DVD-On-DVD Reviews (All Seasons)

[David VP]

Here's some information regarding the "Best Of Dick Van Dyke" DVDs,
being released along with the Season Five full-season set on
June 29th, 2004. ..............

http://www.hometheaterforum.com/htfo...hreadid=202523

[algebra74]

It looks like all those bonuses included on those sets, we already have. David VP, if you buy these sets, please enlighten us as to whether or not these sets include any extras that we don't already have.

[David VP]

There won't be any NEW bonuses on the Best-Of discs. If they did that, Image would catch all kinds of hell from people who bought the season sets, then had to re-purchase the Best-Ofs just to get a few bonus extras.

Obviously, Image doesn't want to open THAT door of Van Dyke wrath!

Makes sense to NOT put any "new" bonuses on the 4-ep. DVDs. In fact, I would be one of the ticked-off buyers if Image had put a few new extras on JUST the Best-Of discs. I'm going to buy one of the budget-priced Best-Of DVDs (just to have a "sample" of one of them) -- but I don't really want to buy all 5 (no need to).

You can get the Best-Of discs for a mere $7.30 at DeepDiscount.

[algebra74]

You can get the Best-Of discs for a mere $7.30 at DeepDiscount.


Actually, at FYE.com you can get the best-of sets for only $4.99 each!

[David VP]

My own quote .........

There won't be any NEW bonuses on the Best-Of discs. If they did that, Image would catch all kinds of hell from people who bought the season sets, then had to re-purchase the Best-Ofs just to get a few bonus extras.

Guess I was wrong.

I've purchased Volumes 1 and 2 of the "Best Of" discs, and can tell Van Dyke DVD collectors that there's AT LEAST one special bonus feature that's on the Vol. 1 Best-Of disc that is not on any of the 5 full-season boxed sets (which was quite surprising to find).

The item in question is an Emmy Awards video clip (in color) from the 1966 Emmy telecast, which equates to the fifth & final year of the Van Dyke series.

I've double-checked every disc in the 5th-season set, and this clip on the "Best Of" is definitely not among the three awards we see presented on the fifth-season discs.

The "Best Of" Emmy clip features writers Bill Persky & Sam Denoff getting their award for writing.

The Best Of Volume 2 has an Emmy clip that IS contained also within a boxed set.

I'm soon going to be getting the remaining 3 "Best Of" discs. If I find any more "surprises", I'll post them here.

Very odd, indeed (IMO), that ANY bonuses would be placed on the value-priced Best-Of Van Dykes that would not also be on the season sets.

BTW --- Each "Best Of" volume also contains the "Meet The Cast" bio text screens, as well as "The Ottoman Tripper" one-question trivia game (with ensuing falling over/sidestepping the proverbial ottoman video clip from the show's opening). I *assume* the trivia questions used on the Best-Of discs are the same ones we see on the boxed sets (I can't quite recall).

All-in-all, the Best-Of series looks like a very good bang for the buck.

[David VP]

My thoughts regarding the Season-Five Dick Van Dyke Show
DVD boxed set ......................

DVD-On-DVD: SEASON FIVE.

[algebra74]

Thank you for such a great review!

[David VP]

You're welcome, algebra.

I've updated the "Commentary" info in my review for "Dear Sally Rogers" -- changing Ann Morgan Guilbert to Larry Mathews for that audio commentary.

Thanks for your kind words, algebra.

[David VP]

Has anyone else felt this way? ....................

While watching these great episodes on the fabulous DVD-Video discs (and, of course, noting that each one has its full, uncut running time of 25+ minutes, or just under 25 minutes on a few shows), I began wondering: Hey, where are the "3 minutes that haven't been seen since their original run in the 1960s"??

I've only encountered two episodes thus far that have made me sit up and say to myself: "Gee, there's a scene I don't remember ever seeing before on the syndicated versions".

The 2 being: "Go Tell The Bird And The Bees" (Season 5) and "The Ghost Of A. Chantz" (Season 4). There's a few minutes in the office with Rob, Buddy, and Sally that I never had seen during the "Bird/Bee" episode; and the very first scene in the hotel lobby in "A. Chantz" I don't recall seeing. That ep., on syndicated prints, normally begins with Mel's line: "What's wrong gang?" But there's a lot of dialogue that actually precedes that line by Mel.

So, I'm just wondering if I'm all alone in feeling this way? Do most of you Van Dyke Show fans here have one of those "Hey, I've never seen this scene" while watching some/most of the eps. on the new Image DVDs?

