Longtime readers who are fans of
Tales of the Gold Monkey probably recall that a couple of years ago we
passed along some gossip that the show, starring Stephen Collins (
7th Heaven, Star Trek: The Motion Picture) was finally being looked at for DVD release. The thought was that it would perhaps come out in time to tie in with the theatrical debut, or else the later home video debut, of
Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It seemed to be a logical plan, after all, since it was the popularity of
Raiders of the Lost Ark that originally caused ABC to green-light the series, which creator Donald P. Bellisario had already submitted to the network before the Harrison Ford film hit it big.
However, a year later we unfortunately had to pull the reins back on that DVD rumor, with
a follow-up report about how Universal "
did indeed make a run at getting this DVD release together, and even began the effort of contacting cast and crew to try to get them into the studio to record bonus material. But then everything got pushed back before those extras got recorded, and then put on hold even more indefinitely...(w)e hear that it was the cost of getting the elements restored to look presentable enough for a home video release. Too much money for (the studio) to do it themselves, and an unwillingness to license the show out to any other studio that wouldn't be willing to do the restoration." For those reasons, it seemed that everything was shelved...perhaps even permanently!
Could something have changed, though? Maybe so! The indication that this release is moving forward comes from the show's star, Collins, who last Thursday
posted a tweet on Twitter that certainly makes it sound like things are progressing: "
About 2 record some commentary for 'Tales of the Gold Monkey' DVD, long-awaited by some. Looking forward to it. I loved that series, my 1st." Now please keep in mind that the Twitter account used, @Bassisland, isn't a "verified account" which absolutely confirms that the poster is for-certain to be Collins. However, the posts, the profile picture, biography and link to his official homepage all give us an extremely strong impression that this is the real deal. We have few doubts, if any, on this end.
However, while we do prefer to be trusting that this is actual info from the actual star of the show, we certainly have to be cautious in the end, because by now everyone knows how Twitter can be wild in terms of people assuming other identities, and misrepresenting. So, with no offense intended to Mr. Collins, please do take it all with a grain of salt until it can be confirmed. Also, there's always the possibility that these commentary tracks could perhaps be for a DVD release somewhere else in the world besides Region 1/North America (maybe Europe, for example). With all of that in mind, we attempted to contact Universal Studios to get confirmation about progress on a
Gold Monkey DVD release, or even word about whether the studio could have licensed the rights for a release out to any of a number of independent studios. But unfortunately we received no response to our inquiry in time for this report.
The tweet from Collins does appear to be obvious in saying that there are
Tales of the Gold Monkey DVDs in the works. Plus the recent word
of a 5th Indiana Jones movie making strong progress seems to point toward another logical tie-in release possibility for
Monkey. Still, there's just no way to be absolutely certain of anything at this moment in time. Therefore, we'll file it all under the category of "gossip" (again!) for the moment, and we'll certainly keep our eyes and ear open for further information. Our extreme thanks to reader Dianah McDonald for being the first to tip us off about the Twitter posting last week. Stay tuned for updates!
IMPORTANT UPDATE: In the wake of our post today, several readers (beginning with Steve Mayfield; thanks to each of you) alerted us that the show was recently announced for release in the United Kingdom, and is
up for pre-order at Amazon's U.K. branch. This 6-disc set will be formatted for Region 2 disc encoding, and PAL video format, which means it is NOT compatible with most off-the-shelf DVD players in North America (which uses Region 1 encoding and NTSC video format). If imported, this would only work with special region-free players that did PAL-to-NTSC converting.
This does NOT necessarily mean that the title won't see release in the USA, whether from Universal Studios, or from a third-party licensee, or perhaps even from Fabulous Films (which is putting out the U.K. release, and which is distributed in the USA by Virgil Films and Entertainment). Message borad-type posts quoted around the internet, including at the IMDB's discussion threads and elsewhere, state that this will be available in Australia as well as in the U.K., and that the recording Stephen Collins made last week in Los Angeles was for this release.
The posts we refer to also say that it was one of three such interviews made, and that other participants included actress Caitlin O'Heaney, Directer Harvey Laidman and Producer/Writer Tom Greene. Those disc-based extras, and a 26-page collectors' booklet, is meant to supplement the main contents: the feature-length pilot telefilm and 20 regular episodes. The running time of the U.K. set is listed as 1056 minutes, for £59.99 (roughly US$99, at current exchange rates) with a release date of October 26th.
We'll keep an eye open for a North American release of
Tales of the Gold Monkey. The obvious thought is that if the condition of these episodes are good enough for British and Australian home video releases, then they ought to be good enough for the USA and Canada, too. We'll see what happens...stay tuned!
