Animal House / Nation Lampoons Vacation on DVD? (1 Viewer)

[Jim Tressler]

Hello All!

Is Animal House out of print? Cant find it anywhere, everyone is "out of stock"..

Finally, the only version of National Lampoon's Vacation and Vegas Vacation that I can find is P&S .. are there widescreen versions of these?

thanks!

jim

 

[Bjorn Olav Nyberg]

Animal house has been out of print for a long time now, unfortunately. No idea why, or if it will come back. And also, the national lampoon dvd's are all fullscreen I think, with only one exception, the one Ron reviewed. (European vacation?)

 

[Scott Merryfield]

The only "Vacation" film released on DVD in its original aspect ratio is European Vacation. The others are open matte transfers. If you have a 16x9 TV, you can zoom the picture and get framing very close to the OAR (with a loss of resolution, though).

 

[Bjorn Olav Nyberg]

Sorry, I miswrote badly in my post. I wrote that the National lampoon DVD's are all fullscreen with one exception, I of course meant to write National lampoon vacation DVD's, not National lampoon in general.

 

[Aaron Silverman]

That's bizarre--European Vacation is by far the worst of them!

I didn't realize that Animal House went OOP. Dang.

 

[ChadM]

Actually I got Animal House from Columbia House just recently, you may want to give that a try!

 

[Marvin]

I haven't checked recently but you can generally find Animal House on eBay or half.com for $20 or so. (I was able to get mine for $20 due to a $5 off half.com coupon.) I think there are two versions: a collector's edition and one that isn't.

 

[Jim Tressler]

thanks chad.. just ordered it (Widescreen) from Columbiahouse.. forgot all about my membership with them
jim

 

[Steve_Knutzen]

I hope that there'll be a new edition hopefully with Landis contributing.

 

[Matthew H]

I believe Landis' was approached at the chat here last year about Animal House beeing OOP. He said something along the lines of him not even knowing it was unavailable and doesn't look like a new edition will be released anytime soon. Although, its 25th anniversary is next year.
As for the Vacations, they were early releases when Warner was testing the DVD market and OAR wasn't really a big priority. Most of their first wave titles were in P&S only. European wasn't released back in 1997 because it's considered by fans as the weakest of the series, but was now due to Warner releasing a lot of their older catalog titles (although I'm still waiting for the Police Academy's : ). They decided to do it right as they tend to with it in WS.

 

[Matt Birchall]

I am still seeing copies of Universal's "Campus Comedy Classics" box set at my local Best Buy. The box includes Fast Times at Ridgemont High, American Pie (Unrated-Widescreen) (I think--might be the R-rated version), and the Animal House: Collector's Edition (widescreen).

Somewhere around $80, but not bad if you consider that its nearly impossible to find Animal House now, and if you need or want Fast Times and American Pie (or you could always sell those off to recoup your losses).

What's Animal House going for now on Ebay, anyway?

(EDITED after reading above post: Only $20 or so? I would figure they'd be going for at least a little more than that, maybe $30 or so. In that case, that $80 box set probably isn't that great of a deal. . .)

-mwb-

 

[Aaron Silverman]

Remember folks: the non-SE of Animal House is Pan & Scam!!!

 

[Scott Merryfield]

Remember folks: the non-SE of Animal House is Pan & Scam!!!

I found this out the hard way. This was one of the first DVD titles I purchased when I first got into DVD in 1998. It didn't even occur to me that some titles were pan & scan. Luckily, I sold it and upgraded to the CE, and learned a valuable lesson.

 

[Yee-Ming]

Animal House will be available in R4 on 19 June:-
ezydvd.com.au

 

[Veli-Matti Reitti]

I didn't realize that Animal House went OOP. Dang.

I was also unaware of this. Most retailers simply state that it's on moratorium. Well what do they know? Damn shame i was looking forward to getting this one.

 

[Malcolm Cleugh]

The Aus is identical to the UK R2 release from earlier this year. It contains the same approx 1 hour doc as the US SE.
One word of warning is the picture although w/s is NOT anamorphic despite claiming this on the back sleeve. This is also confirmed as the case with from Aus reviews eg michaeldvd. However from US reviews I have seen they state the anamorphic picture on it was very poor so probably little difference.

 

[Jeff Adkins]

The Aus is identical to the UK R2 release from earlier this year. It contains the same approx 1 hour doc as the US SE.
One word of warning is the picture although w/s is NOT anamorphic despite claiming this on the back sleeve. This is also confirmed as the case with from Aus reviews eg michaeldvd.

Michaeldvd's review says it is anamorphic.
Are you sure?
I just ordered the Aussie version yesterday. I hope I got the best version.
Jeff

 

[Neil White]

Campus Comedy Classics can be had from DVD Empire for $68.

N

 

[LukeB]

I don't believe that the Vacation movies are just open matte. At least the first one looks heavily cropped and extremely oddly-framed if it is just open-matte.

One scene that looks really bad is the one when Clark is being hit up for money at Eddie's place. Ellen gets partially cut out of the frame if I'm not mistaken and it's noticeably irritating.

 

[Malcolm Cleugh]

Jeff,

I think we are talking at cross purposes.
I was referring to Animal House which is NOT anamorphic in UK & Aus despite packaging stating it is and the US version being so. I wanted to warn people as this caught me and others out.

Probably confusing as discussing 2 films in same thread.

I agree that Vacation is anamorphic w/s in both UK and Aus as I have had the UK version from WB for some time.

Regards

Malcolm