DVD Release Date: December 6, 2005 (MGM/Sony Pictures Home Entertainment)
Color
MSRP: $29.95
Number of Discs: 4
Number of Episodes: 30
Running Time: 761 minutes
Total Run Time of Special Features: N/A
Languages, Subtitles, Closed Captioning:
Closed-captioned
Special Features: None
Introduction:
Green Acres is the place to be; now it's time to own
season three! The third season of what is one of the
funniest rural sitcoms of all time (the other being
The Beverly Hillbillies) is now on DVD in a four disc
set! The third season is basically consistent with the
first two seasons of the show, and continues to
explore Oliver and Lisa as they try to make it through
farm life and fail miserably. By now, Lisa is becoming
more resigned to the fact that she now has to live on
the farm, and is becoming more and more understanding
of the Hooterville citizens while Oliver is still
hopelessly lost.
Memorable Episodes / Notable Guest Stars:
There are many great episodes in the third season! The
show tackles the controversial issue of interspecies
dating when Arnold falls in love with a dog in "Love
Comes to Arnold Ziffel." After complaining to the
phone company about bad service, Oliver has the burden
of running the Hooterville Phone Company thrown at him
in "Oliver vs. the Phone Company," "Oliver Takes Over
the Phone Company," and "Kind Word for the President."
Oliver wants to harvest his tomato crops, but keeps
running into obstacles from bizarre weather events in
the former Nick at Nite Classic TV Countdown Favorite,
"Don't Count Your Tomatoes Before They're Picked."
Oliver and Lisa wake up to find that Eb has eloped in
"Eb Elopes…" or DID he elope? Find out that answer on
"Eb Returns." In "Das Lumpkin," Lisa details how she
saved Oliver from the Nazis during World War II… also,
Gordon Jump makes an appearance in this episode.
Hooterville's favorite pig is missing in "Won't You
Come Home Arnold Ziffel?" Lisa invests in
"electronification" of the farm in "How to Succeed on
TV Without Really Trying." Oliver has the wise idea to
make Hooterville the rutabaga capital of the world in
"The Rutabaga Story." Finally, the season ends with
Arnold becoming the next big star in Hollywood in the
two-parter, "A Star Named Arnold is Born."
Packaging:
The first season had a digipak. The second season had
an Amaray style case. And for the third season, the
packaging has changed AGAIN—but this time, it is a lot
better, and hopefully they'll keep this packaging
style for all subsequent releases. This time, the
discs are in slim cases, double slim cases to be
exact. And since there are two of the double slim
cases, that means that for a change, there are FOUR
discs in this set, and no more of the double-sided
discs! The first two releases each contained two
double-sided discs, but this time, there are just four
single-sided ones. Hopefully this will continue for
all further releases as well.
The artwork is different, but still of the same style
as the first two releases. There is an overall purple
color scheme, with Oliver, Lisa, and Arnold on the
front of the box for the set. On the back of the set,
there is a complete listing of all of the episodes
contained within the set. On the slim cases, there is
a picture of Lisa on the case that holds Disc 1 and 2,
and a picture of Oliver on the case that holds Discs 3
and 4. On the back of each slim case, there is a
listing of the episodes contained on the discs in that
slim case along with a short description of each
episode. Now there is one minor drawback here… these
descriptions are not as good as the ones contained for
season 2 (season 2 had a nice little booklet with
episode descriptions, complete with lengthy
descriptions for each episode). In fact, I'll go even
further on this issue… if you want to see the episode
descriptions, just visit the Green Acres section on
the TV Land website, because the descriptions on this
set are EXACTLY THE SAME, word for word. When you open
the slim cases, behind the discs, you will find (for
some reason) yet another listing of each episode on
the disc. This one is a little different, because it
contains technical information about the episodes,
such as writers and directors. There is one thing that
is a little bit annoying on the set, and that is the
fact that one episode is misspelled several times
throughout the set. The episode "Don't Count Your
Tomatoes Before They're Picked" is written as "Don't
Count Your Tomatoes Before Thry're Picked" in several
instances throughout the set. Only in one place on the
set is it written correctly. It is a minor issue that
I've probably given more attention to than it should
have, but an error like that should have been obvious.
