Every Tuesday I take a look at obscure and/or classic television programs, specials, miniseries or made-for-TV movies being released on DVD. For the record I consider anything broadcast prior to 1980 to be classic or else there wouldn’t be much to discuss. The releases referred to in these posts are encoded for Region 1 use in the United States and Canada.
The only release of note today is Father Knows Best: Season Four from Shout! Factory. Included are all 33 episodes from the 1957-1958 season in glorious black and white. Two seasons remain to be released on DVD. I haven’t been able to find any reviews for this set.
Bonus features include episodes from the radio version of Father Knows Best as well as two episodes of Window on Main Street, the 1961-1962 CBS sitcom Robert Young starred in following the end of Father Knows Best in 1960.
The episode produced for the Treasury Department [U.S. Savings Bonds], which was NEVER telecast, but shown on 16mm projectors in schools, community meetings and other public “gatherings”, was, I believe, “24 Hours In Tyrant Land” (as described in Brooks & Marsh’s “Complete Directory Of Prime-Time, Cable and Network TV Shows”); some TV series in the ’50s, ’60s and early ’70s cooperated with the Treasury Department and filmed a 20 minute episode for non-broadcast that often dealt with “financial security” and an extended plug for Savings Bonds (these also included “THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN”, “THE REAL McCOYS”, “MISTER ED”, and “THE ODD COUPLE”).
Robert Young’s “WINDOW ON MAIN STREET’ was a half-hour comedy/drama that he hoped would help shed his “Jim Anderson” character once and for all. But he found himself competing with prime-time repeats of “FATHER KNOWS BEST”- on the same schedule!- on CBS, with the result that “WINDOW” was cancelled after the 1961-’62 season, and was never syndicated {Young and his partner Eugene Rodney had them “tucked away in a vault” all htose years, until two episodes were “exhumed” for the DVD release mentioned above}.