General Discussion : Old TV shows that ought to be released on DVD

[djross]

Numerous old television series have been released on DVD, not necessarily based on whether they were any good (you can purchase the entire of Gilligan's Island, for example). But other deserving candidates lie unreleased.

For me, the program I would most like to see again is the excellent Canadian series from the 1980s, Seeing Things, starring the fabulous Louis Del Grande.

[Jerky]

Still waiting for the NBC series "Ed" to be released on DVD.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0247091/

but I doubt they'll ever resolve the legal issues over song royalties

[Stewball]

The Dick Powell Theater ('61-'63)--An anthology series produced and hosted by Dick Powell. Outstanding quality as I remember. He had the pull to get a who's who of established stars (for their talent as much as their names) as well as upcoming talent in well written plays. There's a VHS of one episode (Peter Falk in an Emmy performance with Inger Stevens) going for $600 on Amazon.

Only lasted two years. Too good I guess, like the following one year wonders:

The Richard Boone Show ('63/'64)--Another anthology series with him (coming off his Have Gun Will Travel success which is on DVD) with himself and other excellent semi-regular actors in quality productions (again, as I remember).

The Outsider ('68/'69)--Excellent comedy/mystery starring Darren McGaven (A Christmas Story)

[edkrak]

Two TV-series that automatically come to my mind are:
Telechat - created by Roland Topor & Henri Xhonneux. Haven't seen it, but it looks like Muppets on acid. Actually it is on DVD but only in France and without any subs.
Noires sont les galaxies - also French, it's a mini series about some alien plants killing people by growing in their stomachs. Sounds fun.

[tef]

Rude Awakening imo, but it's not that old. Less than a decade or thereabouts.

[by Devol]

"Me and the Chimp"
lasted only one season, in '72. Ted Bessel, from "That Girl", starred, as he dealt with the inane trials and tribulations of life with his pet chimp. I read somewhere that appartently he couldn't fucking stand the gig.

"Norman Korwin's Short Film Festival"
PBS - late 70's
phenomenally fascinating series for this young teen.
a whole new world - the short - unvieled itself before me.
fondest memory - "The Dove" ('68) - total fuckin' eh Bergman 15 min. parody.

Another PBS gem from the late 70's - "We Interrupt This Week". A current events game show that I think was British (the host was, anyway) that pitted journalists against each other for topicality dominance.
Insanely fast-paced, making it difficult for this not-so-worldly teen to keep up with (my mom could) and featured the likes of Gerald Sussman from the National Lampoon (which I could follow then), but occasionally I was able to answer the odd question, which made for a rare high-five moment. By far the best contestant was Jeff Greenfield - all his responses were absolutely funnier than shit.

Fernwood/America Tonight - more late 70's (early 80's?) madness - Martin Mull as Barth Gimble and Fred Willard as Jerry Hubbard, hosting a take-off of a cable talk/variety show. AWESOME guests like Tony Roletti the lounge singer dude. The house band, Happy Kyne and the Mirthmakers, was led by the hilarious sad-sack Frank Devol (perhaps my namesake?), who apparently scored many '60s tv shows (and often collaborated with Sinatra before that). The legendary guitarist Tommy Tedesco was in the band too! Whenever I think of the show, I imagine Barth bemusedly swivelling his head to look at Jerry after the latter has made one of his customary dumb-ass remarks.
Fucking golden.

[Kopenhaver]

They're not old but I'm dying to get more Whose Line? and The Drew Carey Show.

[edkrak]

I just thought about two others:
Plutón B.R.B. Nero - not old, but it needs subs. It's a SciFi comedy from Alex de la Iglesia.
Top lista nadrealista - I've heard people from former Yugoslavia love it and consider it to be their Monty Python, again - no subs.

Am I the only one interested in non-English TV?

[afx237vi]

Am I the only one interested in non-English TV?

Here in the UK, it's only in the last year or two that TV channels (OK, one TV channel: BBC 4 to be precise) have started showing TV shows that aren't in English. Now we have stuff like Wallander (Swedish), Spiral (French), The Killing (Danish), Inspector Montalbano (Italian) and some others. Pretty cool if you're into police serials... unfortunately I'm not.

[Stewball]

Am I the only one interested in non-English TV?

Don't know about "everyone", but I'm not.