DVD Tuesday: Ed Sullivan Show, Doctor Who

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.

Out today from SOFA Entertainment is The 4 Complete Ed Sullivan Shows Starring The Beatles, which includes four complete episodes of The Ed Sullivan Show. The Beatles first appeared on February 9th, 1964 and returned the following week (February 9th) and again on February 23rd. More than a year and a half later they made their final appearance on September 12th, 1965. SOFA released a similar set in October of 2008 and this appears to be nothing more than a reissue of that set (which is now out of print), although the product description at Amazon.com states that “the new DVD set has been augmented with approximately 13 minutes of additional footage.”

Also out today from BBC America are three Doctor Who sets, only one of which was originally aired before my 1979 cut-off date. Doctor Who: The Creature from the Pit (story 106) aired in four installments during October and November of 1979. The other sets — “The King’s Demons” (story #129) and “Planet of Fire” (story #135) — were originally broadcast in 1983 and 1984, respectively.

Finally, Warner Home Video has three releases out today. The first, Bugs Bunny’s Howl-Oween, is an animated special originally broadcast on October 26th, 1978 by CBS. The other two are Charlie Brown specials being reissued as Blu-ray/DVD sets A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving and It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, which also includes “It’s Magic, Charlie Brown.”


Related Posts

Become a Patron Today

Are you a fan of obscure television? Please support Television Obscurities on Patreon by becoming a patron today.

8 Replies to “DVD Tuesday: Ed Sullivan Show, Doctor Who”

  1. I believe the four “complete” “ED SULLIVAN SHOW”‘s featuring The Beatles were previously released on VHS and DVD in 2003 [they also had a website you could order the set from at that time: “edsullivan.com”], although they weren’t THAT “complete”. One of the show’s sponsors at the time was Lorillard Tobacco, for Kent cigarettes. The Kent commercials featured in those shows were deleted from the 2003 issue, and I’m pretty sure they were omitted in the 2008 edition as well.

    1. I have in my archive (www.atvaudio.com) a VHS SP copy of the complete February 9th 1964 The Ed Sullivan Show with the Kent commercial intact. At around 45 minutes into the broadcast Ed Sullivan introduces the sixty second Kent commercial.
      Curious what were the reasons for its omission in the Sopha Andrew Solt release?

  2. That’s debatable. They may not add anything to the broadcasts in terms of content but the commercials would certainly help place them in their proper historical context.

  3. I am researching the Ed Sullivan Show looking for the appearance of a French artist named Hugues Aufray
    during the course of December 1961.

    Could you please direct me towards a listing of the Artists
    that performed on the Sullivan show to see if there are
    archives of that particular show

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.