I Love Lucy - Season 1 re-release: Why the delay? When is it coming? Find out!

Last week it was our unfortunate duty to pass on news from Paramount and CBS that the re-packaged re-release of I Love Lucy - The Complete 1st Season was going to be delayed from its May 3rd date. What's up with the waiting? Thomas Watson's "Still In Love With Lucy" newsletter at LucyFan.com has this report about the reasons:

Paramount Home Video's reissue of the Season One I Love Lucy DVDs (originally scheduled to hit the stores May 3) will most likely be delayed -- if only by a few weeks. We will keep you updated as more information becomes available.

As for the changes between the original releases and the new discs, producer Gregg Oppenheimer tells us:


EVERY episode is now closed captioned (on the previous release, only 5 of the 9 discs were closed captioned).

Discs 1 and 2 has 6 shows each, and includes all 12 episodes previously included on Paramount's Season One, Volumes 1, 2, and 3. They also have English closed captions and Spanish subtitles, neither of which were on the previous Paramount release. Also added are Production Notes/Script Excerpts, Production Credits menus, and additional Special Footage/Lost Scenes. The Scene Selection menus are also improved, with more scenes (the previous release only showed 5 scenes per episode on the Scene Selection menus).

Disc 3 (4 episodes) is the same as Paramount's previous Season One, Volume 4, except that English Closed Captions have been added.

Discs 4 and 5 have 6 episodes each instead of 4, and contain all 12 episodes previously included on Season One, Vols. 5, 6, and 7. Otherwise they are the same as the previous Paramount releases (which already had English Closed Captions, Spanish Subtitles, Production Notes, etc.).

Disc 6 (4 episodes) is the same as Paramount's previous Season One, Volume 8, except that English Closed Captions have been added.

Disc 7 (4 episodes) is exactly the same as Paramount's previous Season One, Volume 9 (which already had English Closed Captions, Spanish Subtitles, Production Notes, etc.).

The Season One Box Set has only four thinpaks (3 of the 4 thinpaks contain two discs each), which makes it only about 80% of the width of the Season 2, 3, and 4 box sets -- and less than a quarter of the width of the old Season 1 box set.

As reported earlier, Paramount plans to release the Season Five box set in late August.

Our thanks to the readers that wrote in to tell us about this...it's good news, eh? Nice to see that the time is being used to make the box even more compact and to up the quality with things like closed captioning on every episode and a few extra extras; it increases the incentive to upgrade for those of us who had the previous version. Too bad there's not an "upgrade path" for those of us who supported the earlier releases, though...looks like we'll just have to double-dip if we want the new set.

When can you get it? Paramount sent out a long list of announcements late yesterday (look for more on those in the next day or two; we've already given you early notice on much of it), but a new date for this release was not included in that. But don't worry about that, because we have information from a different Paramount source that this item is back on the schedule, and now planned for a June 7th ship date!

The package might be a tad thinner than this picture now, but the box art is still the same: