Best of Route 66 - Page 2

Re: Best of Route 66

DMGI (Digital Music Group, Inc.) has acquired the rights to Route 66, along with a few other series. Details here:

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/blog/

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What are these guys about? Is this a cable channel? Are the shows they've the rights to produced for DVD?

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Well, I just sent a letter to DMGI as well and hope to receive a reply in the next day or two.

When I delved into this, I was thinking along the lines of what Bob wrote, that DMGI has rights to digital downloads only. The July 2nd blog entry that states that DMGI has "announced a number of new long term digital distribution agreements for classic televsion content...including Route 66..." I took this to mean that this series will eventually become a part of their cable channel line-up.

At the DMGI site it was mentioned that they had a big distribution deal going on with Shout! Factory but it appeared that it involved music only and no mention was made of specific classic tv series.

Re: Best of Route 66

Upcoming releases at ccvideo.com is showing: ROUTE 66: 1st Season Vol 1 for Oct 23, 2007 release. $39.98. The ROX in the item number must be Roxbury Entertainment and is their only release listed at Critic's Choice.
http://www.ccvideo.com/item.cfm?itemid=ROX002017

Re: Best of Route 66

Now that actually looks legitimate. I'm very glad I held off on transferring them from my Nick masters. Excellent news if this is a reality.

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Great, great find Bob! Unbelievable if this is true. I'm still trying to figure out what possessed Sony to let the rights to this classic get away from them. And now Critic's Choice is going to release the 1st Season! Un-freakin'-belivable!!!

Gary "go CC, go!" O.

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With classic TV in the doldrums lately this is spirit lifting news ! Well done to the folks who dug this info out.

Critics Choice are somehow connected to Deep Discount aren't they ? CC seem to at least have some interest in releasing old shows & are becoming a major player in the classic TV field. They have done a good job with Sergeant Preston, Hopalong Cassidy, Jim Bowie,Dangerous Assignment but Route 66 is their highest status acquisition so far.

Roll on October.

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Thank you, Bob! This is great news! I saw the post about DGMI too, and figured it meant downloads on in2tv or itunes ala Man from UNCLE, I SPY, etc.
But as with these shows, the rights release is indicative of multimedia distribution. I don't know if other people are having trouble with in2tv, but it's extremely buggy in my experience. So thanks to Critics Choice for what appears to be a quality dvd release. Based on their track record, I'm optimistic about the chances for a complete series release of Route 66, a true gem and a classic sixties drama.

Now we have R66 and Real McCoys to look forward to.

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So I assume this will be 15 episodes, since the first season contained 30. I would hope this will be discounted at sites other than Critic's Choice, since $80 a season is prohibitive.

I also hope the entire run gets to DVD, as it's not until the 97th episode ("Where Are the Sounds of Celli Brahams", season 4) that the boys filmed here.

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Uh, not really. I paid more than that for 1 16mm print of many shows years ago. And that's in 1985 dollars. Not to mention how much blank tapes cost for 2 hours of recording. At $10 for a tape, the first season records from off Nick 20 years ago would have cost $150, which would be how much now? So I see $80 as a damn great bargain. Fantastically cheap as a matter of fact.

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Just to clarify,although I found this listed at CC, I don't think this is coming on the Critic's Choice label, or their new Infinity Entertainment Group label.

The item code seems to refer to Roxbury Entertainment.

Critic's Choice,Deepdiscount, and Infinity Entertainment Group are all owned by a company called Infinity Resources. Except for the hopefully still coming Jim Bowie Season Two, I think the Critic's Choice label may be done. All their new releases are now coming out on the Infinity Entertainment Group label. So far these include: Adventures Of Jim Bowie: The Complete Series, Hopalong Cassidy: The Complete Series, Sergeant Preston: The Complete Series, Suspense, The Real McCoys S1, and a Bozo title.

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How does this bode for the possibility of THE NAKED CITY--even in the context of Season boxes and the early half-hour shows?

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I noticed that too, Bob. What's interesting is that Roxbury is the group that put out this 11 episode set I picked up from Amazon. Perhaps they really do own the rights and will use Infinity Ent. as a distributor (looking for a better word but can't think of one right now). That would be the best bet at this point, IMHO. I'm keeping my fingers crossed for good news on this front.

Gary "Since the set I bought from Amazon is good quality, I'd be in favor of Roxbury putting out Season sets - looks like they'd do a good job" O.

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duplicate post, sorry

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And not to hijack the thread away from "Route 66" (since that's the title), but while we are on Critics Choice I thought I'd also mention this concern in light of my belief that Bob Hug is right about them moving away from PD releases and working under Infinity - it's looking more and more like we will not see a follow up CC set for "Jim Bowie." Right now, the only thing the CC website is showing is the 1st Season set and the newer Infinity Complete Show release. Looks like those of us that bought Season 1 may be shut out of Season 2 unless we want to double dip. I'm not real happy about that development.

Gary "I also noticed the CC Classic section disappeared somewhere around the first of the year - definitely another sign they are phasing things out" O.

