Join the Pet Set

If you are a fan of animals, of classic TV -- and here's a no-brainer:  a fan of Betty White -- then you'll want to check out today's DVD box set release of her early '70s talk show, Betty White's Pet Set.

The show's 39 full-color episodes, which debuted in 1970 -- in one early episode, Betty hosts her friend Mary Tyler Moore, years before she would join that show and become an iconic member of its cast -- boast a veritable who's who of  '70s television, each star stopping by to show off a beloved pet.  It's such a revealing and intimate look at the stars' personal lives, the kind you won't get during a packaged, PR-approved visit to The Tonight Show.

No one will ever have a career like Betty's, spanning eight decades in televi
sion, because Betty was quite literally there when they first turned on the TV cameras in Los Angeles, hosting hours each day of live talk.  By the time of Pet Set, Betty was an established pro, and it shows in her quick wit, and her ability to make her guests comfortable and move the segments along.  Combine that with her innate love for and comfort with all creatures great, small, and even deadly, and also her relationships with experts in zoology and conservation, and you have a breezy half hour that's both enlightening and entertaining.

I've heard that Betty has had these episodes sitting in her treasure chest for years, and decided now, at the show's 50th anniversary, was the perfect time to release them for a new generation to enjoy.  (They are also apparently available, for a fee, on Amazon Prime.)  The box set, which was released today, also boasts a good number of special features, including a behind-the-scenes mini-documentary; promo and public service spots; photo galleries of Betty and pets and also Betty and her husband /fellow producer Allen Ludden; and several featurettes about Betty subtitled Game Show Goddess and Queen of Television.

I spent the weekend bingeing episodes with such amazing guests as Mary Tyler Moore, Carol Burnett, Paul Lynde, Agnes Moorehead, Beverly Garland, Lorne Greene, Eve Arden and Barbara Feldon -- and I have so many more to look forward to, including Doris Day, James Stewart, Burt Reynolds, Shirley Jones, Michael Landon, Barbara Eden, James Brolin, Della Reese, Vincent Price, Eva Gabor, Eddie Albert, Peter Marshall, Rose Marie, Bob Crane, Bill Bixby, Jim Nabors, Bob Barker, Mike Connors, Barbara Bain, Dennis Weaver, Johnny Mathis, Donald O'Connor, Merv Griffin, Rod Serling, Pat Carroll, Peter Lawford, Vikki Carr, Amanda Blake, Arte Johnson, Sue Anne Langdon, Miyoshi Umeki, Richard Deacon, Nancy Kulpe and Billy DeWolfe.

Between Pet Set and my continued viewings of The Love Boat in preparation for writing my next book, I can look forward to spending many of these pandemic hours with some old friends from sunnier times past.  Thanks, Betty!

Join The Good Fight

The Good Fight season 1 DVD
featuring stars (l-r) Cush Jumbo,
Christine Baranski, Rose Leslie

I have a confession to make: I'm not a huge TV streamer.  There's simply too much good stuff to watch on network and cable TV, and it fills up my DVR (again, old fashioned tech, I guess, but it works for me.)  So I rarely have to go looking for extra ways to watch even more TV, especially at an extra cost, even if those series are widely acclaimed.

For one thing, eventually they'll come out on DVD.  And that's exactly the case with my favorite show currently on any platform, CBS All Access' The Good Fight.  A continuation of CBS' former (and amazing) series, The Good Wife, The Good Fight may even be a bit better than its predecessor.

Season 1 starts with Christine Baranski's Diane Lockhart, on the eve of her planned retirement, finding out that her savings have been wiped out by a Madoff-esque Ponzi scheme, perpetrated by her supposed friend, Henry Rindell.  Now, with Henry's daughter Maia (Rose Leslie)'s reputation destroyed as well, the two women join one of The Good Wife's most recently introduced and yet most beloved characters, Cush Jumbo's Lucca Quinn, at one of Chicago's pre-eminent, predominantly African-American, law firms.

CBS All Access is of course also the home of the newest Star Trek series, Star Trek: Discovery -- and its run, which began this past September, has been a boon to the now nearly four-year-old service in terms of attracting subscribers.  But Star Trek or no, The Good Fight is so good, it itself is also worth the monthly cost.

Season 1 consisted of ten, nailbiting episodes (and, it's worth noting, episodes which are free of network standards and practices constraints in terms of language and nudity) -- and as of this week, they're available on a three-DVD set, which also contains a gag reel and deleted/extended scenes.  The show's already captivating season 2 began "airing" -- if that's what one can call episodes which continue to drop each Sunday -- on March 4, and so now is the perfect time for newcomers (even non Good Wife watchers) to catch up.


The Good Fight
Season 1 available on DVD, release date March 13, 2018
Season 2 airing on CBS All Access, beginning March 4, 2018

Now We Know What's in Sophia's Purse!

How cool is this? Disney/Buena Vista, rightsholder to The Golden Girls, announces a new full-series box set -- get this -- contained in a replica of Sophia's straw purse! Sadly, though, still no Golden Palace.

