[78-L] Warner Home Video to release Shorts via Archive Series

[Steve Ramm]

Just read this article in trade magazine. They discuss Our Gang but looks like VITAPHONES could be coming this way too! Note George Feltenstein mentioning that many of the shorts are ones they've put in as bonus features.
 
 
Steve
 

Warner adds shorts, TV series to MOD DVD
PHYSICAL: Our Gang first in studio's new Archive Collection categories
By Susanne Ault -- Video Business, 8/31/2009
AUG. 31 | PHYSICAL: Warner Archive Collection is launching two new categories, classic theatrical shorts collections and TV DVD.

Much of this shorts content, with its limited mass merchant appeal, has been seen on DVDs only in bits and pieces as bonus features. But Warner Home Video is taking advantage of the Archive’s efficient manufacturing-on-demand business model to roll out whole collections of theatrical shorts for the first time, starting with this week’s release of a 52-episode, five-disc set of Our Gang.

These shorts, starring famous kid characters Spanky and Alfalfa, were released by MGM during big-screen news reels between 1938 and 1944. They shouldn’t be confused with the Little Rascals TV series, which starred the same actors and featured similar story lines but was controlled by different rights holders. Genius Products has streeted many Little Rascals content on DVD already.

The Our Gang set is priced at $49.95, but will be offered at $35 during its first week on sale. It will kick off planned monthly installments of one to two theatrical shorts collections on Warner’s MOD service.

“We have 3,000 shorts, but we’ve released less than 200 on DVD, and only as enhanced content,” said George Feltenstein, Warner senior VP of theatrical catalog. “It would be hard to know where to put this [material] in stores. But the Archive can target the consumer who loves it. We’re taking advantage of the opportunities the Archive business model provides.”

Also now available are Warner Archive’s first TV movies, 1973’s Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, 1974’s Bad Ronald and 1978’s The Bermuda Depths. These campy favorites, which all first aired on ABC, are new to DVD. Episodic TV will be added shortly to the Archive, Feltenstein said.

“Consumers have been asking for these [films], and they were out on VHS but never on DVD,” he said. “They’ve been out of legitimate view for a long time.”

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