Newhart?

The rumor about a possible Newhart release has me pretty excited! Newhart has long been my favorite TV series. Please keep us posted of any new development. I sure hope they start with season one although a couple of the more popular cast members didn't join until seasons 2 and 3, but I'll take any release!

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Surprising that Fox would give this a chance since they gave up on the Bob Newhart show.

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Maybe they will give the Bob Newhart show another chance, it is only 2 more seasons to go.

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Hmm..I'm torn. On one hand this is great possible news, since I also loved "Newhart" but after what has been done to "The Bob Newhart Show" it really makes it hard not to think that the studio will abandon "Newhart" before the whole run is released.

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I am all over this release. If they blow it in any way that will be it for me and Fox's TV DVDs.

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It would be great to see this released, but unless Fox has done a job of managing its expectations of archive release sales, I can't see it getting past a couple of seasons.

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They seem reluctant to release the rest of the good shows left in the MTM catalog. Newhart and Lou Grant are the standouts, with Hill Street and Remington Steele just getting out the door.

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No more Hill Street and they will release this. Great for fans of Newhart, but doesn't it seem that they will release the first seasons and then stop. The show should appeal to the same fans as the original Bob Newhart Show, and that has yet to be completed.

Maybe if Barney Miller can be restarted, then there is still hope. (I do know they are different studios.)

Doug

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Not to mention that one show set in a newsroom...

Fox had a deal with Anchor Bay going (that's how Doogie Howser, M.D. got out), I don't see why AB doesn't take advantage of it to get shows they don't want.

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Not quite sure what you mean, is that about subsequent releases as far as Remington and Hill Street are concerned ? As Fox finished the entire run of 5 seasons of Remington i own all of them.

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Glad I used the search engine, i was just about to start a topic on this.

I was shocked to check amazon an not see this show was out. Its a shame, i use to fall to sleep to the opening of this show which my grandmother watched, while i was supposed to be in bed.

This is a must ahve for my collection.

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Well the 1st season of Newhart is not that bad. It is different, it is more laid back, the characters around Bob aren't as nutty and goofy as they later became.

Either way, the Bob Newhart Show was superior, thus season 1 of Newhart is inferor to season 5 and 6 of the Bob Newhart show, especially the 6th season, which had some of the classic episodes.

The early seasons are more like the Bob Newhart Show, pros and cons.

Pros: It it more like the Bob Newhart show, one of my favorite shows ever.

Cons: It is by default a poor man's Bob Newhart show. By making the show more goofy and less like the Bob Newhart show, it establish its own seperate identity.

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Apparently not a rumor - TVshowsondvd.com is giving some info.

But releasing this series makes no sense!

Why not finish "The Bob Newhart Show" first and satisfy the fans? I bought all 4 sets of it & then got abandoned by the studio.

I'm not buying "Newhart" and getting burned twice. But here's a mention:

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Newhart-Season-1/8403

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I wish them luck, and I hope they make the 8 seasons, but just incase, maybe they should the finale as a bonus in the season 1 disc, a lot of people only care about the finale.

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An RRP of $39.99 seems expensive, especially as apparently not enough people bought Bob Newhart at $29.99.

Perhaps this is Fox's new strategy for their unreleased shows. Release season 1 at too high a price so it doesn't sell enough, then use the fact that it doesn't sell enough as a reason to not release the other seasons.

I stopped buying TBNS after two seasons as I wasn't finding it funny enough, but I remember watching Newhart and enjoying it over 20 years ago, so I will be giving this one a go.

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I am actully looking forward to this DVD release. I will pick it up, one episode in particular I am looking forward to seeing is "Sprained Dreams", I have watch the episode in reruns, and the closing credits has a number of guest stars, who I never saw in the episode. I guess their scene were cut in syndiation.

Hopefully it will be the original network version, hopefully this is not season 1 of the Cosby Show situtation.

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I'm really stoked that Newhart is coming out, but I'm still ticked at Fox for bailing on Hill Street Blues after only two seasons. My new rule with Fox to buy them-only after ALL seasons are out. Or for every season of Hill Street Blues that comes out, I'll buy a season of Newhart.

Crazy talk I know, but I REALLY wanted ALL of Hill Street Blues.

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I love it more than TBNS, so I'll buy it.

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The box art is here. I hope they have some extras. What I would like to see.

A documentory on Bob's life in the 4 years between the ending of the Bob Newhart show and the beginning of Newhart.

Any Bob Newhart tv specials from the early 80's.

