clip from the alter season episode Scared Silly, but I think that's it.

Now, this isn't true for all season sets, though I guess that term would be used loosley. I believe that the SCTV sets do have clips in their newly-created featurettes that do not appear in the sets or previously-released sets. Of course, SCTV sets aren't season sets, for the most part. The first three volumes make up the complete fourth season, in broadcast order, and volume 4 has the entire fifth season, and I'd read that the complete third seasonw as originally going to be released as volume 6 before poor sales led to the fifth release being a "Best of the Early Years" set.

And while not actually a television series, the various featurettes created for the Looney Tunes: Golden Collection box ssets do include clips from cartoons not on those sets or previous ones.

It makes me wonder, if the Sesame Street: Old School sets included newly-created featurettes, would they only include clips that could be watched in full on the Old School sets? If I was in charge they would. I hope that the new featurette on The Muppet Show: Season Three box set includes some clips from the fourth and fifth seasons (if Steve Whitmire gets profiled then it'd better include some clips with Rizzo and especialy Lips).

But do companies think that fans wuouldn't want to see clips from epsidoes that they can't watch in full on DVD?
 

D'Snowth

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Yeah, I noticed that too; I have a feeling it has something to do with they're just trying to use footage from that particular set to save time, effort, and money, I guess.
 

dwayne1115

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Yeah, I noticed that too; I have a feeling it has something to do with they're just trying to use footage from that particular set to save time, effort, and money, I guess.
Yea and I think it is good becuase it would spoil the other seasons anyway.
 

D'Snowth

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Three more examples I can think of...

On the Season One DVD of Rocky and Bullwinkle, they gathered up clips of Boris's disguises from that season, and made a montage out of it, called "Boris Badenov: Master of Disguise".

On the Season Two set, they took clips of Bullwinkle's horrible singing to the metal-munching moon mice, and made a make-shift commercial with it for Bullwinkle's "new album" called "Moosecalls: The Best of Bullwinkle Sings".

On the Season Three set, they took clips of Bullwinkle messing things up, and made a montage out of that calling it "The Best of Bullwinkle Follies".
 

Ilikemuppets

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Well to me with something like Fraggle Rock, their's so much depth and so much to cover form conception and origin to the beginning to the end of the season and how the sorry further develops. There's just so much ground to cover their that I think it's appropriate to focus on the first season.
 

muppetmania1980

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maybe

mayber they show clips from previous shows to keep you up to date with whats going on and to keep the story line from fading into the backround. does that make any sense?
 

Drtooth

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Three more examples I can think of...

On the Season One DVD of Rocky and Bullwinkle, they gathered up clips of Boris's disguises from that season, and made a montage out of it, called "Boris Badenov: Master of Disguise".

On the Season Two set, they took clips of Bullwinkle's horrible singing to the metal-munching moon mice, and made a make-shift commercial with it for Bullwinkle's "new album" called "Moosecalls: The Best of Bullwinkle Sings".

On the Season Three set, they took clips of Bullwinkle messing things up, and made a montage out of that calling it "The Best of Bullwinkle Follies".
Those aren't special features. How can stuff you already have seen on the DVD be special if you already saw them? I wish they just had extra cereal commercials instead.

Anyway, I also hate when interviews are interspearced with clips of the show. NO. I already seen those clips. i want more interview time. I never saw these people talk before. I want to see more of that.

But the worst is when they try to sneak in technical specifications as a special feature.

WOW! Mono sound! Full screen to protect the aspect ratio of the original television broadcast. COLOR! That's amazing! So much better than trying to spend any money interviewing someone or putting old moldy promos from the series or something.
 

D'Snowth

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But the worst is when they try to sneak in technical specifications as a special feature.

WOW! Mono sound! Full screen to protect the aspect ratio of the original television broadcast. COLOR! That's amazing! So much better than trying to spend any money interviewing someone or putting old moldy promos from the series or something.
Oh yeah, I've always wondered how those things are considered "special features"... that's almost like giving someone a book and saying the text is a special feature.:rolleyes:
 

minor muppetz

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Three more examples I can think of...

On the Season One DVD of Rocky and Bullwinkle, they gathered up clips of Boris's disguises from that season, and made a montage out of it, called "Boris Badenov: Master of Disguise".

On the Season Two set, they took clips of Bullwinkle's horrible singing to the metal-munching moon mice, and made a make-shift commercial with it for Bullwinkle's "new album" called "Moosecalls: The Best of Bullwinkle Sings".

On the Season Three set, they took clips of Bullwinkle messing things up, and made a montage out of that calling it "The Best of Bullwinkle Follies".

Having those compilations on the season sets is useless. The "Boris Badenov: Master of Disguise" feature is the only one of those that makes sense.
 

D'Snowth

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Having those compilations on the season sets is useless. The "Boris Badenov: Master of Disguise" feature is the only one of those that makes sense.
I thought "The Best of Bullwinkle Sings" made sense to a degree... it's a phony commercial for Bullwinkle's "new album"...
 
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