Tuesday, June 25, 2024

The Three Stooges Blu Ray Collection: A Frustrating Blunder

On July 23, 2024, Sony will release a 20 disc Blu ray set of The Three Stooges. Fans have hoped for the boys' 190 short films to be remastered in high definition for a Blu ray release.  Not to be outdone, the set will also include 14 Shemp Howard solo Columbia shorts, 10 Joe Besser solo Columbia shorts, 4 Joe DeRita solo Columbia shorts, 2 feature films with Curly, 5 feature films with Joe DeRita, and the 2000 biographical TV movie produced by Mel Gibson, all in HD.  Plus more extras like cartoons and TV appearances. 

So why did I title this article "A Frustrating Blunder"?  Because the set will only have 100 of the Boys' 190 shorts!  Even more ridiculous is that all the feature films will be on separate discs, artificially bloating the set to 20 discs. Three feature films could fit on a single disc, while the extra discs could have had the remaining 90 shorts.  

Unless I could get the set at a slashed clearance price, I am making the hard decision not to buy this set.  It is just too asinine to make a 20 disc Blu ray set, but not to include all 190 shorts.  This is being promoted as a limited edition set celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Columbia Pictures, which rationalizes only 100 shorts.  But still... no... it has to have all 190.

I hope Sony will eventually reissue the Blu ray set after Columbia's 100th, to include all 190 shorts.  Or license it out to ClassicFlix to get it right.  As far as I'm concerned, the 190 shorts, the 14 Shemp solo shorts, the 2 feature films with Curly, and the Boys' TV pilot Jerks of All Trades, are essential.  Anything less than that is a pass. I could do without the Joe DeRita feature films and most of the other extras. But a box set must include the essentials to be worth buying.

If you would like to make your frustration and displeasure known to Sony about this, you can email them at consumer@SPHECustomerSupport.sony.com and SPE_Feedback@spe.sony.com and to Robert_Lawson@spe.sony.com

If you would like to contact ClassicFlix to suggest they license the Stooges catalog to reissue the box set correctly, you can contact them at support@classicflix.com or by using their contact form www.classicflix.com/contacts

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