Route 66 - on Shout! Factory - DVDs?

Ok. I'm confused. I've never seen the show and see several references in this thread to Tampa, FL. Route 66 "winds from Chicago to LA" and doesn't go through Tampa. How does Tampa get into the mix. Or is the actual Route 66 not really part of the series?

 

The original road ran from Chicago to LA, but the show was filmed in different locations to take advantage of the American scenery in the early 1960's. They shot in Tampa because it was (simply) warmer in the winter. Many of the episodes that were shot up north were (sometimes) shot over the early parts of summer. There were weren't a lot of episodes shot in and around Route 66 (the road)...

 

Shout Factory comes through! 'Route 66 - The Complete Series' on DVD!!!!

http://www.shoutfactorystore.com/prod.aspx?pfid=5257698

The new Facebook Page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Route-66-TV-Series-1960-1964/142698252494737?sk=wall

 

Good for them! But I still hope they release the seasons individually. I'm not gonna buy the whole set just for Season 4. Maybe they'll do "Burke's Law" next.

 

I remembered this show as being much more fun that it seems watching it now. It shows OTA in LA on RTV (retro TV) and is so downbeat. Off topic but on the same station I'm enjoying Peter Gunn, especially the Mancini soundtrack.

 

Lets hope the transfers are new - gotta be better than those sets that were already released by another company.

 

I'm still waiting for the complete DVD series for "Naked City".

 

Today's downbeat was yesterday's cool

 

Thought you guys would want to know about this- looks like some very cool and unique extras.

Route 66 - Finalized List of Bonus Material for Shout!'s 'Complete Series' DVD Set

http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Route-66-The-Complete-Series/16601#ixzz1nu41ydOm

 

I've preordered this from Amazon. They have a pretty good price right now,
$81.99 vs. list price of $129.99.

http://www.amazon.com/Route-66-Comp...1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1330642467&sr=1-1

 

thanks for the heads up..but, I own the first 2 seasons...after the personnel change I lost interest.

 

Any information about Shout Factory fixing all the problems, too dark, aspect ratio, etc., with the previous DVD releases? I'm really looking forward to this and hope that Shout Factory makes this a super set that won't need to be fixed or redone later. What about Bluray?

I also hope they follow through with complete "Peter Gunn" and "Naked City" boxes.

 

Thanks for the Amazon tip. Just placed my order. Hope they don't disappoint and hold back from releasing this as they did with "The Fugitive" Complete Series box set. Some "Route 66" will be some kicks - never seen 3rd or 4th season episodes before. Barbara Eden in a 2-part 4th season series closer?!

 

The Barbara Eden 2 parter is the last of the series. I wish there were more episodes but I'm also glad that the series ended before it ever went to color. This is a show that is of its time and couldn't be redone with the same vibe. Everyones attitude about things is different today and the standards for STORIES on tv has dropped very low in my opinion.

I hope Shout Factory does an excellent job with these and since they state that it is one of their all time favorite shows I expect they will. They did a great job on the two Groucho Marx You Bet Your Life boxes.

Did they do a complete Fugitive box?

 

The TSoD news item referenced above addresses this specifically, stating in part that all seasons will be "re-produced for DVD from scratch." That's definitely a good sign.

 

This has been my problem with a lot of Shout Factory releases -- they're definitely done cheap, sometimes without a lot of time and money spent on the mastering.

You would think the people who own the copyrights would want to preserve this stuff. Realistically, mastering a 1-hour B&W TV show is not expensive. At most, it'd be a three or four grand per episode, especially if you were doing 116 episodes. In the grand scheme of things, it's not a lot of money.

 

Anybody get the Shout Factory set yet?

 

Evidently the s*** is hitting the fan on the Shout! factory community forum board and Amazon reviews that they didn't redo the first 3 seasons and that they are the same as the Roxbury/Infinity releases, despite many claims from the box's producer that they were using all the best sources and supposedly going to address some of the shortcomings of those previous editions.

 

All of the negative publicity caused me to hold off on purchasing this set until it's heavily discounted. For now, I can simply record episodes off MeTV and watch them on my TiVo.

 

Actually, I don't think Shout! owns the copyright to Route 66. Don't they just lease the right to release the recordings? And don't they only have access to what the previous leaser had access to?

I personally was glad to have the Roxbury issues of Route 66. It's a great show and I was willing to overlook any technical imprefections. The Shout! collection is complete and the price is pretty good too. I think sometimes people don't realize the limitations that are imposed on companies that reissue old shows on DVD.

 

When Infinity released the show in half season sets, they improved the quality and came up with better elements after the first release which was off of crappy 16mm prints. So obviously there are better elements to be accessed. Hell, the one-inch tape transfers that ran on Nick at Nite in the mid-80s looked beautiful. Shout did nothing to rectify any of the problems, not even the episode which they used a syndication print on that was cut by five and a half minutes. Even if they weren't going to re-transfer the first 15 episodes, the least the could have done was find a complete print of that one. Instead, they improved upon nothing. And then to top it off, they only released the set as a complete series, totally giving the proverbial finger to all of the people who purchased the first 3 seasons previously. Complete disregard for the general buying public.

 

This is very typical, from what I've seen of Shout Factory releases in the past. They were foisting off very marginal audio and video quality on the public.

There are limits as to how far you can cheap out. Once you go below that, it's going to grossly affect the quality of the video mastering. I'm baffled that anybody thinks they can release 25-year-old analog transfers in 2012 and get people to pay for them. To me, what might have been a good compromise would have been to get the copyright holders to split the costs of new transfers on these shows, and just done them all over from scratch.

 

Firstly, who's to say they're not going to ultimately release individual years of the series.
And secondly, I suspect "the general buying public" doesn't give a hang about Route 66. If you want to talk about companies giving people the finger, I'd save that for the sweethearts who pulled a complete box set of The Fugitive off the shelves 6 months ago and who still haven't supplied us with any info as to what the problem was or when it will be re-released.

 

You said it, John. My feelings exactly.

Just received my pre-ordered box set of Route 66 - but have yet to watch an episode. Printed out a complete episode and guest star list of the series from the Internet, and there are so many great guest stars and stories therein - I'll take the quantity over visual quality for now.

Would feel differently if the Fugitive box set does eventually come out, yet has the same issue with replacing the original background music (as they did for the Season 2 & 3 individual sets). Supposedly the new full series box set was going to fix that.

 

The problem is that Shout! was promoting that they were going to address quality issues and the box's producer was adamant about looking into the use of at least one edited syndication version that was a major complaint from fans about the previous editions. Better versions were known to exist and in the end they seem to have done nothing to back up their promises. That's what makes it disappointing.