TVSquad

It continues to look as if the movie industry has totally run out of ideas for new concepts to bring the $10 a ticket crowd into the theaters. Dipping its foot into the television pool once again, it was announced that Universal has cut a deal to promote Sid & Marty Kroftt's Sigmund and the Sea Monsters to the big screen. This will be the second Kroftt movie for Universal (another property, H.R. Pufnstuf, is with Sony). The first, Land of the Lost starring Will Ferrell, has completed filming and is set for release in June of 2009.

For those uninitiated to the golden age of Saturday morning programming, Sigmund and the Sea Monsters premiered on the NBC schedule during the 1973-74 season. It featured a friendly sea monster (played by Billy Barty) who was befriended by two human boys (one of them being Family Affair's Johnny Whitaker). The typical sitcomy plot usually involved Sigmund getting into some sort of trouble that alerted his sea monster brothers and mother (who lived in a nearby sea cave), and his human friends making sure he wasn't found out. It became the first Sid & Marty Kroftt production up to that time to be renewed for a second season.

When the Billy Bob Thornton movie The Astronaut Farmer came out, a lot of us were amazed how the plot sounded similar to Salvage 1, a TV movie and later short-lived series on ABC that starred Andy Griffith as the owner of a scrap and salvage company who builds a spaceship and goes to the moon. I don't think this show has been seen that much since the late 70s, but TVShowsOnDVD is hearing from a source that Sony is going to release the show (the pilot movie and all the episodes, including 4 never shown on ABC) some time in 2008.

But that's not the only DVD news that TV fans are going to be interested in...

Since NBC just launched the remake of the 70s sci-fi drama The Bionic Woman (I still love you Lindsay Wagner), some people are wondering if we'll ever see the original on DVD. TVGuide.com has an interesting story explaining why the original show (and the show it was spun off from, The Six Million Dollar Man) hasn't been released on DVD yet. And, you guessed it, is has to do with licenses and ownership.

Back in October Brett mentioned a number of Stargate SG-1 movies that were heading straight to DVD release. Within that item he mentioned that these movies could be used as a launching pad for a new Stargate series. It looks like producers aren't waiting for those movies to be completed.

According to an story posted on the Gateworld website a third show in the Stargate franchise is now under development. The new series is in the concept phase and being worked on by those behind current shows Stargate SG1 and Stargate Atlantis. Right now there doesn't seem to be a rush to production in order to replace SG1, which ends it 10-season run in Spring 2007. Instead, a premiere of 2008 or later is expected.

Meanwhile, SG1 will return in April with the final 10 episodes of the series. At the same time Atlantis will return to finish out its third season, with a fourth airing later in 2007.

(S03E11) It seems only fitting that the week that I fill in for Jonathan, the name of the episode is "What About Bob?" The only thing stranger would be if next week's episode was titled "The Return of Jonathan." (Just checked, it's not.)

While Drama goes to shoot his first scenes for the new Ed Burns flick, Ari, Bob, and Eric go to see a studio head about the Ramones movie, and Vince and Turtle spend the day trying to track down a pair of expensive, limited edition sneakers from a famous Japanese artist.