What's new

Fess Parker Daniel Boone series (1 Viewer)

michael_ks

Screenwriter
Joined
Aug 2, 2005
Messages
1,295
My inquiry to Liberation Entertainment last week resulted in this positive reply from the VP of Sales and Distribution:

Dear Michael,

We hope to put Season's 1 & 2 on DVD by the end of September. It would be
available at most DVD retailers.

Griffin Gmelich
V.P. Sales and Distribution
Liberation Entertainment
1990 Westwood Blvd. - Penthouse
Los Angeles, CA 90025


Would be wonderful indeed if we could get "Daniel Boone" before year's end!

P.S. Ok, I see that this information was just made available on danielboonetv.com. Apparantly, we can expect an official announcement sometime next month.
 

Brett*H

Stunt Coordinator
Joined
May 31, 2005
Messages
219


That's great news! I'm going to be all over this awesome dvd set when it's released! Can't wait to pre-order it! :emoji_thumbsup:
 

Gary OS

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2004
Messages
5,995
Location
Florida
Real Name
Gary
This has been in the works for a while, and I've known about the September date for a couple of weeks but forgot to post that here. The Yahoo group does a great job with updates on this series (that's where I first got word about the Sept. release). I'm buying this one immediately upon release!

Gary "the restoration looks great for this older series" O.
 

Jim-M

Second Unit
Joined
Oct 22, 2001
Messages
266
I think it's a great move to release seasons 1 & 2 at the same time since season 2 is in color and season 1 is not. I will likely start with season 2 for that reason and consider season 1 later on. I look forward showing this show to my boys for the first time.
 

Adson

Auditioning
Joined
Jun 25, 2006
Messages
1
Real Name
Adson Marchiori
Hi, my name is Adson. I'm from Brazil. Daniel Boone was one of my favorites shows, and i´m very pleased to know that will be released in DVD.
Does someone know if will be closed captioned?
My best regards to all of you!
 

michael_ks

Screenwriter
Joined
Aug 2, 2005
Messages
1,295
tvshowsondvd.com just posted the artwork for the box sets for seasons 1 and two--and they look great! I wish Albert Salmi had graced the cover of S1 but I won't quibble. And 8 discs per set! So no flipper discs and almost certainly, little to no audio/video compression. I'm also pleased with the antique look of the sets, somewhat in the style of the HGWT season sets.

I'm really looking forward to this release in September and am ecstatic about getting two seasons at once, since I have vague memories of the B&W season, having seen so few of the episodes and can't wait to also see the restoration work that was done on the color season.
 

Jim-M

Second Unit
Joined
Oct 22, 2001
Messages
266
Amazon now has Daniel Boone seasons 1 & 2 listed for $34.99 each. BarnesandNoble.com has them for $39.98 each. Less than 3 months to go!
 

Jeff#

Screenwriter
Joined
Jan 29, 2005
Messages
1,942
From my memories of 1980s reruns of this classic series, the second season version of the theme song is far superior than the first (it would be changed again in the late 1960s to keep up with the times musically). Of course, as with any series from that period in TV history, color film certainly benefitted the look of the show following the inevitable transition from black & white. It was very unfair that the 1st season was not syndicated back then though, so thanks to tape trading I managed to pick up a few of the early episodes.
 

Jeff#

Screenwriter
Joined
Jan 29, 2005
Messages
1,942
By now you probably are aware that TV Land has begun airing the Daniel Boone series. It started this weekend (August 26 and 27) with a 48 hour marathon of episodes spanning from the pilot from the first season all the way into the 6th season.

3 of the black & white shows including the pilot and "The Ben Franklin Encounter" are on the TVLand.com website as of this typing.

One major inconsistancy is the time period of the show. One of the earliest episodes has a banner hanging in Boonesborough where a square dance is going on at the Boone household. The banner reads the year: 1775. Many of the episodes throughout the series make it quite clear that the storyline takes place before and during the American Revolutionary War, the most political episodes (including the Ben Franklin story) involve the British vs. American conflict, such as Boone wrongly getting arrested for treason. OK, no problem there....

...So how is it that in the 2nd season show "The Aaron Burr Story", Daniel mentions that Burr was vice-president under Thomas Jefferson, and that famous gun duel that occurred when Burr shot Alexander Hamilton in 1804?? Prior to 1787 we Americans had no President. George Washington was still a military general in the 1770s. The writers must have overlooked history for some 30 years to pass in that episode with the returning regulars not looking more than a few months older! :laugh:

Daniel Boone airs at 2 PM in all time zones Monday through Friday on TV Land.
 