The discs breakdown is as follows: episodes 1-8 on
Disc 1, episodes 9-16 on Disc 2, episodes 17-24 on
Disc 3, and episodes 25-30 on Disc 4. And since they
have gone to single-sided discs, which means there is
disc artwork this time, with Arnold on Disc 1, a
rooster (or is it a chicken? I know nothing about farm
animals, so I could be wrong) on Disc 2, a cow on Disc
3, and Oliver and Lisa on Disc 4.
Menu Design and Navigation:
This is MUCH better this time around! The previous
menus were kind of cumbersome and annoying, but the
menus this time have been "Sonyfied" so to speak. When
you insert the DVD into the DVD player, once the MGM
logo plays, you get a main menu where you are greeted
with Arnold on top of the mailbox dancing to the
closing theme music! I had to watch it a few times
myself, I really liked watching the pig (although I'm
sure the Ziffels would remind me not to insult him by
calling him a pig) dance. In the background, there are
several walls that have pictures of cast members, and
each time a wall falls down, a new wall is shown with
a different picture on the wall. Occasionally when a
wall falls down, a piece of plywood will pop off and
hit poor Arnold in the head. The options on the main
menu are Play All Episodes, Episode Selection, and (on
Disc 4 only) Previews. The episodes menu is very
simplistic, with each episode listed (four on a screen
at a time) with a snapshot from each episode. There
isn't a scene selection menu, but there are chapters
placed in all of the appropriate places in each
episode (i.e. the commercial breaks, after the opening
credits, and before the closing credits).
Video and Audio Quality:
The video quality is really about what you are going
to expect for a show that is forty years old. It isn't
perfectly clear, BUT I honestly think it looks a
little better than reruns on TV Land (there are some
episodes on TV Land that are atrocious as far as video
quality is concerned; fortunately none of that quality
are on this set or any other Green Acres sets). The
bigger concern with the set is the audio quality,
which could definitely stand quite a bit of
improvement. It is presented in mono, but considering
that is standard for any 1960s show, that is not the
issue of concern. The problem is that the episodes on
the set have low volume, and this problem is further
compounded on some of the episodes by the fact that
the audio seems a slight bit garbled (such as on the
"Oliver vs. the Phone Company" episode). It would be
nice to have a cleaner audio track on future releases.
There were complaints of a few audio dropouts with
season 2 (less than one second per instance), but with
761 minutes worth of episodes, it is virtually
impossible to pinpoint whether or not such dropouts
have occurred again in this set without carefully
watching every second of every episode without
blinking. But even if there are audio dropouts, if it
is anything like season 2, they are very rare and very
brief. For the hearing-impaired, closed-captioning is
available on the set. And as a final note here, don't
worry about this set—every episode is completely
unedited running between approximately 25:00 and 25:30
per episode.
Special Features:
Unfortunately, there aren't any special features at
all. Basic interviews or commentaries would be nice to
have, but the first two seasons had no special
features and neither does this one. There are a few
trailers on Disc 4 for other Sony DVD products,
including "Bewitched" (2:30), "Bewitched TV" (1:00),
"Christmas with the Kranks" (2:30), and "The Partridge
Family" (1:03).
Final Comments:
This is a pretty good set that is lacking mostly in
just the area of special features. In general, I think
this set is much better put together than the previous
sets, but I still enjoyed the episode booklet such as
the one in season two. I was a little bit worried that
with the transition from MGM to Sony, Green Acres
would be abandoned on DVD after the second season, but
the release of the third season proves clearly that
this is not the case, so hopefully the next three
seasons will also be released eventually to complete
the series on DVD. So don't move to a shack in
Hooterville or grow a pots farm (I'm not referring to
marijuana, but don't grow that either) on the terrace
of your Manhattan penthouse, go buy the DVDs and
experience farm living the easy and hilarious way, the
way it should be!
