Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Site News - News for The Simpsons, Garfield & Friends, Batman: TAS, SuperFriends, Birds Of Prey...and BUFFY!?

David Thornton, webmaster of QKTheater.com (well-known as a G.I. Joe-oriented website, and who’s provided DVD info to us in the past about that series), was terrific enough to send along some non-Joe information to us a few days ago. He wrote the following:

Hi,

I just received the May 2004 Previews catalog, which lists everything that distributor Diamond Comics intends to ship in July 2004, and thought you might be interested in the following DVD solicitations:

GARFIELD AND FRIENDS VOLUME 1 DVD

From Fox Home Entertainment! Featuring the cartoon antics of everyone’s favorite fat cat, Garfield, joined by Odie, Jon, and the barnyard crew of U.S. Acres, this DVD set collects all 13 1988-89 first season animated episodes of Jim Davis’ Garfield and Friends. Scheduled to ship in July 2004.

DVD $39.98

THE SIMPSONS GONE WILD DVD

From Fox Home Entertainment! This DVD release collects four episodes featuring The Simpsons greatest summer fun antics! Scheduled to ship in July 2004.

DVD $14.98

BATMAN: THE ANIMATED SERIES SEASON 1 DVD BOX SET From Warner Home Video, Inc.! In 1992, the birth of Warner Bros. Batman: The Animated Series redefined the Batman Universe forever, embodying the dark image fans have come to love while maintaining the heroic qualities identified with the character. The Darknight Detective takes on a gallery of some of his deadliest and most bizarre foes, including the Joker, Poison Ivy, and the Scarecrow, in this DVD set collecting the original first season episodes from the Emmy Award-winning Batman: The Animated Series. Scheduled to ship in July 2004.

DVD $44.98

CHALLENGE OF THE SUPERFRIENDS SEASON 1 DVD SET

From Warner Home Video, Inc.! Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the rest of the SuperFriends battle Lex Luthor and his Legion of Doom in this DVD set collecting all 20 original first season episodes from Hanna-Barbera’s 1978 Challenge of the SuperFriends animated series. Scheduled to ship in July 2004.

DVD $29.98

David also discussed Millennium in his message, but by then we were already working on that story. The next day after David wrote us, ToonZone.net reported on the same Diamond Previews news for Batman: The Animated Series and Challenge of the SuperFriends, generating a LOT of e-mail from our readers who wanted to make sure we’ve heard about these sets.

Well, we did! And frankly, we were cautious about presenting this news to our readers, without first verifying it with Fox Home Video and Warner Brothers Family Entertainment, especially after Diamond Previews previously reported on Harsh Realm being a May release, but later Fox informed us that it was actually targeted for "Summer" release (possibly July). We’re working on getting ahold of the right people to check into all of this new stuff, and we’ll be back with individual news items for each of these releases once we get the official details.

While we’re talking to Warner, we’ll also check into reports from readers such as Bob Felber, who tells us that "The latest issue of Entertainment Weekly had a sidebar indicating that Birds of Prey will be released on DVD shortly with all 13 episodes." Great news, even if we couldn’t track down an issue of the magazine to check it out for ourselves. We hope that the unaired pilot for that live-action series also ends up in any potential release. TVShowsOnDVD is also "racing" to bring you "top" news about what’s coming up down-the-road in Warner’s Hanna-Barbera Collection.

We’ll also be looking into a heads-up from Heather Coulter, who sent along this interesting tidbit the other day:

I just read in the new "BTVS" official magazine that they are coming out with a "The Best of" -type DVD’s that will focus on specific characters. The first one is about Buffy. The others are Willow, Spike, Faith, and I think Angel. (I didn’t actually get the magazine). They will have about 4-5 episodes each. there was a list of them in the magazine for each of the DVD’s. It may also have been mentioned in the "Official Angel" mag. They are Region 1 DVD I believe.

If true, then this probably WOULD be a Region 1 release, especially considering that compilations such as Heather described are already available overseas for Buffy, Angel, Willow, Spike,and other characters. Those releases, part of the series entitled The Slayer Collection, are of course not compatible with most DVD players sold in North America...so it makes sense that Fox would plan on a continuation of Buffy DVDs after the 7th (and final) season releases in this part of the world (presumably late 2004/early 2005).

Wow, that’s quite a bit of news to take in! As you can see, we’re working on a LOT of news stories for you...some we can’t even talk about yet. But stay tuned, because we’re digging deep into all of this, and we’ll be back with in-depth looks at each of these just as soon as we can. In the meantime, we would like to thank all of our readers who wrote in about these stories.