All-Time Worst DVD Packaging - Page 3

As bad as "digipak's" may be I will take them over cardboard foldouts with disks jammed into the cardboard slots before the glue is even dry.

I agree with the OP: far and away the worst is the I Dream of Jeannie set.  Cheaply made, ugly, inconvenient, no episode guide.  All that's really wrong with The Simpsons S11 is the tightness of sleeves.  It's not inconveniently sized and includes the booklet. 

Well, again--it's going to take up too much room in the U.K. then, because there were 10 seasons and each season only had about 6 episodes. In the U.S. there were 14 volumes in standard-sized dvd cases; when they released it as a complete boxed set, they didn't bother to repackage the discs, so the whole thing took up a lot of room. And I also had Grace and Favour to content with. So out went the cases and my home is now far less cluttered lol

The BBC (at least in the UK) are often slow to release their "classic" stuff. I guess they either perceive a small market or (more likely) the potential to wring more cash out of the customer by doing each series one at a time. As for not reissuing the complete boxes in smaller packaging (such as digipaks), I don't think the American office of the BBC usually do that. They just take the cheap/easy way out (reuse all the individual art/cases and just put them all in a slipcover). In the UK, the BBC sometimes issues a complete set in smaller packaging where the individuals were all in Amarays (such as the Steptoe and Fry & Laurie examples I mentioned above) but other times, they just add a slipcover to the existing ones (such as Worst Week of My Life). I doubt they'll issue a condensed-packaged set here in R1,  but they might in R2. Of course, edited versions of some of the episodes sneaked onto the R2s, so even with bulky packaging and the episodes not being divided series-by-series, we have the superior release over here.

 

^ This. Exactly half of the 20 discs in my copy of this set were floating free and looked like they had been scoured by sandpaper...and this was right out of the box! The three-ring binder packaging was awkward, and the damn plastic case wouldn't even stay put unless the this was lying on its side. No wonder BJ's was selling copies of this for only $30 last year (before the superior second printing of the complete series was released). Dreadful.

The first round of releases of Star Trek:TNG and DS9 in the UK, the ones in the hard plastic cases, were nice but there was a big problem with the actual mini-digipak thing inside, in that the disc holder gripped the discs *way* too tight at the hub. This invariably caused the discs to start cracking with bits flaking off around the central hole because of the huge difficulty in getting the damn things on and off (as well as having to bend the discs alarmingly). But the grip was so tight that even in storage it eventually wrecked the discs. I read about it and went to me collection and eventually sent off 21 discs to Paramount to replace (which they did). They changed the maker of the digistaks a couple of seasons of DS9 in. I went through my older sets and filed down the grippers with a nail file!

 

There is always a problem with any packaging that has "Scanavo" written on it. Same problem, they grip the discs way too tight, it;s a fight to get them off (again, out comes the nail file)

 

I'm not a great fan of weird packaging because it;s so often designed to look good but lousy in every other respect.

 

The Man from UNCLE complete set is great though. The outer "briefcase" box looks lovely, and it's very solidly built, whilst inside they have sensibly just put in the four sets in their standard packaging.

 

The "coffin sets" released by Anchor Bay here in the UK were notoriously bad. They put five discs in a card box shaped like a coffin . It hinged open and the discs are held in a sort of fanfold affair attached to the lid. But the "hinge" is just a bit of sticky tape, and the disc holders are just rubber bumps....

Outerlimits and Relic Hunter are also contenders. The disks are on top of each other and held in place by a weak clip system that does not hold. You have to be very careful when you open the case because the disk become lose very quickly. I have already complained to Amazon.ca about this issue and they have forwarded to the manufacturer the issues. However, i doubt that anything will be done.

How about ANY set that offers no episode content notes – as so many Warner animation sets have done in recent times. 

 

Sat AM Cartoons sets, Tom and Jerry the Chuck Jones Collection, Ruby-Spears Superman, What’s New Scooby-Doo volumes, to name a few! 

 

If you have a set of many cartoons, at least LIST what they are, somewhere within the packaging! 

 

I shouldn’t have to go to the Internet, or some research book, to find out what they are! 

 

THAT, to me, is BAD packaging! 

In my collection, my vote goes to S2 of The Munsters. The flimsy cardboard of Herman's head was a dumb idea. I actually liked the S1 box and wish they had stuck with that.

 

I actually don't mind the Sex and the City clear plastic season releases. When Walmart had them on clearance, you had your choice of those and the newer white boxes and I chose the original clear ones because I liked the graphics and photos better. I doubt I'll be rewatching them enough for the plastic folds to break anyway.

In the UK, the first release of the first series of the new Doctor Who came in a massive box shaped like the TARDIS.

 

Which fell to bits after you opened it two or three times.

 

So it was both huge and crap.