Chris S

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Apr 9, 2000
Messages
2,546
Real Name
Chris S

This weekend I was channel surfing and stopped on the marathon. Just so happened the one episode I watched was "The Ben Franklin Encounter". Great episode!! Main reason it caught my eye was because it guest stared Edward Mulhare whom I remembered from watching Knight Rider as a little kid. I wanted to watch more but had prior family commitments. I've never seen the show before but loved the Fess Parker Davy Crockett's "shorts" (not sure how they're technically classified). Are the rest of the episodes about this good? Is the show worthy of a blind buy?
 

michael_ks

Screenwriter
Joined
Aug 2, 2005
Messages
1,295



Here's how episodes of the first two seasons stack up according to a poll done on danielboonetv.com and as you can see, "Ben Franklin Encounter" somewhat set the bar for the inaugural season:

Season 1:
My Brother's Keeper 37%
The Ben Franklin Encounter 22%
Ken-Tuck-E 17%
Not In Our Stars 15%
Tekawitha Macleod 09%

Season 2:
A Rope for Mingo 32%
The Tamarack Massacre Affair 19%
The Trap 17%
A Christmas Story 15%
The Tortoise and the Hare 14%
Perilous Journey 03%

Daniel Boone is consistently entertaining and features some great guest stars, including Walter Pidgeon, Leslie Nielson, Claude Akins and Michael Rennie in S1. Yadkin's Albert Salmi, who appeared in S1 only was a tremendous talent who never received his just due. The second season features other stellar actors, including favorites of mine that may be a tad obscure to most: Royal Dano, Lloyd Bochner and Steve Ihnat. The supporting cast is excellent and the series has a wonderful timelessness about it. I'm also very confident about the packaging, episodes per disc and great care that went into the film restoration process. At $30.24 per season at deepdiscount, one could do a lot worse for vintage tv-dvd value.
 

Bob Hug

Screenwriter
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
1,760

Michael, to anyone who is a fan of classic TV, none of the great character actors that you mentioned are obscure; all of them worked consistently in television and film. Sadly, all but Leslie Nielson have passed on (Lloyd Bochner just last year). I had the opportunity to watch about a half dozen episodes over this past weekend on the TVLand marathon, not having seen them since the original run in the 1960s, and thoroughly enjoyed them. They brought back lots of good memories, and I found myself getting caught up in the stories. Ed Ames' "Mingo" character is a real standout for me. The upcoming DVD sets from Liberation Entertainment were promoted at least once during each of the episodes that I viewed, and the Liberation Entertainment logo was featured prominently at the beginning of each show. My initial reaction, based on the few episodes that I saw, was that Liberation did a better job on the restoration of the color episodes, but certainly the black & white episodes were more than acceptable to my eyes. When you add the bonus material, this looks to be one of the better classic TV releases for the second half of 2006.
 

Jeff#

Screenwriter
Joined
Jan 29, 2005
Messages
1,942
If you checked the copyright date at the beginning (the Liberation logo), the TV Land film prints were done by Liberation in 2003. That means after 3 years, I'd expect they also restored the first season shows as well. You won't know for certain until you buy the DVD sets. Even when I first saw this show in 1980s reruns, the same situation applied then: First season episodes poor quality film prints --- above average quality for the other seasons.

In an interview with Fess Parker and Ed Ames earlier this year, they commented that Albert Salmi had planned from the start to only appear during Daniel Boone's first season. After many years of guest appearances on various shows, it wouldn't be until the mid 1970s that he would be a regular in a TV series again (as Pete during the 2 seasons of the lawyer drama "Petrocelli"). Salmi was also in The Young Riders in the late 1980s. What Fess and Ed didn't say anything about was Albert Salmi's tragic death in 1990 at the age of 61. This is from Internet Movie Database:

 

michael_ks

Screenwriter
Joined
Aug 2, 2005
Messages
1,295

Agreed, Bob, I just thought that most people would not recognize names like Ihnat and Bochner. As they say "the names you can't remember, the faces you can't forget". Well, I'm one of those who remembers the names. And speaking of Bochner, I was saddened too by his passing last year, having enjoyed his many performances in TV's silver age.

As for Albert Salmi, I've had many great conversations with his biographer Sandra Grabman. In her book she recounts how he became so despondant over his wife's proligate ways, leaving them with little money to spare that in order to provide for his children he arranged to set up a big insurance policy, murdered his wife and then committed suicide. Ms. Grabman has numerous memorabilia on Salmi, including a hand written note stating "it appears that the producers no longer want me to play the role of Yadkin".
 

michael_ks

Screenwriter
Joined
Aug 2, 2005
Messages
1,295
With just over 2 weeks to go for the release of the first two seasons on dvd, Daniel Boone fever is reaching new heights in Kentucky as the Governor Ernie Fletcher proclaimed September 26 as "Daniel Boone Day"! Sales of the sets to Kentuckians alone may ensure the release of the remaining seasons.

http://www.danielboonetv.com/Proclamation_sm.pdf
 

Gary OS

Senior HTF Member
Joined
Feb 2, 2004
Messages
5,995
Location
Florida
Real Name
Gary
I'm definitely looking forward to this release. It's been so long since I've watched this show (other than a few snippettes from the recent TVLand marathon). It will be like watching it for the first time.

Gary "Daniel Boone was a man, Yes a great man..." O.
 

Jeff#

Screenwriter
Joined
Jan 29, 2005
Messages
1,942
The lyrics are "Daniel Boone was a man. Yes a BIG man". Well, I'm sure the author of that tune didn't mean well-endowed....or did he? :D
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Latest Articles

Forum statistics

Threads
356,810
Messages
5,123,576
Members
144,184
Latest member
H-508
Recent bookmarks
0
Top