One of the longest running and most popular of all television westerns, Bonanza was both an action/adventure classic and family drama. For fourteen seasons, audiences enthusiastically tuned in to see the High-Sierra adventures of the Cartwright clan. Nestled amongst the pines above the shores of Lake Tahoe is the Ponderosa ranch, the thousand-acre home of Ben Cartwrignt and his sons, Adam, Hoss and Joe (aka "Little Joe.") Plots featuring revolving cast of interesting guest players helped to set Bonanza apart from the usual gun-slinging formula Westerns of the day.
There have been a TON of releases for
Bonanza on DVD over the years, from a long list of companies putting them out. Why? Because a number of the episodes are in the public domain, and various studios have taken those PD installments and put them out on assorted DVD titles. As for the non-PD episodes, a few have seen legit releases from the rights-holders, which has been Republic Pictures. Artisan Entertainment, which was absorbed into Lionsgate years ago, used to be the sole distributor of items in the Republic library. Then, quite some time ago, much of that went to the studio now known as CBS DVD.
CBS DVD and distributor Paramount Home Video are now gearing up to release both
Bonanza - The Official 1st Season, Volume 1 and
Bonanza - The Official 1st Season, Volume 2, both arriving in stores on
September 1st. They will be available separately, or shrunk-wrapped together in a bundle to conveniently pick up both at the same time. Each separate title will run 793 minutes, and they are presented in full screen video with English mono audio. Come join Lorne Greene, Michael Landon, Pernell Roberts and Dan Blocker in this "official" season-set release of the television classic! We don't have package art or pricing just yet, nor any other information, but stay tuned and we'll update you just as soon as we can.
