A couple of weeks ago we
reported on MPI's second, and presumably final, multi-DVD box set for
The Beverly Hillbillies on DVD. The majority of the episodes of that series have always (in the DVD era) been owned by a company under Paramount Home Entertainment's umbrella, and MPI - like dozens of other studios - only released the episodes whose rights were not exclusively held by Paramount. The main difference was MPI's effort: they worked with the family of creator Paul Henning and restored the video and audio, and obtained rights to "The Ballad of Jed Clampett" (the show's theme song) and included original sponsor ads woven right into the opening credits of the show, complete with the cast eyeballing the ads as they drove by.
Now that MPI's run of available episodes is up, it seems that Paramount is going to jump into the cement pond of
Hillbillies DVDs. Paramount Home Entertainment's press site is now listing a folder (currently empty) which is labeled "Beverly Hillbillies"; this usually means that a DVD title is in the works and can be expected in the months to come. Since Paramount has announced their January slate (though it's never too late for a change) and quite a bit of their February slate as well, it may be that we won't see this (whatever it turns out to be) until sometime later in the year. Paramount was unable to comment on this and other titles when we attempted to reach them late this afternoon, but pledged to look into them for us early next week. So stay tuned, and we'll let you know what we find out!
UPDATE April, 2006:
Paramount has now removed that folder from their press site, so it looks like their plans have changed and they won't be doing this show after all, at least not right away. As the Americanized version of the quote from Scottish poet Robert Burns goes, "the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry."
