From a poster at the "Home Theatre Forum" that is linked from tvshowsonDVD.com:

"Well, I decided to contact MPI Media Group which is releasing both the Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction sets, regarding the "Ultimate" collections that amounted to about 2/3s to 3/4s of the 1st seasons for the two shows.

It seemed strange to me that they would omit about 10 shows per 1st season.

The response I received was more disappointing than I hoped for. I hoped that MPI might be releasing the shows in partial season volume like has been done with other shows ala Combat, Lost in Space and I'm sure others.

Well, the reason the Beverly Hillbillies set will contain just 27 of the 1st season episodes is .... Paramount owns the REMAINDER of the show's episodes.

The shows on the two releases BH and PJ are from the Paul Henning Estate.

Any future releases of either series will be at the discretion of Paramount, which apparently has not shown an interest in releasing these shows.

So, its really up to each individual fan... Do you buy these sets and hope that Paramount notices strong sales, and decides to release future sets (seasons!!!!! please Paramount)? ... Or do you refrain from buying because you A) wanted season sets not compilation sets... and or B) don't want more 'loner' sets ala Barney Miller, Mad About You, (apparently Happy Days, Laverne and Shirley and Mork), Just Shoot Me, etc, etc. ... In this case, the chances being more likely that would happen since it would be 2 different companies handling the 1st "ultimate" sets ... and any additonal sets.

Below is the text from MPI's response ....

Thank you for your note.

MPI Media Group has acquired all available episodes of Petticoat Junction and The Beverly Hillbillies from the estate of their creator, Paul Henning. Paramount Pictures controls the remaining episodes and they are not available for licensing.

We have made a very dedicated effort to put out the best quality sets possible, offering the original theme music for both series plus many extras never before available, including two extensive 45 and 55 minute documentaries on both sets -- -"The History of Hooterville" and "Paul Henning & The Hillbillie." with new and vintage interviews of over a dozen actors and production associates. In addition, actress Linda Henning hosts new introductions to each "Petticoat" episodes and there are numerous original cast commercials, plus promos and other special, rare material.

We feel these sets are an excellent value and that collectors of classic television will enjoy seeing these shows in their complete form as originally aired. Hopefully Paramount will eventually release the rest of both series. Thank you again for your interest and we hope you will ultimately enjoy these sets and appreciate the efforts taken to set them apart from the unauthorized editions previously on the market.

Sincerely, Jim Pierson - DVD Producer"

Well that just plain sucks.

pat

I don't think so. It all has to do with particular rights issues.

Speaking of which, if MGM ever releases future crossover episodes of "Green Acres" featuring the casts of "Beverly Hillbillies" and "Petticoat Junction" and wonder why MGM doesn't also own "Hillbillies" and "Junction", here's the simple answer...although the same company (Filmways) originally produced all three series, Henning sold the rights to "Hillbillies" and "Junction" to CBS, which is why Viacom (originally spun off from CBS) syndicated these shows, and Paramount then took over distribution when they merged with Viacom, so in a sense it would be Paramount that holds the rights to the remaining "Junction" and "Hillbillies" episodes, but that, of course, would be released under CBS Video. "Green Acres" is the only one of the three shows whose rights were retained by Filmways, which later became Orion Pictures (ever wonder why the Orion logo shows up whenever you see "Acres" on Nick At Nite or TV Land?), and in turn became MGM.

Now how did MPI get a hold of the beginning episodes of "Junction" and "Hillbillies" for DVD release? They are now in the public domain (unauthorized releases have appeared on low-budget DVD labels), but the Henning estate apparently owns the original master negatives/prints, which explains why MPI got the OK from the Henning estate for the "official" releases from the original elements, so what you see on the MPI DVDs are exactly as you originally saw them when they first premiered.

P.S. If anyone has the new MPI DVDs, what is the copyright notice? Is it to the Henning estate, or CBS? Please let me (or this forum) know.

To ammend my initial post, it was pointed out in another forum that although MPI says they have acquired all the episodes they can (and the rest are owned by Paramount), it is not said specifically that all the episodes they acquired are included in this set.

So they could be holding more acquired episodes for another set, which they certainly seem to be doing for The Beverly Hillbillies, as they have labelled that release "Ultimate Collection, Volume 1". And we know, as the previous poster said, that there are many more BH episodes in the public domain (at least 50 total), so MPI could certainly release those in a Volume 2.

But will this happen with PJ? There have only ever been seven PJ episodes included in any public domain releases. If there were further episodes in the public domain, you would think someone would have released them by now. All seven of the known public domain episodes are already included in the new authorized release, which, it is important to note, is called "Ultimate Collection". Full stop. No "Volume 1".

At this point, I think the best hope is that MPI's set sells well, spurring Paramount to release more episodes.

If anyone has the new MPI DVDs, what is the copyright notice? Is it to the Henning estate, or CBS? Please let me (or this forum) know.

I'm in Canada, and unfortunately no Canadian retailer currently has the set! It was supposed to be released yesterday, same as in the U.S. I called MPI (who were very friendly) and they had already shipped sets to their Canadian distributer, so they gave me the contact details for the distributer here (SMA Distribution). They were also very friendly, and after a couple minutes let me know they would be shipping to retailers soon, and that the sets should be in stores within a week (they ship to Future Shop, Best Buy, HMV, and others).

The Petticoat Junction DVD set is just great. I hope they are able to put out more.