I hope everyone who is interested in seeing "Lou Grant" on DVD will vote for the show on Amazon.com and on tvshowsondvd.com. Of all the quality shows that could be released, this one may have a difficult time making it there.
shareI notice that the first three episodes are available on VHS. Is "Nazi," the fifth episode in the first season, available on tape???
ldbyron
Nope. Only the first three came out.
The three that were released were sold exclusively at Wal-Mart. All the VHS tapes you see on eBay are from that old release -- the cassettes are probably 15 years old. Hill Street, Rhoda, Newhart, and Mary all had limited VHS releases through Wal-Mart as well, and MTM played with repackaging some of the comedies, but very little was released overall. The fact that you can still find sealed cassettes should tell you how poorly they sold -- but there were very few episodes of anything out on video then, and people didn't know what to make of it. They sold for $7 originally. This was all back before Fox Home Video acquired the MTM library. MTM was sold back in the mid-eighties to a British group, who sold it to Rev. Pat Robertson's company (!), who sold it to a partnership of Fox Family Channel and Saban Entertainment. Haim Saban pulled out a few years later. So Fox Home Video is sole owner now.
"Nazi" is a good one. The guest star is Peter Weller, and the 2nd guest star is some guy named Brian Dennehy in what was probably his first screen role. Fox really ought to bring this out on DVD. They've brought out Mary, Newhart, Hill Street, and White Shadow, so maybe -- ?
The two big holdouts are Lou Grant, and ( the real screw up ) St Elsewhere. Both from MTM originally. Anyone, like me, who bought St Elsewhere Season one, 7 Years Ago, felt really cheated when waiting for the rest of the seasons. You can buy bootleg DVD's of all the seasons of St E. on the internet. If the company with the copyright doesn't want my money, I'll give it to someone else. As for Lou Grant, this was a quality program. From the writing, to the acting. I think it took some real guts and acting skills for Ed Asner to move from the MTM show, to a more serious format while keeping the same Lou Grant character.
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