Check it out below (courtesy of www.tvshowsondvd.com.)

The Golden Girls - '25th Anniversary Complete Collection' in a Collectible Replica of Sophia's Purse

Includes all seven seasons of the show, plus a collectible deck of Golden Girls playing cards

A short time ago today, ABC Studios and Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment announced the 21-DVD release of The Golden Girls - 25th Anniversary Complete Collection. All 7 seasons of the show (180 episodes, approx. 3800 minutes) will be compiled into one special package that is designed in the form of Sophia's purse! Included in this collectible package, shown below, is a set of collectible playing cards featuring Sophie (Estelle Getty) on the Spades, Dorothy (Bea Arthur) on the Clubs, Blanche (Rue McClanahan) on the Diamonds, and Rose (Betty White) on the Hearts.

This is available beginning November 9th. On-disc extras will be the same as the special features seen in the individual season set DVD packages that have been previously released. List price is $149.99 SRP in the United States, and CA$199.00 SRP in Canada; you can pre-order it from Amazon at a discount using the button link immediately below. It's followed by the "purse packaging". With this release, we realize that passionate fans will say this collection is not "complete" because it does not contain episodes of the spin-off series, Golden Palace. Unfortunately we still don't have any word about a home video release of that series, which the studio considers to be a separate entity fromThe Golden Girls. If we ever find out that it's coming, though, we'll be certain to let everyone know!

Taken from:http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Golden-Girls-Complete-Collection/14207#ixzz0vruowt00

Catching Up with... Ugly Betty

In preparation for a brand-new -- and hopefully, uninterrupted -- season of primetime network TV, ABC had an idea. Since so much of the network's shows have serialized storylines, the execs there have put together abridged "Starter Kits" designed to get you back in touch -- or if you're a first-time viewer, up to speed -- with all the important plot twists that have gone before.

Of course, if you want the full Ugly Betty treatment, or to witness every single one of Eli Stone's hallucinations, you might just want to catch up on each series via full episodes on ABC.com, or by spending a weekend with the DVD box set. For each show, the DVD release of last season is timed, conveniently enough, for just a few weeks before the 2008-09 season kicks off in late September.

Today, let's get up to speed with the backstabbing goings-on at Mode magazine.

Ugly Betty (Season 3 premieres September 25 at 8 PM ET)


OR Click here for full episodes on ABC.com

OR

Ugly Betty, The Complete Second Season
Release Date: 9/9/08

Would You Believe... Season 1 of Get Smart on DVD?

Now that the first season of Get Smart is available on DVD, ardent fans of the 1965-70 series will be watching the first 30 of the series' 138 newly restored, remastered, full-length episodes. And… loving it.

The spy spoof ran on NBC for seventy-two seasons (would you believe four?) before switching to CBS for fifty more (would you believe one?), and was the first and still to date the most successful satiric series in the history of television. Chronicling the battle between good-guy government agency CONTROL and evil organization KAOS, Get Smart starred Don Adams as CONTROL Agent 86 Maxwell Smart – who was anything but – and Barbara Feldon as his beautiful, resourceful and loyal partner, and later wife, known throughout the series only as Agent 99.

Adams, who died in 2005, attributed the success of the show, with its unique combination of borscht belt and surrealist humor, to perfect timing – and not just of the comedic variety. In captivating TV audiences just before the ultimately turbulent 1960s got into full swing, “I feel like we led the way in TV back in ’65, when everyone was stirring the oatmeal and sending the kids to school,” he speculated in a previously unpublished 2001 interview. “When I read the Get Smart pilot I thought it was too satirical and ahead of its time, and that it would never go on TV. But it went, and led the way for shows like All in the Family. It was the ‘60s, and with everything that was going on – the drug culture, Charles Manson, Woodstock – there was a whole cultural revolution and I guess Get Smart was part of it.”

Co-star Feldon, who now resides in Manhattan, recalls having been taken by surprise by the passion audiences immediately felt for Smart. “Doing a series is very time-consuming,” she explains. “And in L.A., you’re in your car, and go to some local restaurant where they don’t pay attention to you. So it wasn’t until a few years into the show that I went out into the country on a tour and saw the fervor people were feeling that I got the idea that this was a big show.”

Although Get Smart exited TV Land’s lineup in 2003 and has not aired in the U.S. since, its famous comic catchphrases -- like "Sorry about that, Chief" and "Missed it by that much," which Adams first ad-libbed in a Season 1 episode -- still thrive in our pop culture lexicon. Now, with the series debuting on DVD, a new generation will be able to tune in and turn on to the show’s groovy gadgets, like the constantly malfunctioning "cone of silence." And that's just fine by Feldon. “To this day, almost every day, somebody smiles at me because of 99,” she says. “It has been such a pleasure in my life.”

Get Smart Season 1
Release Date: August 5, 2008
4-disc DVD set; approx. 750 minutes
Suggested Retail Price: $24.98