Following up on the
announcement a couple of weeks ago for
The Bob Newhart Show - The Complete 1st Season, we now have the cover art to show you. We appreciate the heads-up from Tom Woodward at DVDAnswers.com, who helped us bring you the look at the packaging, which you'll find at the bottom.
The set consists of 3 double-sided DVDs for a super-low $29.98 SRP. The only extra on this release is the unaired pilot episode, which was later reworked to become the 9th episode "P-I-L-O-T". In the original version, Carol was absent (Marcia Wallace hadn't been cast yet), the office was different, and there were other things changed when the show was picked up.
As for extras on future DVD releases, trade magazine
Video Business has
passed along word (registration required) from Bob Newhart himself about his desire to participate and provide supplements:
The three-disc first-season set of the '70s The Bob Newhart Show ($29.98) will debut on May 24 with no bonus features.
Newhart said he is anxious to help produce bonus features such as interviews with he and his costars and crew as well as include gag reels for the second and subsequent season sets of The Bob Newhart Show.
That would be terrific! But in order to get those extras, the first season will have to sell VERY well to convince Fox that there is a fan base out there who wants to pay the cost of those extras. Don't forget that
The Mary Tyler Moore Show was released to DVD, with loads of extras and at an appropriate price point for the work that went into them, and sales were so miserable that the studio hasn't released any more DVDs of the property so far. They are eager to avoid the same situation with
The Bob Newhart Show, and so they'e testing the waters with a bonus-less first season. The results will deterimine the future of this show on DVD, so don't delay your purchase!
Finally, we have to take a hard look at that quote above from
Video Business: they say "
May 24th is the release date. In our
previous news, we quoted Fox's announcement as saying the release date was
April 12th. We checked with Fox's press/retailer info system to see if the date had changed, and found that the listing is currently hidden from view, which usually means that something is about to change. We'll double-check with the studio next week to be sure of it, but it certainly seems like this title is being pushed back about six weeks. Take it with a grain of salt, though, until we confirm the date. Stay tuned, and we'll let you know for sure. Here's that artwork:
