One Question Answered

With all of the past speculation concerning how the pre-Barnabas collections will be packaged, at least we now know that the numbering of the sets will just continue from the last number of the Barnabas collections.  The following blurb from the ShadowGram email list says as much:

DVD Collection #27 in Feb., 2007, will bring the pre-Barnabas B&W episodes to DVD for the first time. The set begins with Episode #1, Victoria Winters' arrival in Collinsport.  Subsequent bi-monthly DVD sets are projected until Barnabas is introduced in Oct., 2007. Since MPI's DVD releases started with his first appearance, all 1225 episodes thus will be available on DVD as of that point.

From the same source, we also know when the long-promised bloopers will appear:

In Nov., [2006] the 40th Anniversary DVD will include bloopers and music videos, plus rare bonus material to be announced.

Let's hope that there will be provided some information (both onscreen and in written form) that correlates the blooper scenes with the episodes on DVD (e.g., collection number and episode number).  This would be especially helpful in "filling in" those much dreaded and often criticized bloopers that got deleted from some of the earlier DVD sets.

Weird that they're just calling the first pre-Barnabas set Collection #27....I'm looking forward to buying those though. So there will be about 5 sets worth.

It's hard to believe they're nearing the end with the dvds. Time goes so fast. I remember waiting for the earlier sets to come out.

that is odd that they're refering to the first episodes as 'volume 27'.i've always thought the way these episodes were marketed was odd.

i do have most of the "collector's series" on vhs(a few volumes lost to the sands of time)but i just know i'll shell out the $$$ for the dvd's.i haven't watched the pre-barnabas storyline in it's entirety in years so i'm hoping it will seem fresh to me again.

i don't however intend to shell out a dime for a "bloopers" dvd.just not interested.

They'll look weird on the shelf at the end of my collection since they're actually the very first episodes, but then, I'm oddly organized like that. I always like to have things in order.

I'm not interested in the blooper dvd either. If they add to it and have other good features, I might be tempted to check it out for the other things, but the bloopers on their own don't interest me.

I suppose the reasoning is that Set 1 is already taken.  Further, they didn't want to do it as a "Collector's Edition".  I for one am happy to be near the end and the beginning.  It's sort of like time backwards.

From the same source, we also know when the long-promised bloopers will appear:

In Nov., [2006] the 40th Anniversary DVD will include bloopers and music videos, plus rare bonus material to be announced.

I know I'm not the only one hoping that the "rare bonus material" will include Grayson Hall's Playtex Bra commercial, Don Briscoe's soap commercial (featuring him lathering up in the shower!) and his cigarette commercial (in which he strolls along the beach in a bathing suit). 

I know I'm not the only one hoping that the "rare bonus material" will include Grayson Hall's Playtex Bra commercial, Don Briscoe's soap commercial (featuring him lathering up in the shower!) and his cigarette commercial (in which he strolls along the beach in a bathing suit). 

I second that emotion...notion.    

I'd buy it just for Grayson's commercial.

But will she be wearing the bra???  Lara and KLS also did commercials while DS was on.  One thing I'd really like to see would be the screen test KLS did at Universal Studios in the mid-sixties, prior to DS!  And how about all of Joan Bennett's tests for 'Scarlett' in Gone With The Wind?  She did several tests for David Selznick, and always said (even at a Festival!) that the part would have been hers if Vivien Leigh not come to Hollywood to be with her boyfriend Laurence Olivier, who was filiming Wuthering Heights for Samuel Goldwyn.

Her screen test was up for awhile at the University of Texas site that had the Search for Scarlet exhibit. I believe that got taken down some time ago. Kind of weird seeing her and Jean Arthur and Paulette Goddard as Scarlet. She was decent, but I'm not sure if she could have handled the role.

But will she be wearing the bra???

Well, not in the version that I remember seeing.    Grayson plays some sort of an inspector who strides in and pulls/snaps all the various elastics on the bra. The bra is simply displayed on a mannequin torso. So, don't expect anything at all like today's Victoria Secrets ads with Grayson strutting around and striking seductive poses. 

And how about all of Joan Bennett's tests for 'Scarlett' in Gone With The Wind?  She did several tests for David Selznick

That's really interesting - I wasn't aware that she'd done more than one. But I've read that a screen test with Joan is on the Collector's Edition 4 disk DVD set of GWTW, though I've never checked it out myself.