DVDizzy Forum

I absolutely loved the Spin and Marty series; I'm not old enough to have seen the MM Club in its original broadcast; I watched it during the brief and shining moment when the Disney Channel ran old shows on its "Vault Disney" time slot (usually from midnight to 4:00 am).

Alas, during all the years I watched the shows on Vault Disney, they never, ever broadcast the complete second Spin and Marty series, "the Further Adventures of Spin and Marty." They would get a ways into the series, then abruptly switch to the third series, "the New Adventures..."

When Disney came out with the DVD, I was ecstatic; I assumed they would quickly follow up with the other two series, "the Further" and "the New." (I also foolishly believed they would release season 2 of Zorro.)

Well, here we are, a couple years later, and no more S&M (maybe I'd better avoid the abbreviation). Does anyone have even the remotest inkling of an idea when -- if -- Disney is ever going to release the second series on DVD?

Paging Bill Cotter... you have your ear to the railroad tracks; do you hear anything coming?

(While we're at it, how about the second season of Zorro and the second series of Hardy Boys, the Mystery of Ghost Farm?)

I love the Disney DVDs; I don't like their sluggish release schedules, and I really dislike it when they release the first season or first series of some popular show, then don't bother releasing the rest of them. Or when, like with Swamp Fox and Elfego Baca, they release a DVD with somebutnotall episodes.

Anybody know anything about anything related to these series on DVD?

Thanks,

Dafydd

You hit the nail on the head there why the only Disney Treasures I don't own are the somebutnotall ones:

Hardy Boys
El Fuego Baca/Swamp Fox
Mickey Mouse Club
Spin and Marty

I own every other one, but just can't get into buying the ones that don't find completion. I think they did Davy Crockett about perfectly in Wave 1. Wish they did this with the others.

As for Zorro. I pretty much feel the same. I'm considering getting Season 1 boxed set from DMR, but then just selling it only eBay. I can get about $100 for it there, but if I watch it I'll just get frustrated I don't have all of them

I remember watching them as reruns in the 70s. In both the case of Hardy Boys and Spin and Marty the first season was self contained and far superior to the stories that came after them.

So I have no problem with just the one set, we are getting the superior product. This was the best of the genre whcih Walt Disney Treasures is supposed to be all about.

Mr. Toad wrote:This was the best of the genre whcih Walt Disney Treasures is supposed to be all about.

Hmmm. Don't know if I agree with this totally. Since when was WDT supposed to be about the best of a genre? I've been collecting since Wave 1 and never heard that before. Furthermore, would you consider the First Week of the Micky Mouse Club the best of the genre? I would bet, no.

If we're also looking for the best of the genre, then why do we have complete collections of Davy Crockett, MM, Pluto, Goofy, Silly Symphonies, and soon DD? This is completion not just the best of these collections, but the full collection.

I think a better answer would be: It's not financially feasible. We tried releasing Season 1 and the sales were weak. Why should they press another 75,000 copies of the next season and have 60,000 of them sit on shelves and a warehouse? That is the real answer.

Thomashton:

I think a better answer would be: It's not financially feasible. We tried releasing Season 1 and the sales were weak. Why should they press another 75,000 copies of the next season and have 60,000 of them sit on shelves and a warehouse? That is the real answer.

Then either sell them POD or else do a presale. (POD = print on demand, or in this case, write to DVD on demand.) If books can make a good profit doing that, why not DVDs? You set up the disk image; then you can press any number of DVDs you want, limited only by the number of machines you set up to do it. They can do it during slack time, when available stock on better-selling items is high.

Dafydd

Dafydd wrote:Thomashton:

I think a better answer would be: It's not financially feasible. We tried releasing Season 1 and the sales were weak. Why should they press another 75,000 copies of the next season and have 60,000 of them sit on shelves and a warehouse? That is the real answer.

Then either sell them POD or else do a presale. (POD = print on demand, or in this case, write to DVD on demand.) If books can make a good profit doing that, why not DVDs? You set up the disk image; then you can press any number of DVDs you want, limited only by the number of machines you set up to do it. They can do it during slack time, when available stock on better-selling items is high.

Dafydd

That totally ignores all the fixed costs involved the biggest of which is remastering.

Mr. Toad;

Being fixed costs, they amortize over the whole sales life.

Disney isn't like other studios: They never get rid of anything. The masters of everything Disney has ever released are still in air-conditioned vaults, going all the way back to the early days of Walt and Roy.

Since they actually ran the second and third Spin and Marty series on Vault Disney not too long ago, they've already compiled the episodes and transferred them to 3/4-inch masters... or perhaps master DVDs, or into an editing machine hard drive, depending on how they stored them for broadcast back in the 1990s. Most of the work has already been done.

So the cost to remaster to a commercial DVD format, just as they did for the first Spin and Marty series, wouldn't be anywhere near what it cost to remaster all the Donald Ducks or all the Mickey Mice... many of which have never been broadcast on TV, hence likely exist only as 35mm film.

My guess is that the "real reason" is that they haven't even thought about it, because they've never done POD before. They probably think POD is chintzy, and they wouldn't know how to promote it, even if somebody suggested it to them. They're still thinking they have to run off 75,000 copies with the tin covers and a bunch of new interviews and suchlike... and if they can't justify that, then they just shrug and say "oh well, to heck with the fans."

But there really is money to be made here. Not as much as with DVDs of contemporary movies, of course, but more than they're making on the second and third Spin and Marty series right now -- which is, let me see, zero.

Dafydd

But this is why print on demand does not work for DVDs. With books there are very few fixed costs, especially if the writer's contract is heavy with royalties and light on up front costs. If both the writer and the publisher accept the risk of low sales then print on demand works. All of the costs are variable.

