One of our readers saw our
news yesterday about
The George Burns & Gracie Allen Collection, due to come out from Koch Internation on Feb 24th along with
The Milton Berle Collection. That reader, Kurt Neiburg, sent us a note pointing out that at least one more similar item is arriving that day from Koch:
Like the other two,
The Jack Benny Collection lists for $29.98 for a 5-DVD set...a price point that the ever-frugal Mr. Benny would appreciate!
Amazon.com has it up for pre-order, but neither they nor Koch - who distributes these for Passport - offer online details about this release.
To be frank, most DVD releases of these older shows contain the same small group of episodes (often only those considered by publishers of such material to be in the "public domain," which is how the low price is achieved), offered by multiple companies on different releases. Such episodes are usually put onto disc without the benefit of a cleaned-up transfer, and may not be as impressive to consumers as more expensive sets from the big-name studios. We're a bit nervous that this may be the case with these upcoming Passport releases that Koch is distributing; the lack of details may be a sign that these fall into that category. The packaging of these are definately a notch above the rest...but don't forget the old cliche: "never judge a book by its cover."
We'll try to get detailed info about all three of these Feb. 24th releases (
Milton Berle, Burns & Allen, and
Jack Benny) from Passport/Koch, and post release listings in our system for them. That way, you can make up your minds about whether these are the right release for you. The price is certainly right, for a nice-looking item. Stay tuned; we'll see what we can dig up for you.
