Bewitched Season 1 (1 Viewer)

[Steve Phillips]

That's bunk. I read the same article.

If a couple of shows have audio problems in the original elements, they could simply go to a video source and get the portions they need.

The complete series runs repeatedly on TV Land, for heaven's sake. I myself have all 254 shows on S-VHS as do fans all over the world, so sorry, that excuse doesn't cut it. Besides, even if all elements were lost, they could simply subtitle those brief scenes instead of pulling the shows off the sets altogether.

I bet the U.S. sets will be 100% complete.

 

[Pavan_P]

I heard Tabitha: The Complete Series will be released when Bewitched S1 comes out. I'm sure Gord & Dave will give info on this soon.

 

[David*P]

Where did you hear this, Pavan?

 

[Steve Phillips]

Did anyone else but me notice that they got the name wrong for the "Tabitha" series? In the credits for the original series, they always spelled it "Tabatha".

I know, who cares...

That series was pretty bad. I saw it once or twice during the brief run, and then later on TV Land reruns. Blecch!

 

[David*P]

Actually they changed the spelling of it in the beginning of the 5th season because the spelling with the "A" really bugged Liz.

I found this clip of an article over at Harpies Bizarre which talks about the name.

In the February 1967 edition of Screen Stories ("Elizabeth Montgomery: The Risks I take with My Marriage" by Mike Connolly), Montgomery describes how the name Tabitha was chosen :

"The name was my idea," she explained. "I loved it, because it was so old-fashioned. I got it from one of the daughters of Edward Andrews, the actor. The two Andrews girls are named Tabitha and Abigail. Bill was surprised that I remembered their names, after meeting them only once. Now, really, isn't that just like a man - as though anyone could forget names like Tabitha and Abigail!"

"Anyway, Tabitha is the name I picked for the daughter Dick York and I were supposed to have, when I was actually pregnant on the show, just like Lucy Ball was a few years before me, except that I had a son in real life when 'my time' came instead of a daughter. But, somehow or other, her name came out 'Tabatha' on the credit roll, and that's the way it's been ever since. Honestly, I shudder every time I see it. It's like a squeaky piece of chalk scratching on my nerves."

 

[Carlos Garcia]

Yeah, I've always heard Elizabeth Montgomery was a real "b*tch" in real life. I guess this was just another of her nitpicks.

 

[ScottR]

I've always heard that Elizabeth Montgomery was a fine lady. She really got involved in civil liberties after Dick Sergent came out of the closet, and they remained very close until his death.

 

[David*P]

You must've heard that from bitter people like old Jackie Cooper in the I Dream of Jeannie book......because I've never heard that about EM ever!

 

[David*P]

So, apparently no word on this yet? Or was it just a joke? All though this series really is not very good I still want it

 

[David Lambert]

I figure that no word on this could come from the studio before a couple of more months passes, at the least.

 

[David*P]

I guess I should've figured on that coming from Sony...

....I just thought of something horrible! What if "Tabitha" was released before BW?!!!

 

[David Lambert]

Don't worry, that's not gonna happen.

My thought was that IF Tabitha was coming, then it would not ship any sooner than Bewitched S1. And based on the theater debut date of the new film, I expect BW S1 to be announced in approximately two more months, for a street date just before the film's expected July 8 debut.

Gonna be a busy summer for big films and remakes:
5/6 Monster-in-Law, Hitchhiker's Guide/Galaxy, House of Wax
5/19 something called "Star Wars"
5/27 Longest Yard, Madagascar
6/10 Bad News Bears
6/17 Batman Begins
6/24 Dukes of Hazzard, Herbie: Fully Loaded
6/29 War of the Worlds
7/8 Bewitched, Fantastic Four
7/15 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Honeymooners


That 15 titles, and I'm leaving out a LOT, but you get my drift! It might get really easy for some of the TV show remakes, like Bewitched (and Dukes and especially Honeymooners) to get lost in the crowd. Fantastic Four is going to have to suck horribly, Hulk-remake-style, in order for Bewitched to not get overshadowed. And from some of the things I've heard, it might just suck, but we won't know for sure until we see real audience reaction to it.

