2012 Loose Ends

As 2012 comes to an end, I thought I'd tie up some loose ends.

If you recall, I predicted the 9th volume of THREE STOOGES COLLECTION, Rare Treasures From The Columbia Vault, would be released individually by Christmas. I was off by a month. The announced release date is January 1, 2013.

There has been no formal announcement of the 1966 Batman TV series being released on DVD despite an agreement for merchandise based on the show, but the 1974 Shazam TV series has been released. It was great to see those shows again. Since it was an anthology show, it was kind of the precursor to the Bill Bixby Incredible Hulk series, which had a similar format. The show has some good moments, and indeed has a fair share of nods to both the comics (there are several references to Billy working at station WHIZ, and some moments between Billy and Mentor -who comes off as a slight variation of Uncle Dudley- have a Binder & Beck flavor to them) and the 1941 serial (the original Billy Batson, Frank Coghlan Jr, guest stars in an episode). Its weird, though, that the "morals" segments were done separately from the series, and the master tape lost, forcing WB Archive to use VHS copies. Thankfully, the episodes themselves are from the masters, and look great. Although, things definitely went down hill in the last 11 episodes where John Davey takes over the role of Fat Marv... er, Captain Marvel. Now if only WB Archive would release a DVD collecting all 13 of the 1980 Filmation Shazam cartoons, many of which written by Paul Dini.

The Monkees did a quick tour this winter. Watching some great clips on You Tube, Micky, Mike and Peter performed incredibly. As expected, the set list was Nez heavy and some of the show's highlights were rarely performed gems like Tapioca Tundra, Sweet Young Thing, and a hilarious version of Daily Nightly. I understand a concert was audio recorded for possible CD release, but unfortunately none of the concerts were professionally filmed for DVD release. However, The Monkees' current quasi-manager, Andrew Sandoval, hinted another tour may happen this summer. This quick winter tour was more or less a trial run, and bigger things may be planned for the future, as rumors circulate that Dolenz, Tork, and Nesmith were planning on forming an act without Jones for several months prior to Davy's death.