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Wow, this is tremendous news! Like Bob wrote, two of the greatest tv dramas of all time ("Fugitive" and "Route 66") are now finally getting their just due and are just around the corner.

One of the great things about this series getting released to DVD is that there is considerable nostalgia for the old Route 66 highway with several websites devoted to the history and preservation of what has in effect become a national monument. The series release on dvd could potentially gain a lot of exposure just on these sites I happened across in doing a little searching on the net. Doing a google search yields tons of stuff like this:

http://www.route66superstore.com/

http://www.genordell.com/stores/spirit/route66.htm

http://www.national66.org/super_store/index.html

http://timvp.com/route66.html

http://www.route66giftshop.com/store/

And then there is this site where I discovered two recently published books about the "Route 66" series. No doubt this site will spread the word about the series coming to DVD (and in fact I helped matters a bit by informing the the person maintaining the site about the news Bob Gudera posted):

http://rwarn17588.wordpress.com/?s=r...chbutton=go%21

Michael "It may be time for Gary and me to change our want list to 'Route 66 (S2-4)'" ks

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I still think pricing will be an issue. We all surmise there's a declining demand for TV on DVD that's 40+ years old due to demographics. The market supports recent shows that are better known with a wider audience, but older stuff is iffy. (Witness the studios apparently abandoning LITB, HGWT etc.)

How many $40 half-season sets will Critic's Choice (or whatever vendor) of R66 need to sell to call it a success? (Thus encouraging the release of later seasons.) Wouldn't the demand be greater at $20? This isn't meant to devalue Hank's post upthread, for whom price apparently is no object.

Maybe I've been spoiled by overall declining prices of season sets in the past few years (excepting HBO releases.) Or maybe I'm just cheap.

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I'm inclined to agree with you on this. We've become accustomed to the $35-40 price structure for an entire season's worth of 60 minute shows to several classic series ("Wild Wild West", "Mission: Impossible", "Rawhide") that we've become increasingly disgruntled over releases on an aging format actually going up in price (and considerably in the cases of shows like "The Big Valley"). There are two camps when it comes to the pricing issue, those that feel like you and I do and those who always remember what they purchased for Columbia House videotapes and the like. I'm sorry, I'm not buying into that. A small outfit like Liberation Entertainment is managing to release season sets of "Daniel Boone" that can be purchased for under $35 so I see no reason why Paramount, Fox and other much larger studios can't follow suit.

I'll pay more for series like "Route 66" and "The Fugitive" because to me they represent the penulitmate of classic tv drama, but I plan to do alot of shopping around and waiting a bit (like I did with "Rawhide" S2, vol. 1).

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Interesting that this episode it re-teams "Naked City" alumni Horace MaMahon (Lt. Mike Parker) and Harry Bellaver (Sgt. Frank Arcaro) about 5 months after that series concluded its 4 year run.

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Indeed. Quoting Wikipedi there was an in-joke:

"At one point, his (McMahon's) character confesses to Linc his failed ambition to be a policeman. Linc remarks that he looks like a policeman Linc 'once knew in New York City'."

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It occurred to me that most likely deepdiscount.com will be listing this item for approximately $29.99 and then will probably hold their semi annual 20% off sale within a couple weeks following initial release. That would bring this half season set down to a very sensible $23 to $24 level.

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If DDD has that sale. I'm ready Thanks to some cool tips from you guys. I hope that the recent DDD "Supersale" coupon code sale wasn't their summer sale. But Route 66 wouldn't apply to the sale, right? Since it would be a pre-order? How did that line go? "Get your kicks on Route 66"?

If there's another sale at DDD, I hope it's doesn't expire until the end of the month. I have 4 in the cart that are July releases.

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Deep Discount will definitely be the place to pick this up if CC is involved because they have always had the best discounts for Critics Choice stuff. There's a chance the starting price may even be $25 and with the potential 20% off discount sale in late November that could bring the price down to only $20!!! But even if the starting price is closer to $30 at DD, it will be a decent price for such a great series.

Gary "yep, I can pretty much guarantee everyone that DD will be the place to order this set from if price is a concern" O.

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Not true. I limit my spending on my collecting hobbies to $200 a week.
But I also remember the days of $20 blank tapes and $75 film prints. To get a full season of a show for less than it sometimes cost to buy one episode on film, to me that's a pittance. To get a full season at what is cheaper than what 4 blank tapes cost (holding 8 hours at SP), is a joke. I don't care what other sets cost, that's not really the point. For value for the money, anyone who's been collecting for a long time sees DVD prices as insanely cheap.

Just curious but going by your posts I assume you didn't collect when things were more expensive. And I can appreciate collecting on a limited budget. But luckily, as everyone knows, we Baby Boomers have massive amounts of disposable income to spend on this stuff. That's why the industry alots the majority of it's resources to releasing shows from the 50s and 60s and doesn't bother as much with modern shows.

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Hank, I assume that you're being a little sarcastic about this one

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Yes, just a little.