I'd be surprised if I saw even half of those in theaters. The rest will just wait until Wal-Mart debuts the DVDs at around $14.24.

Until those DVDs hit, I'll be comfortably at home watching Elizabeth Mongomery in...BEWITCHED! (and maybe, just maybe, Tabitha, and maybe maybe maybe even some TV-on-DVD sets for the short-run Bad News Bears TV show, the two-season-long War Of The Worlds series, and a newly released season set of them good ol' boys).

 

[David*P]

Not quite DVD related but Bewitched related none-the-less, Entertainment Tonight is going to be running a piece about Elizabeth Montgomery's marriages tonight in conjunction with the release of a new book about her life.

You can read more about the ET segment here. Take note that they incorrectly state that the year of death was 1985. She actually passed away in 1995.

You can order the new book here.

 

[David*P]

I'm getting so antsy about when we'll finally hear from Sony about BW on DVD officially that I decided to take a look at the time frame between the original TV show being released on DVD to the movie version of the show being released. Let's take a look at three other titles from Sony's library as well as one non-Sony production:

Movie: Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle
Original USA premiere: 6/18/2003
DVD release of TV Show: 5/27/2003
First official announcement of TV DVD: 2/22/2003

Movie: S.W.A.T.
Original USA premiere: 8/8/2003
TV DVD release: 6/3/2003
First official announcement of TV DVD: 3/10/2003

Movie: Starsky and Hutch
Original USA Premiere: 2/26/2004
TV DVD release: 3/2/2004
First official announcement of TV DVD: 12/23/2003

Non-Sony release:
Movie: Dukes of Hazzard
Original USA Premiere: 6/24/2005
TV DVD release (3rd season): 5/31/2005
First official announcement of TV DVD: 2/23/2005

I thought there might be a set pattern but as you can see there wasn't. Dukes fans had it the best as their show was released on DVD ONE YEAR before the movie hits the big srcreen.

So all in all.....any time now, Sony, any time.....and the sooner the better!

*Info provided by imdb.com and tvshowsondvd.com

 

[Jeff Willis]

David,

Great post. I've wondered how firm this "movie/TV-DVD tie-in" stuff was actually reality. Since most of us here are TV/DVD collectors first and movie fans second (at least, I am ) I'm hoping for the "no-tie-in" theory holding up for my "fanatic" TV/DVD dream sets, both "bionic" series

 

[David*P]

Thanks Jeff! I'm glad someone else benefitted from my bored-at-work research

Here's to hoping your wish comes true about the "Bionic" series.

p.s. As a BW and Bionic tie-in, Jim Carrey had been considering the role of Darrin in the BW movie but he didn't like the script that came up as well as it taking too long for a script to be finalized so he signed on to play in the Bionic man movie instead.

 

[David*P]

So big rumour from the Harpies Bizarre message boards.

A poster named RP, who has contacts with Sony, posted this:



This seems to be a reasonable date (and I have emailed Gord and Dave to check up on this) as it's a little over two weeks from the release of the movie. Also this backs up Parvan's posting from a little bit ago about Tabitha being released.

 

[Jeff Willis]

David,

Thanks for the info. I sent an e-mail to the TSoD masters as well

Also, a big "Bionic" thanks for the thought on those 2 bionic series

As for "Tabitha", I admit that I'll get that one on a semi-blind-buy since, if I recall, I only saw a couple of them but I thought it was kinda cool at the time and I was a Lisa Hartman fan at the time as well...enough reasons to get the DVD's.

 

[TheBat]

I have heard that bewitched the movie will now be released on june 24 instead of july 8th.

JACOB

 

[David Lambert]

Decision to post about this is in Gord's hands, after he talked to Sony.

Jacob, I find nothing about a date change for the film...where did you hear it? Nothing about it at Variety or IMDB or Sony's sites.