LAND OF THE GIANTS! - Where Are You? (1 Viewer)

Now that the entire LOST IN SPACE series has been released on DVD, as well as the initial seasons of THE TIME TUNNEL and VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA, when will we see my favorite of all Irwin Allen TV series on DVD - LAND OF THE GIANTS? During the 60's when my buddies were fighting over Mary Ann and Ginger, I spent my boyhood fantasies dreaming about Deanna Lund, who played Valerie in the series.

JOE

I agree. Deanna is very lovely.

Presumably, Land of the Giants will get consideration based on how well the current Irwin Allen sets are doing, in addition to the perceived amount of interest. With Time Tunnel all out now, Giants is likely being discussed.

I was in love with Valerie before i knew what the feeling was. Didnt every pre teen boy love here more than Mary Ann?
I still have my Land of the Giants lunch box from 1969!

I was a teen back then too, but I always found the 'girl-next-door' looks of Heather Young more to my fancy!



Harry

Technically, Land of the Giants was released on dvd a few years ago--but not in season sets. It was only available through Columbia House mail-order subscription, although now its OOP. There were ten volumes total. The entire first season on vols. 1-8 and about 6 shows from season 2 on vols. 9-10. That's probably why Fox decided to release the other Irwin Allen shows in season sets first because there wasn't much of a market for Giants since it had already been released.

girl next door? as opposed to an apartment dweller?

Don't think this had anything to do with it as most people were not willing to pay the high price of the Columbia House single disc method and the episodes were not remastered in High Definition like the Fox releases. When Time Tunnel and Voyage were 1st annouced it was announced that Time Tunnel, Voyage and Land of the Giants were all being remastered in High Def. for future DVD releases. They chose Time and Voyage 1st because they are more popular than Giant although Giant is my 2nd choice of the Irwin Allen shows after Voyage. Now that Time Tunnel has been completed it can be expected that Giants will fill the Time Tunnel spot on the release schedule meaning theres a good chance we will see the 1st volume in November.

Don't think this had anything to do with it due to the fact that Land of the Giants was released on dvd in 2003 before Time and Voyage. That's probably why Fox decided to release the other Irwin Allen shows in season sets first because there wasn't much of a market for Giants since it had already been released.

Don't think this had anything to do with it due to the fact that Land of the Giants was released on dvd in 2003 before Time and Voyage. That's probably why Fox decided to release the other Irwin Allen shows in season sets first because there wasn't much of a market for Giants since it had already been released.[/quote]

The only problem with this is the majority of the DVD buying public either don't know about or don't care about Columbia House so I don't think Fox considered this a real release. I knew about the Columbia House release and never considered it the real release and have waited for Fox to release it remastered, with better packaging and a much better price. I bought many shows on VHS from Columbia in the 80's and 90's and I know when a show dissapears from them its not because its sold out its due to lack of sales which then would of course raise e-bay prices to those who still want it and to those who did not know about it.

Randy, thanks for the info. Sounds logical to me. Would be great to see the first season/Part 1 LAND OF THE GIANTS DVD release this fall.
Harry, thanks for posting the pic of Valerie and Betty from the show. Man, wish I had a set of bookends like those in my library.

JOE

I don't understand your logic at all. All I stated was the truth. Whether or not you consider the Columbia House dvds a "real" release or not, you can't deny the fact that Land of the Giants was released on the dvd format. I also ordered many shows from Columbia House, too, and when I first tried to order the Land of the Giants dvds, I spoke to a representive on the phone and they told me the Giants dvds were sold out because they ran out of their inital run because they were not anticipating such strong sales.

Same thing happened to me too, Ron. They sold out real fast. But if they weren't well mastered, and didn't get through the entire series, then I'm glad I never got 'em!

I was so angered at Columbia House over this issue that I'm actually happy they're out of business. I'm one of the faithful who stuck by this overpriced outfit and completed the full compliment of TWILIGHT ZONE episodes, paying hansomely and receiving the many episodes over a number of years, with a large gap of time where I thought it was all over.

I received regular mailings after that, usually two or three a month, with the hopes that one day, my favorite show, TIME TUNNEL would show up in their brochures, but it never did.

Imagine my shock and surprise to find on the Internet, a secret club of Tunnel-ies, magically receiving episodes of TIME TUNNEL from Columbia House. I tried everything I could - phone numbers, emails - and no-one at Columbia House would ever acknowledge that they were releasing TIME TUNNEL on VHS. The only fact that kept me from going to "the top" on this issue was the fact that I didn't really WANT overly expensive VHS tapes, I wanted DVDs by this time.