I'm finding it strange that I actually HAVE seen nearly every minute of every show. And I did NOT watch the first run of the series from 1961-1966. I was too young to remember seeing it then (being born in late 1961).

I guess the answer might be that SOME TV stations have shown certain scenes over the years that OTHER stations have cut out. While another station/network might cut out a *different* hunk of a show, and include a portion that was excluded on another station.

When adding them all up, it might = The full 25-minute show.

Anyway, I just found it odd that there haven't been more of those "I've never seen this" moments with regard to the DVD-Video versions.

(P.S. -- And I *know* that the Image releases are definitely giving us the FULL, uncut episodes. So the explanation can't be that these eps. are STILL being butchered and chopped up.)

Please weigh in here, you guys, with any of those scenes that YOU have never seen except on these DVDs. I'd be interested in hearing about them.

Thanks.

[SawgrassSteve]

David VP,
I must say I agree with you for the most part. I do not have many "gee whiz" moments when it comes to content on these dvds. I'm only a year older than you are, but I have, however, been watching this show under many different outlets over the decades, and I started early. The scenes that have been brought up on this board by others as having been restored, I remember seeing (maybe as a kid), and hadn't noticed their restoration until they were pointed out. I'm sure that gradually, over time, more and more of the show was removed for commercial space.
An interesting project that I've chosen for myself is to go through my VHS tapes scene-by-scene and compare them to the dvds. But frequently finding myself in need of more than 24 hours in my day, I just haven't gotten around to it yet!

Steve

[Petrie Malone]

Originally posted by David VP
Please weigh in here, you guys, with any of those scenes that YOU have never seen except on these DVDs. I'd be interested in hearing about them.

Thanks.

David,
After reading your post I remembered hearing some unfamiliar dialogue in some of the uncut DVD episodes. I may be wrong here, but in The Bad Old Days (S.1) when Rob is dreaming I thought I hadn't seen the part when Laura scrubs the floors. In Season 2, It May Look Like a Walnut, when Rob and Laura are talking there was some new dialogue (approx. 5 mins in the episode) In The Alan Brady Show Goes to Jail, before Rob and Laura do their tap dance chained together, they sing a duet. Well.....that's all I could find for now. I'll keep looking though!

Kurt

[algebra74]

In "Washington Vs. The Bunny" the entire tag scene was cut out. I find that these shows originally had three commercial breaks: one at about 3 minutes into the show, another at about 12 minutes into the show, and the final which separates the show from the tag scene and the ending credits. When the show airs on TV Land, they only have two commercial breaks, and therefore have and opportunity to edit out some minor diologue before and after the commercial break, to make it look as though there never really was a commercial break there.

I have no proof of this, but I do find that syndicated versions of these episodes are "sped up". I have watched many syndicated versions of episodes along-side of the DVD versions, and have found that the syndicated versions are sped up by five seconds per minute. In other words, having no proof, I see that TV Land is playing back 1 minute's worth of footage back in 55 seconds. Thus, in 22 minutes, 24 minutes of the original footage was actually shown. This allows TV Land to not have to cut out 3 minutes of footage, but about 30 seconds to one minute.

Has anyone else noticed this?

[Lolac]

In "Go Tell the Birds and the Bees," there is some hilarious dialog between Buddy and Rob, at the beginning when they are in the office, that I had never seen before. I was rolling on the floor! It was quite a significant scene, IMO. Buddy was telling Rob when his father talked to him about the facts of life ("I'd been married 2 years!" ) It was so funny!

Lolac

[David VP]

Thanks guys and gals.
And Lolac, that Birds/Bees scene you spoke of is the same one I mentioned in my post (see above). So that one most certainly must be one that's been cut out often for syndication.

[Dorothys BestPal]

My gee whiz moment in addition to those mentioned above was in "Uncle George" when Rob, Laura, Uncle G and Ritchie are in the kitchen and just before Rob leaves for work and and Laura asks Rob to bring home a loaf of bread and George chimes in with a jug of wine and Rob turns towards to the camera and says : "and thou" and walks out towards the garage. I really notice when they are longer than 20 seconds. There is another one in "My husband is a check grabber" an whole additional 30 seconds or so in the restaurant with the whole gang.

I know for a fact that our local channel used to speed up the show so bad that in a couple of episodes Laura sounded like Alvin the chipmunk