If a studio puts all the money of restoration up front and then sales are low then they lose money. It is why the comparison of the two industries does not work. The mix of variable and fixed costs is different enough to make it work in one industry and not in the other.

Aside from the addition of various interviews and such, I didn't notice any particular "restoration" between the Spin and Marty DVD and the Spin and Marty broadcast on Vault Disney. Can you give some examples?

For a contrary example from another release, the Zorro DVDs were recolorized from the version broadcast on Vault Disney. (This actually resulted in an annoyance: They made the night scenes too dark in the recolorized version.) Recolorizing is very expensive, and I can understand why they might hesitate to pay to have the second season recolorized.

(Or rather, I would understand -- were I not convinced that they already had the entire series recolorized at the same time, rather than just the first season. I'm 90% convinced that a master digital file of the entire recolorized second season of Zorro sits on some medium -- tape, DVD, hard drive -- at their Burbank studios.)

But I don't recall any similar revamping or restoration of the DVD version of Spin compared to the broadcast version of Spin. The only thing I noticed was that the DVD was more complete; they didn't clip pieces out to make way for commercials.

I just don't see your argument in this specific case. The masters clearly exist, because the show was already broadcast on TV. It's not like a POD book, which is brought to the publisher as a manuscript, or at best an MS Word document, and the publisher must, at the very least, put the book into printable format via a page-layout program. That work has already been done with Spin and Marty II and III; it was done ten years ago, or whenever they started running on Vault Disney.

I could say the same thing about Elfego Baca and the Swamp Fox: There would not be any significant expense in creating a DVD master containing all the episodes of each series; master tapes (e.g., electronic format) of each episode clearly already exist, because they, too, were broadcast on Vault Disney.

I sincerely believe the answer is not that they tried POD and lost money; I don't recall any such experiment. I don't believe Disney has ever tried it or even considered it... the thought has never crossed the mind of whomever is in charge of marketing DVDs of the old series, because he or she is probably 163 years old and used to fill the same position at Pepsi-Cola or General Motors.

If Disney were not so totally cut off from the fan community, if they allowed some method for us to communicate with them -- even via an official forum for suggestions that someone at Disney with green-light authority monitored -- I believe we could make a good case for selling POD versions of follow-on DVDs to Walt Disney Treasures releases.

But we can't because they don't. For a business that is as fan-based as Disney, this is lousy corporate relations.

Dafydd

I believe it was at the recent annual meeting of shareholders that Bob Iger made mention that vintage programming would be making its way to the web -- I've seen that this could be on Disney's site and/or iTunes.

Perhaps they will make more "obscure" items from their library available in electronic format if Disney truly feels they can't justify the expense of commercial DVD releases.

I prefer purchasing DVDs, but if online access is the only way I'll be able to see the material I long to see, I'll take this approach. I DO hope forthcoming programming will be available for purchase rather than a per-view basis, as I like the ownership, portability, and being able to see (fill-in-the-blank) when I choose -- and NOT rely on the hope that I can connect to the internet at a particular time and place.

Yes, I want to see releases of The Mickey Mouse Club, and their serials, and the REST of Elfego Baca and The Swamp Fox, and Emil and the Detectives, Charlie and the Angel, Gallegher, Daniel Boone, etc., etc., etc.

I thought about the possibility of making DVDs available for download... but a typical DVD is about 5 GB (all right, 4.7 for single-sided), and the first Spin and Marty serial comprised two disks. Even with my cable modem, that would probably take all night.

Oh, for a quantum leap in downloading speed! Then it might be feasible. Otherwise, they'll probably have to compress the picture down to YouTube size to make it streamable. I would probably watch it (grimly) anyway, just to see the entire series II and III... but I wouldn't like it.

Dafydd

Dafydd wrote:I thought about the possibility of making DVDs available for download... but a typical DVD is about 5 GB (all right, 4.7 for single-sided), and the first Spin and Marty serial comprised two disks. Even with my cable modem, that would probably take all night.

Oh, for a quantum leap in downloading speed! Then it might be feasible. Otherwise, they'll probably have to compress the picture down to YouTube size to make it streamable. I would probably watch it (grimly) anyway, just to see the entire series II and III... but I wouldn't like it.

Dafydd

It is my understanding that most studios are planning streaming video as opposed to downloadable product. I could handle downloadable product for the holes in my collection. However, if I buy it I want to keep it.

I could handle downloadable product for the holes in my collection. However, if I buy it I want to keep it.

What Mr. Toad said!

I'll go further: I'd pay to download a DVD disk image onto my computer, if I were allowed to transfer it (once is fine) to an actual, physical DVD for repeated viewing. But not if the download were copy-protected, so I could only watch by sitting at my computer.

(It's a nice PC, but I think of it as my workplace; I don't watch TV or movies on it. Even though I could.)

I really wish Disney would get a new "new media" guy. Or gal. Someone who understands that this is how media will be distributed in the fairly near future.

Dafydd

Dafydd wrote:

I could handle downloadable product for the holes in my collection. However, if I buy it I want to keep it.

What Mr. Toad said!

I'll go further: I'd pay to download a DVD disk image onto my computer, if I were allowed to transfer it (once is fine) to an actual, physical DVD for repeated viewing. But not if the download were copy-protected, so I could only watch by sitting at my computer.

(It's a nice PC, but I think of it as my workplace; I don't watch TV or movies on it. Even though I could.)

I really wish Disney would get a new "new media" guy. Or gal. Someone who understands that this is how media will be distributed in the fairly near future.

Dafydd

I AGREE 100%. Id have to have a physical DVD for my collection not just a download. Oh and some nice professional looking cover art that could be printed out upon purchase of the movie for the DVD case would be welcome too!