That's when I got wind of the LAND OF THE GIANTS DVDs, and again, tried everything I could to get in on the entrance to this deeply held secret club. But again, I was denied, and still I don't understand why. But if this was their standard business practice, then they deserve to be out of it.

Thankfully, FOX is taking care of things. Their efforts on TIME TUNNEL and VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA have been exemplary, making up for the shoddy work on LOST IN SPACE. I have every confidence that LAND OF THE GIANTS, SEASON ONE VOLUME ONE will appear on shelves soon, perhaps this fall, perhaps by winter.

Harry

Ron as Harry is also pointing out they were not well advertised and not available in retail stores or online stores so that is what I meant by a real release. Its great that you got them but most either didn't know about the release, couldn't get it or wanted to wait for remastered episodes from Fox at a much lower price. So as far as Fox and the non-Columbia House members are concerned there has been no release and a small# of Columbia House sales is not going to influence a release decision for a company as large as Fox. Land of the Giants is less popular than Voyage and Time Tunnel and Fox knows this and that is why they are releasing it 3rd if Columbia House sales were that big of a factor they would still be in business. That is the point I was making.

I stand corrected. I watched one of my old LAND OF THE GIANTS episodes last night, the series pilot "The Crash" which I had taped off the USA channel around 1990. Heather Young, the stewardess who played Betty, was anything but the girl-next-door, looking fine in her tight-fitting uniform. To put it bluntly, this babe was a real bombshell. Guess I will have to be content watching my old taped episodes until LOTG comes out on DVD, hopefully this fall.

I'm surprised it's not as popular as The Time Tunnel & Voyage to The Bottom Of The Sea. I had never even heard of The Time Tunnel before I registered here, and when I was a kid I did see a few episodes of Voyage, but it's not something I'm interested in buying. Now if Land Of The Giants gets released, I'm so buying it. I just hope they release it in just two sets of each season.

I agree, Columbia House completely SUCKED (grossly overpriced being only one of their many problems) and undoubtedly only a very very very small percentage of the potential market bought Giants DVDs from them. I strongly doubt that the Columbia House Giants DVD release had anything at all to do with Tunnel and Voyage being released in season sets first. For example, Tunnel was being broadcast every day on Starz before and during its DVD release, so that "no market" theory would apply even more strongly to Tunnel than it would to Giants, since people could just turn on their TVs to watch Time Tunnel (and record it with their DVRs if they wanted to), so I don't think that "no market" theory holds up. Neither the Columbia House thing nor the Starz thing had anything to do with it imo. Personally I think it was just perceived popularity - Lost in Space first, then TT and VTBOS. Land of the Giants should be next hopefully.

I own LIS complete on DVD, although it is DVD transfers than I made from my Columbia House VHS tapes (ran them through a time base corrector and they look pretty nice, better than the VHS did), and I own TT complete, but again my DVDs were made from my TIVO recordings of the Starz showings. I bought volume 1 of VTBOS, but I just didn't care for it after all these years, so I won't be completing it. I will however complete Giants when/if it is released on DVD. It was one of my favorite shows as a kid, I still have a couple of the novels which were released at the time, and I have some VHS recordings from when it was last broadcast on SciFi. I know I still like it. I just wonder whether the studio would begin releasing it before they completely release VTBOS - maybe, maybe not. Hopefully we will see it before long though.

Dan

I have all the Land Of the Giants DVD's that were released by Columbia House. They consisted of the entire first season and the first 3 episodes from the second season.
I have to say IMO the quality was excellent. The prints look georgeous and are totally uncut, with each episode clocking in at approx 51 minutes.
I can easily wait for an official Fox release as my columbia house dvd's are the real deal..

Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea Season 2 Part 1 is listed on Amazon.com for a 10/24 DVD release. Hopefully some Land Of The Giants DVD release news will be heading our way soon.

I doubt this is a factor in their decision, as people stated the limited and expensive nature of this release will have greatly reduced availability.

But it should also be noted that Columbia did an identical release for Alien Nation. Which also sold out and went for serious wedge on eBay. It was that very interest that persuaded the studios to do a more traditional season box set at a much lower price.

Re-releasing OOP items has never been an issue for studios anyway. If they think they'll sell enough copies they'll release them. I'd certainly buy an LotG set.