Info:
DVD Release Date: June 28, 2005 (MPI Home Video)
Color
MSRP: $39.98
Number of Discs: 4
Number of Episodes: 28
Running Time: 780 minutes
Total Run Time of Special Features: approx. 1 hour
Languages, Subtitles, Closed Captioning: English;
English subtitles
Special Features:
• 1968 Doris Day Show commercial
• Two 1968 promotional greetings by Doris
• New videotaped actor interviews with Philip Brown
(who played Doris' son Billy) and James Hampton (who
played handyman Leroy B. Simpson) with series
highlights and outtake clips
• Textless Main & End Titles
• Season 2 preview
• 1954 & 1957 appearances of Doris Day on What's My
Line?
• DD Animal League/Foundation Promo 'A Message from
Doris Day'
• Original movie trailer for Lover Come Back
My Thoughts:
Que sera, sera... whatever will be, will be... and
this time, it is Season One of The Doris Day Show Day,
on DVD! MPI Video has released a set that is complete
with all 28 episodes from the first season of this
forgotten sitcom, as well as some great special
features!
Many shows from the past are heavily aired in
syndication--The Doris Day Show has not received this
kind of treatment; so as a result, there are many
people that have never seen the show or people that
have simply forgotten the show. The show stars Doris
Day as Doris Martin, a widow that leaves the city to
go live on a farm with her father Buck (played by
Denver Pyle). She has two young sons, Billy and Toby
(played by Phillip Brown and Tod Starke), and they
also have a handyman for the farm named Leroy (played
by James Hampton). The show began on CBS in 1968, and
although it underwent many changes throughout the
years, it ran for five seasons. The show is a very
simple show (as many were in that time period) and
mainly focused on problems that individual members of
the family were having. Prior to reviewing the set, I
had never seen the show, though after seeing it, I
must say it kind of reminds me of a bizarre mix
between The Andy Griffith Show and Julia. It is kind
of an interesting show though.
Season One contains many great episodes. The first
episode, "Dinner for Mom," involves the children
taking Doris out to dinner for her birthday and
insisting on paying for it by hiding her money—which
only backfires when she realizes that they don't have
enough money to pay for the dinner. In "The Friend,"
Doris has to do a milk commercial with her kids and
their "sisters," which she instructs her sons to pick
female classmates to be in the commercial--only to
find that Toby has picked a black girl to be his
sister. Doris finds herself helping her sons on an egg
delivery route in "Let Them Out of the Nest." Doris
incriminates herself while trying to help two elderly
ladies get rid of their moon-shining business in "The
Still."
The cover art has a picture of Doris Day herself. This
set uses a digipak inside of a somewhat flimsy
cardboard box. For some reason, I couldn't get the
digipak to fit in the box quite right. The digipak
contains four panels--one panel for each disc. Two of
the panels contain a listing of each episode that is
on each disc, complete with episode descriptions and
original airdates. The set contains four discs, and
the first three discs contain eight episodes. The
fourth disc only contains four episodes, but it also
contains the special features.
The menus on the set are fairly simple. The main menu
has the options Play All, Episodes, and Subtitles.
Additionally, Disc Four has a Bonus Features menu
option. The Episodes menu takes you to a menu where
you (simply put) select the episodes. There is no
Scene Selection menu nor are there any chapters within
the episodes. The Subtitles menu allows you to turn on
the English subtitles. There was one thing that
bothered me with this set in regards to the menus.
Whenever you finished watching an episode, the next
episode on the disc would begin playing immediately
instead of going back to the menu screen! For people
(such as myself) that do not always necessarily want
to go to the next episode after watching one episode,
it is kind of odd how it is necessary to hit the menu
button to return to the menu after watching an
episode.
I wasn't overly impressed with the video quality on
this set. It appears to be a bit dated. Of course, the
show is nearly 40 years old so that would account for
many of the video problems. The picture wasn't
perfectly clear, but it was sufficient. The main
problem I had, however, is the fact that the picture
tended to jump around a little it in certain places.
The audio quality was adequate, and I didn't really
find any real problems with it. It is in mono, of
course. While there is no closed-captioning, there are
English subtitles on the set.
The episodes appear to be unedited, with each episode
running at almost exactly 24 minutes.
Typically, with a forgotten show like this and a
company that many have not heard of, you can expect to
receive absolutely no special features--wrong! This
set is surprisingly loaded with special features. In
fact, about the only thing that is missing is
commentary on the episodes. The set includes two clips
from What's My Line? (one running 10 minutes and the
other running 5 minutes) from where the panel had to
guess who she was while they were blindfolded. Both of
these clips are from the 1950s, and the openings of
these shows are included in the clips, complete with
the sponsorship intact. There is also a one minute
promo taken straight from CBS in 1968 advertising the
premiere of the show, which is a very nice feature to
see (I don't understand why more sets can't include
these...). There is a two minute Sponsor Greeting
where Doris talks to the people attending a
Ralston-Purina sales meeting talking about how she is
proud that they are sponsoring her show--a very
unusual and interesting feature! There is also a one
minute CBS affiliates greeting where Doris talks to
CBS affiliates about the show--again, another unusual
feature in a DVD box set! There is also a two minute
trailer for the movie "Lover Come Back," a film that
Doris Day starred in with Rock Hudson. For sitcom fans
out there, Tony Randall was also in that movie, and is
featured in the trailer. Also included are the opening
credits and closing credits without the text, as well
as a bumper that would have been used during
commercial breaks. Additionally, there is also "A
Message from Doris" special feature, which is a one
minute spot where she talks about the Doris Day Animal
Foundation (I don't think that this was filmed
exclusively for this box set but I could be wrong).
However, there were two interviews done exclusively
for this set! There is a 20 minute interview with
James Hampton and a 10 minute interview with Philip
Brown! And I'm not even done with the special features
yet--that's right, there is still one more! There is a
6 minute Season 2 preview, which basically shows a few
minutes from what appears to be the first episode of
the second season. The opening credits from the second
season (which are quite different) are also included
in this preview, AND at the end of the preview, it is
indicated that Season Two of the show will be coming
soon! If Season Two only has half the special features
though, it would still be better than most DVD sets!
Overall, I thought that this was a fairly decent show,
and if you are a fan of classic sitcoms, this is
definitely the show for you. This was perhaps one of
the last shows of the "innocent" times of comedy where
there was never any real controversy on television,
and I honestly believe that fans of shows such as The
Andy Griffith Show would really enjoy this show.
Final Numbers (out of 5 stars):
Video Quality: 3.5/5
Audio Quality: 4/5
Special Features: 4.8/5
Menu Navigation/Design: 4.5/5
Overall: 4/5
-- Reviewed by skees53 on 5/5/2005.
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