"BONUS PACKAGING"
by DVDJ MEDIAPAR (BRUCE APAR > dvdj@optonline.net)
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There’ s been a lot of talk in home entertainment circles – at seminars, in print, online, and in office suites of labels, retailers and their vendors – about the growing importance of packaging in the marketing, indeed in the very future, of physical media, which these days pretty much means DVD.
Two of the most imaginative and impressive examples of what can be done to enhance the ownership quotient (OQ) of DVD come from the same motion picture company – Universal Studios Home Entertainment, now of course part of NBC Universal.
The two collector's sets are seminal sitcom Leave It to Beaver, disguised as a schoolkid's lunchbox, and filmmaker John Hughes's coming-of-age trilogy, Sixteen Candles, Breakfast Club and Weird Science, marketed in a box set titled Brat Pack Movies & Music Collection. Both can be seen in the photo above, being held by yours truly in my DVDJ lair.
Case Studies
In both “cases,” the unusual containers also serve -- whether intentionally or otherwise -- to obscure the absence of extras; although in The Brat Pack Collection, which does include a CD of soundtrack singles, two of the three DVDs -- Breakfast Club and Weird Science -- each generously label its theatrical trailer and movie recommendations as Bonus Material.
What’s not evident in the photo of Leave It to Beaver’s nostalgic replica of a 1950s lunchpail is the Beaver Family Photo Album that’s inside. It is a plastic wallet that stores three DVDs, with all 39 episodes, plus souvenir cards with characteristic remarks from the featured players, including the iconic Eddie Haskell’s pricelessly insincere, “Good morning Mrs. Cleaver. That’s a very pretty dress.” What a cheesy charmer.
Navigation Nitpicks
There’s no printed guide to the episodes on each Beaver disc, which impels the viewer to insert a disc before deciding which episode to watch. At first glance, these appear to be single-sided discs, with a ring label on one side of each. Upon closer inspection, though, Side A of each double-sided, dual-layer disc features two ring labels: the outer ring of the hub indicates Disc number and Side A, while the inner ring reads Disc number Side B. Once inserted, the Main Menu on each disc does not indicate if it is Side A or Side B, which is displayed only when you click through to the Episode Index.
This may seem like nitpicking to some, but the net effect is I inserted several sides before locating what Universal describes as “the rarely seen pilot” of Beaver, which turns out to be the last chapter on Side B of Disc 3.
There is no Beaver commentary track, reportedly because the studio and The Beav himself, Jerry Mathers, could not come to terms. That’s a real shame, as it would be particularly interesting to hear what stories Mathers – whom I had a chance to meet and honor at the 2005 DVD Awards with Leonard Maltin last August in Hollywood – could relate about life as a child star in the Stone Age of sitcom television.
Mumy Returns
That brings to mind commentary by another child star of the Golden Age of Television, Billy Mumy, on a famous Twilight Zone episode (Season 3, Disc 1, Episode 73, “It’s A Good Life”; Image Entertainment). Mr. Mumy (pronounced "moo-mee") is at times childishly annoying, as he precociously mutters his and others’ lines of dialogue just before they are spoken. (Maybe he's a natural for current sitcom "Arrested Development.")
Still, Mumy's antics don’t diminish in the slightest from the general excellence of all three volumes of Image’s "Twilight Zone: The Definitive Edition." It’s as great a collection – not simply of TV but of any entertainment medium – as you’ll find anywhere, with vintage extras throughout.
Leave It to Beaver's collectible lunchbox edition is priced under $70, a $20 premium over the same show's standard box set.
Just as the Beaver lunchbox could be used for real to house a PBJ sandwich, Twinkie and apple, Universal’s Brat Pack memo pad-size three ring binder also doubles as a functional disc wallet. Just add those familiar plastic disc pocket inserts sold in stores and you’re in business.
Also, as in the Beaver set, Brat Pack has no printed guide to the contents or chapters of each disc, but with a full movie per disc, it’s no big deal. It may just be neither of these sets includes that kind of hard-copy menu because it only would shine a light on the lack of extra material
At under $35, the price is right for this collection, remixed in Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 Surround and presented in anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. For that, you get the CD with eight songs from the three 1980s John Hughes movies, where there’s something for everyone, from the PG Breakfast Club to PG-13 Weird Science to R Sixteen Candles. Plus you get to see Kelly LeBrock again, and rediscover then-unknowns John Cusack and Bill Paxton.
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