Comic Reviews by Walt

I was pleasantly surprised (initially) and then highly disappointed with the discovery of the classic animated series The Real Ghostbusters on dvd.

I’ve never known of it being on dvd before this, but I have very fond memories of the show–I may never have watched EVERY episode or gone totally ga-ga for the toys and such, but it was definitely a show I enjoyed (more than the movies, even, at the time!).

But my pleasant surprise quickly turned to disgust, and despite being in the “I’m gonna buy SOMEthing to watch tonight!” mood that might’ve seen me spend $20-$30, even, on a box set of The Complete The Real Ghostbusters or such, or $15-$20 on a “box 1 of 2″…the publisher did what I hate as much as variant covers.

They have the entire series. There’s no current release (that I’m aware of) ahead of these, say, from 10+ years ago. All the episodes are available to them and ready to go, right now. ALL FOUR are put out at the same time, together. As FOUR INDIVIDUAL RELEASES, we have all these episodes.

There’s no box set that I’m aware of for the whole thing.

And while I’ve nothing concrete to go on at the moment or anything for a “works cited” page–I’m quite confident that a large part of dvd PRICING relates to manufacturing–the discs, the dvd case liners, the cost of the cases, and then assembly (liner into the case, disc(s) in to the case, whatever shrink wrappage over everything). Then stuff like individual bar codes, soliciting to stores on four different SKUs or whatever, all that for FOUR things when they could easily just do 1.

As a comparison–12 episodes each for vols 1-2 and 11 each for 3-4…that’s 46 episodes. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles season 3 has 47 episodes, and sells (via Target at least, and much less at Walmart) for $15. So it’s far from impossible to do a bulk release in a single, small package.

What’s worse with the Ghostbusters release is that they commit another thing: these are marked as “vol. 1” and “vol. 2,” and NOT as SEASON 1 or SEASON 2.

I don’t know–and not interested for the principle of this rant–how many seasons the show ran, but “vol. 1” suggests “intentional series” to me while “season 1” suggests to me a grouping by season. (Over with Disney/Marvel–rather than restrict themselves to “just” season 1 that was 13 episodes for X-Men the Animated Series, the VOLUME 1 release was 13 episodes–the complete first season–and then several episodes of the 2nd season!)

I allow SOME difference, say, for Nickelodeon‘s TMNT releases being incomplete seasons each–but they’re often putting out a release of 6-10 or 12 episodes from the current season WHILE the current season is STILL GOING ON. I’d PREFER to have FULL SEASON SETS (they recently released complete seasons 1 and 2…but I already have all of the individual releases) so for present I’ve continued on.

So, despite fond memories, nostalgia, and definite INTEREST–I did not buy ANY of the Ghostbusters sets. Sure, they’re “only” $10, and buying “vol. 1” for $10 for immediate gratification would be CHEAPER THAN blowing $30 in one go…FOUR releases at $10 each mean an eventual $40. And I was not prepared to spend $40 (even $30 would have REALLY pushed boundaries). At the same time, this being OBVIOUSLY timed to coincide with the new movie about to hit…if I bought vol. 1 now, and even vol. 2 next week and then held for several weeks–would I even be ABLE TO complete the set, or would these be flash-in-the-pan, here-today-gone-tomorrow?

In an age where more and more is being condensed–Double-Feature packs, Triple-Feature/Trilogy packs, 4 Film Favorites packs, franchise box sets, anthology sets, even double-season and FULL SERIES box sets–here they are splitting stuff out into mini-releases.

Filed under: 2016 Non-Review posts, 2016 posts, NON-REVIEW CONTENT | Tagged: animated series, box sets, cartoons, DVD, DVDs, Ghostbusters, Real Ghostbusters, Slimer, volumes |