TVSquad

"The site wants to know why they are releasing this "best of" set instead of continuing the season sets with a release of season 2."

Music rights. They bought the rights for the initial run and syndication, but home video versions of TV shows weren't a big market back then. Years later, they go back and try to re-acquire the rights, and it's either impossible or prohibitively expensive.

Some shows (I seem to recall hearing that Felicity did this) just replace the soundtrack with other songs they can use for free/cheap, but that's not really an option when the episode revolves around the joke that Warren Zevon doesn't want to play Werewolves of London, or when Larry and Arty sitting around talking about how it sounds like Beck is making up the words as he goes.

And my source for this info is about three weeks old... here:

http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31476

http://popculturejunk.blogspot.com

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I bought the first season set when it came out, but I'm one of those DVD collectors who make the purchase and then take forever to actually look at it.

I've been lucky so far that I haven't been smacked with a defective copy, too late to make a return, but I know sooner or later it'll happen.

So now you've got me curious and I'll have to take a look at my Sanders boxed set.....

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Also, lest you forget, they had Sting on performing King of Pain. No way he licenses that one for cheap.

Just be happy Elvis Costello and George Strait apparently had no problem letting the rights go. They shouldn't, either, because they got some great mileage from that show.

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I got the box set right when it came out and honestly I don't think the transfer is that bad - compared to regular PAL TV, since I live in Europe. I saw it on the german TV station RTL (I think if memory serves me right) and the quality is just as good or bad as it was on TV so I was never angry. Additionally I think that the featurette they have on the set (interview with Larry Sanders if I remember correctly) wasn't that bad of a deal. I thought with the box set so tiny (it's really think) it was better than no extras on the "Mad About You Season 1 and 2" box sets. There was NOTHING on those. I actually was quite happy to be able to see the first season of The Larry Sanders Show whenever I wanted.

I am only angry that they did not continue releasing because the best episodes, of course, are the ones featuring David Duchovny (for obvious reasons *wink wink nudge nudge*) and I really would have loved to get those episodes as well.

You have to face the fact that this show was never as popular as Seinfeld and expecting that many extra features as on those Seinfeld Box-Sets would be plain wrong. I think there was a lot of room for improvement for future box sets. And example how to do it wrong is The King Of Queens. The first season also has interviews on it and the second and following seasons has NOTHING. Zip. Nada. I actually sold those seasons right away together with the first season because THAT really made me angry. I am more than willing to get special features spread out over several seasons if they did not have the time or money to get all those people together and pay them for extra commentaries or interviews or if it was just too expensive to get the rights to the music. It was nicely done in the Dawson's Creek DVD sets, although only two commentaries per season was a bit off - either don't do commentaries at all or comment on at least four to six. Otherwise it feels stupid because you get really in-deph information on some episodes and none at all on others. But then I actually felt deceived when they did not do any commentaries at all on the fitht season set and thought to myself why on earth should I buy a DVD box set with episoed on them with different music, actually a changed theme song (left that out before - they had to change the theme in every episode because they didn't get the rights for I don't want to wait lalalalaaa to be over you know what I mean :-) )

Anyway: the Sanders Season 1 box wasn' that bad. The transfer wasn't really shabby but I guess it could've been done way better. I didn't feel ripped off because back then Star Trek full season sets were sold for 110 Euro season which at the moment would be around 150 USD. Compare that to the price of a Stargate Season or Babylon 5. And the Star Trek Stuff doesn't have ANY commentaries at all.

So I guess the only thing you can complain about is that they did not release more seasons. Nothing else. Just open with a certain quality and then keep the way you do it until the last season and release the stuff at a reasonable price, say 3 to 5 US$ per episode (45 min) or half of that for 22min comedy shows. That's my rule of thumb. As long as you don't totally ruin the picture (like Harry on Sally TVtoDVD transfer Region 2 german release or the Chihiro DVD in Japan with that horrible purple color) I am totally fine with the product. Just don't change stuff halfway through the release (or release the 5th season of Babylon 5 in DVD-slimcases compared to the first 4 in a 5dvd-paper-something box... grrrr I hate them for doing that, first 4 seasons had the 5 on the back in one size, season 5 had a bigger 5. Looks totally ridiculous on my DVD shelve).

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