Why hasn't JULIA (the Diahann Carroll sitcom) been released on DVD?

Actually, very recently they did all new 35mm negative scans of Lost in Space for Blu-ray, and they look like a million bucks. The interesting backstory on it is: Fox didn't want to spend the money to do a full restoration, so Irwin Allen's wife Sheila Matthews Allen actually paid the expenses to pull out the negatives, spruce them up, get them scanned to 4K files, and color-corrected over at Illuminate/Hollywood. I don't think the shows ever looked better. The facility was totally insured and bonded, so Fox did allow a small number of episodes to be hand-delivered over on a daily basis (like 3 shows a day), so it wasn't a huge risk. The studio continues to keep their original negatives and also has both raw digital scans and color-corrected/dust-busted scans for their permanent archives, at no cost to them.

I've complained before that Shout doesn't seem to do any actual remastering: they just take whatever the studio gives them and uses that for release. There's a point where you have to grab the original elements and painstakingly restore them, scan them, dust-bust them, color-correct them, and do whatever's necessary to bring them into the digital age. The film elements survive: all they have to do is just want to do it, and spend the money.

That is not exactly true. Universal actually has film scanners on the North side of the lot over at the Digital Video Services facility (building 2282, just a stone's throw from Spielberg's Amblin headquarters). All you'd have to do is get them to do all the scanning, then take a drive out with all the files on it and then use those for the project. So while the studio doesn't like to send a master 35mm negative off the lot, they will at least scan all the materials if you want to do a re-release of something they don't care about. What this costs is a good question, but I think deals can be made.

I think all the studios are extremely aware that if they have multiple streaming services, there's going to be a huge gaping maw of material that audiences are going to demand to see. To me, it's in their best interests to make available every show they ever did. I happen to know that a new LA company (Colortime) is remastering quite a few old Universal TV shows, so it's possible that Name of the Game, Dragnet, Adam 12, Night Gallery, and all the shows of that era will be included. I know that Miami Vice, Magnum P.I., and all their 1980s shows have been completed (and all done to 4K HDR).

 

What exactly does Murdoch have to do with it (other than you don't like him)?

Did he decree that "Julia shall never see the light of day!" ??

 

I think Vahan is wrong as well -- I don't think Rupert Murdoch wasted even 10 seconds worrying about whether a 45-year-old TV show was going to be reissued or not. He had "people" in charge of that stuff. Now, it's Disney's call, but I tend to doubt they'll be much different.

I think this is very simple dollars-and-cents economics: there's a ton of old shows that aren't out, some that never came out. Part of it happens because they're dated (which is to say they're old); part of it is because there's not many episodes; part of it is because their syndication numbers were low. If it's not a cult show with a built-in audience (like Star Trek, Munsters, Twilight Zone, whatever), it's tough to get 1960s/1970s TV shows re-released at all.

 

Indeed, there might be a market now but give it a decade or more and they will begin to lose their audience....to age and death.

 

I'm just mad at Murdoch, because I have a feeling that thanks to the new Disney deal, Shout! Factory and Fox will never work together ever again.

 

As a 60 year old white Australian male I’d jump all over this if it was released on disc.
I loved this show as a kid. Had a crush on Dianne Carroll big time!
Remember Earl J. Waggerdorn?

 

ditto, I managed t find Switch (Robert wagner, eddie albert caper show) lthough I think its officially been released now (?)

 

On the other hand, I also think they should make available all silent films, and everybody in those films is dead, and I would say 98% of the audience who wants to see them are dead as well. To me, making everything available for posterity is as much a statement about preserving history as it is about making money. You want to see Sunrise? It's only 50 cents as a download, or maybe $7 a month if you buy the entire Disney+/Fox streaming access.

 

They definitely gave better transfers of “Emergency!” to Netflix a few years back. The dvds are a mess of syndicated prints with jumps and splices and some better sources.

 

Funny you mention Sunrise. I dated a woman a few years ago who loved silent movies and Sunrise was one she had me watch.

 

Has not been released. Madman in Australia was interested in doing it and ran into an elements issue, either with the uncut tape transfers burning up in the fire or no usable copy of the pilot movie. I forget which reason, or maybe both.

 

Will this include the lesser demand shows, like Baretta, Owen Marshall, etc.? Universal was so desperate to squeeze every last dollar out of all of their properties that they would put together TV "movies", which were nothing more than episodes of failed series cobbled together. They did this with such memorable shows as Matt Lincoln, Man and the City, Turnabout, Fay, Mr. Terrific, The D.A., Sara, The Survivors, Paris 7000, The Psychiatrist, San Francisco International Airport, Lucas Tanner, Doctors Hospital, Griff, Toma, Pistols 'n' Petticoats and probably a bunch more I'm forgetting about.

 

It was probably the film elements as it was shot on film.

 

Hey I was happy that The Man From Uncle and The Invaders were even released on DVD. The Immortal also ended up on DVD as well as other Series I thought would never be released (Longstreet)

Edit: I hate when the IPad tries to figure out what I want to say.

 

I'm willin' to go out on a limb and bet, it's the same reason nobody puts Tab into the Coke machines next to the Sprite and the Barq's.

$pecifically what that rea$on might be, i$ anybody'$ gue$$. Can't po$$ibly $uggest a premi$e.

 

bummer, first couple season were well done...things got sloppy during last season or two but eddie/Robert had good chemistry

 

Ya know... if you can find a Coke Freestyle machine, it does have 150 flavors on tap, potentially including all the sodas you name. (But in my opinion, the concentrates do not quite reproduce 100% of the original flavor. It's close, but not quite.)

The Barettas were definitely done in the 1980s for analog SD, but I dunno what else. I know the Six Million Dollar Man and Marcus Welby shows were done by Universal for HD. 4K HDR is now the gold standard, and there is a bit of a rush to get everything "important" done in that format.

 

if these were some of the film elements that were burned up in the Universal fire, it’s sad. Actually I’m surprised more stuff has t disappeared over the years.

 

Remember Oil E Wagonwheel !

 

"Pistols 'n' Petticoats" wasn't a failed series; it ended after half a season because its star Ann Sheridan went into the hospital for treatment of throat cancer and came back out via the morgue.

 

I watched these in the early 70's as a child. I was a precocious kid, and my mother was a nurse.

It was pretty good.

 

No, all the original camera negatives survived -- it's only the studio prints and videotape copies that went up in smoke in the June 2008 fire. Universal had to spend about $25 million dollars redoing all the video transfers over a period of 3-4 years.

 

It ran for a full season and actually had a DVD release in Germany but unfortunately only with the German soundtrack.

 

I don't think they re-transferred everything. Baretta and Name of the Game, for instance, I doubt they did them.

 

I used to watch this show as a kid, and I remember liking it. Now can we get a nice quality DVD of Room 222?