Info:
DVD Release Date: May 30, 2006 (MPI Home Video)
Color/1971
MSRP: $14.98
Number of Discs: 1
Running Time: 110 minutes
Total Run Time of Special Features: approx. 60 minutes
Languages, Subtitles, Closed Captioning: English;
English Subtitles
Special Features: Extended Footage; Doris on Bicycle
Footage; Executive Producer Interview
Introduction:
Before Doris Day's third husband, Marty Melcher, had
died, he had (without her knowing) committed her to
doing a sitcom and some specials for CBS--what came
out of this was The Doris Day Show, and also this, The
Doris Day Special (which was technically called "The
Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff Special").
So what exactly IS The Doris Day Special? Basically,
it is just a musical with Doris Day. This particular
one is her first television musical special, and it
features various types of songs from her own songs
(such as "It's Magic"), show tunes ("Hurry, It's
Lovely Up Here") and even some pop classics, such as
the Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da." Of course, there
are many other songs included in the special too--you
couldn't call it a musical if there wasn't plenty of
music in it. And complementing these songs is the
special appearances from Perry Como (who performs
along with Doris for a large portion of the program)
and one of Doris' best friends, Rock Hudson. The
program ran for one hour when it originally aired, but
of course, the DVD lacks the original commercials,
meaning that the special actually runs for 51:30.
Packaging:
There is only one disc, so as one would expect, the
packaging is just a simple Amaray style case, with
several pictures of Doris on the front and back, as
well as information about the special on the back of
the case. The DVD itself doesn't have anything
spectacular for the artwork either--it just has the
picture of Doris that appears on the front of the
case.
Menu Design and Navigation:
Again, we are talking about one special and one disc,
so this is all very simplistic. From the main menu
(some music plays in the background from the special,
I'm not exactly sure what the song is though), you
have the choice of Play, Scene Selection, Special
Features, and Subtitles (available in English only).
All of those choices take you to the respective menus.
There are plenty of chapters placed within the
special, 14 of them in fact.
Video and Audio Quality:
This is a pretty old special and I was expecting this
to all be pretty bad--but much to my surprise, it was
pretty decent. They could have done a better job if
they wanted to I suppose, but everything looked good
and sounded good. The audio is presented in mono, but
on the special features, you can listen to certain
songs from the special with stereo audio, although
personally, I couldn't tell much of a difference. It
would be completely wrong to release a musical and
have replaced music, so of course, all of the original
music is intact, as it should be, even "Ob-La-Di,
Ob-La-Da," which Warner wasn't even willing license
for the Life Goes On set. And at 51:30, there is no
reason to believe anything is missing in the
special--in fact, there is even a bumper about halfway
into the special welcoming you back to the second half
of the special.
Special Features:
This set does a decent job with special features,
primarily in regards to extended footage. In fact,
there is a total of 40 minutes worth of extended
footage in this special--almost enough to make the
special twice as long! This is all a mixed bag though.
Some of it is stereo versions of songs already in the
special, some is footage that was cut out to bring
down the run time for the original broadcast, and some
is there for other reasons. There is also extended
footage of Doris riding a bicycle (7:49), which was
what was used for the opening sequence--a nice touch
but not really that interesting. Next, there is an
interview with the executive producer of the special,
Don Gerson (also 7:49), who (what else?) talks about
producing the special. There is a lot of information
in here that most people may not already know, but
then again, a lot of people don't even know that this
special ever existed. Finally, there are two promos,
one for The Doris Day Animal League (0:53) and a promo
for The Doris Day Show DVDs (1:25).
Final Comments:
If you really like Doris Day or musicals, you'll like
this set. But if you (like me...) don't like musicals,
this thing will bore you to death. I think that this
was put together very well, and I think a true Doris
Day fan would really appreciate the great job that MPI
did in putting this together. But if you don't like
musicals, I don't see why you would like this.
Fortunately, MPI is still releasing the sitcom, The
Doris Day Show, at a nice and steady pace and still
doing a great job with those releases, so if you like
sitcoms, that is the way to go. But it is still nice
to see that MPI has released this (it is such a rare
thing to see), and did such a good job with it.
See also The Doris Day Show - Season 3 Review.
Final Numbers (out of 5 stars - How our point system works)
Video Quality: 4/5
Audio Quality: 4/5
Special Features: 2/5
Menu Navigation/Design: 4.5/5
Overall: 4/5
-- Reviewed by skees53 on 04/29/06
To purchase the DVD, click below and help support SitcomsOnline.com:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000E991SY/ref=nosim/happydaysonline4-20
Questions or comments about this set? Post on our message board:
http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=171690