Bloopers, I espcially want to see the blooper when Bob called his wife Emily. That is a classic blooper.

BTW, in the first seasons most of the familar castmembers appear at various point, the only sugnifficant one not to appear is Peter Scolari. Larry and the Darryl's are still there, as well as Julia Duffy. So it is not like half of the familar cast are not there at all.

Personally all that mattered to me was Bob himself.

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"Hi, I"m Larry . . . "

Why should they continue releasing subsequent seasons of TBNS if the previous ones did not sell well ? That makes no sense business-wise. If the previous seasons had sold they would have released the rest of them. Simple as that. Why do people STILL not get how it works ? They're supposed to release a product that won't sell just to please a few fans who will find a reason to gripe anyway ? Give me a break. The rest of the seasons would be great but it's clear why they haven't happened yet.

I'm surprised but glad that Newhart is being given a chance seeing how TBNS didn't go through the roof sales-wise and since intelligent, older, adult-oriented series often don't sell well. Where have you gone, Murphy Brown ?

As far as the box art goes, the logo looks great. Love how they have it on the sign. However, the rest of it looks badly photoshopped. I guess they made do with what they had. But I can't figure out why they would bother including "that girl who isn't Stephanie". But this also happened with "what's-his-name" from the first season of Taxi, too.

Hope Newhart sells well and I can get my L,D&D fix.

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I've always said they should release shows no matter how well they sell, let's take Fox, they release minor movie titles too don't they? So why can't the same apply to TV shows, why are they somehow expected to sell more? Some movie titles will sell like crazy, some won't, but they still get released because they're movies. So, do the same with TV shows! Don't always expect the world, there's always someone who'll be happy to buy it. Probably terribly naive of me, I'm no businessman, but that's how I feel about it as a fan - but the studios are in business - with us.

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I Won't Get Burned Again. I'll wait until all the seasons are our -- ha ha!, then I'll pick this one up as a box set.

But, after being burned by Fox on several series -- I've had it!

John

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If you don't buy it until all the seasons come out, all the seasons won't come out.

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Except that Fox has almost never made it through an MTM property without abandoning it. (Remington Steele is the only MTM show for which they've released all the seasons.) It's no longer reasonable to believe that Fox will ever release all the seasons, so I can totally understand someone not buying the first season.

This is different from companies that have shown that they will finish an older series if it sells OK. Fox clearly has a definition of good sales that basically prevents almost any older series from being finished. I would buy "Newhart" if I believed that this would help the later seasons come out, but I have no reason to believe that they ever will, based on Fox's track record.

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That's sort of like saying "I won't vote for my candidate because he has no chance of winning."

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Voting is free. And voting for a candidate who won't win can still make a point, whereas buying season 1 of a series that has no chance of being finished is kind of pointless.

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It has even less of a chance of being finished if you do not buy it. In fact, I do not see why you have the need to consign this series to the grave before it's even released.

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WTF? I. JUST. DON'T. GET. THIS. Isn't it better to enjoy SOME episodes on DVD, then none at all?

Just five years ago everyone was happy to get ANY episodes of their favorite TV shows on DVD, to enjoy at their leisure. Now there is this "all or nothing" attitude that I simply fail to understand.

If your favorite current TV show was cancelled tomorrow, without resolving the plotlines, would you (if you could, in a sci-fi kind of twist) erase your memory of watching the episodes up until that point?

Bear in mind that this isn't a "free broadcast" vs. "paid-for DVDs" proposition, because you "pay" for the TV broadcasts by (presumably) watching commercials...so erasing your memories of the episodes would also erase your knowledge of the commercials, thereby un-paying-for the epsiodes.

If you COULD do that, why would you want to? Didn't you enjoy it up until that point?

Wouldn't you enjoy the first season on DVD, even if no further seasons ever made it out?

Wouldn't it be better to try to help motivate the studios to produce more DVDs, by purchasing the ones that are out now? It's money you would spend anyway, right?

You're not trying to save money, per se, you're trying to "not start something that won't be finished". Why be that much of a completist? Enjoy what's out there, and worry about the rest later!

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Sure. But in the case of "Newhart," I don't like the first season enough to get it for its own sake. I would be getting it only for the sake of supporting future season releases. Except that I have no reason to expect that there will be any future season releases. So that kind of changes the game.

I would actually prefer it if studios would do a multi-disc "best-of" release for shows like this -- if they know, and Fox has to know this, that they probably won't get to the later seasons, why not just give us a selection from all the seasons?

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Because then the fans complain about "no season sets?!??!?!?!?"