Punky brewster season 4 question (1 Viewer)

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

LOL Matt, it would be hilarious if that happened again.

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

We are now into April, and still no word on the final season.I wonder if this new shout factory distribution deal, means itll take longer for the release.I hope not.

 

[MatthewA]

I don't know what is going on, but maybe (and this is based entirely on speculation): Sony Pictures Television, which had no involvement in these discs despite owning US syndication rights and producing the last two seasons, got wind of these DVDs and wants a cut. It was more than a year between seasons 2 and 3.

I will not pay one thin dime for compilations of episodes I already own.

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

I agree , since I already have the 3 seasons no reason to buy the comp discs.But what if those comp discs have a few season 4 episodes, and at that point season 4 still doesnt have a box set? I might have to get those then.

 

[MatthewA]

I also read in another thread that when Universal allowed third parties to license TV shows (which is how Shout! got ahold of McHale's Navy and Ironside, and TV Guide got Banacek), they charged a fortune in licensing fees.

I've learned that with this show patience is a virtue. What's gonna be? Guess we'll just wait and see.

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

I was just looking at an old news item on tv shows on dvd.com dated 4/8/06.It said that shout already had the rights to season 4 and was already working on it.

 

[Scott_J]

Plans change. Just because TSoD reported, in a year-old article, that S4 was being worked on doesn't mean it'll ever be released (or that it was ever being worked on, they may have gotten bad information from Shout!). Do you know how many articles (at TSoD and elsewhere) have reported that a certain show will be released, only for it to never be released (or be released years later)?

Believe me, if there's an official announcement for S4 TSoD will report on it and it'll be posted here. Until then, can you please stop bumping this thread every other day?

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

Sorry for bumping this thread again, but this time I have a good reason.Last week dvd file.com posted a news item stating that the best of dvds, coming in July are simply going to be season 4 split up in volumes !!! I hope this is a mistake, or a typo or something.

 

[Tory]

I read it on Shout Factory's forum in an unrelasted thread about C.O.P.S. that these are just the individual discs of previous season releases. So I think 6 volumes are Seasons 1 Disc 1-4 and Season 2 discs 1-2.

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

I hope youre right, but shout factory usually isnt so hush hush about stuff like this, strange.

 

[Tory]

http://www.shoutfactory.com/community/210/thread.aspx


this was posted by B Ward who is Producer/Manager, DVD & Home Video at Shout Factory and the go to guy there.

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

Well,I guess that means we wont be seeing season 4 this summer.

 

[MatthewA]

Whom do they think are going to buy the single disc releases? The majority of people who want this show have probably already bought seasons 1-3, and if they were waiting, they would spend less money buying the season sets ($9.99 each for 4 discs a season versus an MSRP of $34.95, which can be had online for as low as $20.95).

The fans want season 4. We do not want single-disc reissues of stuff we already have.

Between this and the recent revelation that the Ozzie and Harriet DVD set is made up of the same syndicated tapes the Disney Channel aired in the 1980s, I'm really starting to lose patience with Shout! Factory.

 

[Scott_J]

Who are they marketing the single-disc releases to? The same people who buy "best ofs" of shows like The Simpsons, Married ... With Children, The Brady Bunch, The Andy Griffith Show, etc., instead of the season sets. People who just want a few episodes of the show for nostalgia purposes, or whatever, instead of complete seasons.

Does that include most of the people on HTF or similar forums? No. Does that include the average Best Buy or Wal-Mart shopper who sees a $5-10 single disc of Punky near a $30 season set and buys the former? Certainly. That is who Shout! is expecting to buy the new releases.

Am I happy to see them going this route instead of completing the seasons? No, but I can understand them doing it, from a financial standpoint? Absolutely - get the sales of the casual viewers/impulse buyers who don't want to plunk down $30 for a season-one set.

 

[MatthewA]

Sorry to bump such an old thread, but Shout responded:


Well considering having to go thru Universal (the original licensing deal was made before GE bought Universal), no advertising, no difference in cover photo between seasons despite Punky's S3 hairstyle change, minimal extras on S3, and Heaven knows where they got the masters (season 1 had picture glitches, season 2 had distorted sound, and season 3 seemed to have overdone DVNR rendering wide shots rather soft and removing detail), there is a glimmer of hope.

Just be glad Fox doesn't own it. Fox apparently is apathetic to the existence of any pre-1990 TV programming that doesn't have Alan Alda in it.

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

Thanks for updating us Matt,Im hoping we will see it by end of year. I just hope, they dont use the new best ofs sales , as an excuse to not release season 4.I know I certainly wont be buying them since I have the whole 3 seasons.Seriously , when they decide to release season 4, they better get 1 of the cast members for an interview.If they dont I bet this will sell even less than season3 .Lets not forget , many consider this the worst season of the show.Ill get it for completions sake, and that I hardly remember anything in this season.

 

[MatthewA]

If it does sell poorly, what are they going to do, not release the non-existent season 5? Repossess our copies of it? If they want it to break even, try buying TV ad space on children's TV networks like Nickelodeon and Noggin, or anything nostalgia-oriented like TV Land. People can't buy what they don't know exists. The people who make TV show DVDs are going to have to start taking more chances with these things. It's been less than five years since we started seeing shows get DVD released (and I never expected Punky to be one of them), and they've already become ossified in their thinking.

IMO I thought season 4 was about on par with season 3 in terms of quality, but I'm glad the show ended before it could see a long protracted decline like other series.

 

[John*P]

I'm not sure I buy the whole "sales of Season 3 have nothing to do with why we haven't released Season 4" talk from Shout! If sales had met their expectations, we'd probably be getting Season 4 released on DVD next month instead of the lame single-disc volumes. Also, since Shout! has been releasing one Punky DVD set each year for the past 3 years, I'm worried that these single-disc volumes may be the only Punky DVDs they release this year... (I hope they prove me wrong) Well, at least the post from Shout! has a somewhat optimistic tone, and I'm now expecting Season 4 to be released eventually...

I agree that Season 4 is on par with Season 3 quality-wise.

 

[Xenia Stathakopoulou]

Well, it seems those best of punky volume 1 -6 were cancelled on amazon.com it says no longer available.I cant say im suprised, because the majority of punky fans have the 3 seasons released.Now they need to release season 4 already !!!!!!!!

 

[Tory]

If they could release season 4, there would probably be some holdouts for the first 3 seasons finally getting all seasons in one swoop for the assurance of two complete series. Perhaps they could collect them all in a collectible Punky Brewster Bust.