Monday, September 14, 2015

Ask JKM a Question: What Else is Out There?



A regular reader, David, writes:

"I have been a fan of your blog for a long time. Since you started writing, it seems that every cult-TV series (in your terminology) has been released to DVD, blu-ray, or by streaming. 

So my question is, what else is out there?  What aren't we seeing that we should be seeing?"



David, that's a terrific question.  

I think about seven or eight years ago I actually wrote a post here on that subject, tallying all the cult-TV programs that still were not available. 

At that time, DVD was the format of choice, however, not streaming.

And now, we really do live in an age of plenty. A number of great series are now available to watch for the avid TV scholar, ones that haven't seen the light of day in a long time.

In the past several years we've gotten, for instance, Thriller (1960 - 1962), Ghost Story/Circle of Fear (1972), Logan's Run: The Series (1977), Wizards and Warriors (1983) Space Rangers (1993) and that long-sought after Holy Grail, Batman (1966 - 1969) to name just a few.

But to quote Captain Kirk, we're not quite done with history yet.  


There are a number of series out there that still haven't had official releases in the United States, and which should be released. 

Now, my belief that these series should be available is not always based on quality concerns, but rather historical ones.  Many of these programs haven't been seen for years, and are sort of "missing links" to modern programming.  

Here's a list of some series -- the ones that I could think of off the top of my head -- that have not received a full series release, via streaming or DVD/Blu Ray.  

Off-air, or unofficial copies of the following series may be available.  YouTube is also a good source for catching up with some defunct cult-TV series. 



One Step Beyond (1959 - 1961) (Only the first season has been released by CBS).

The Green Hornet (1966-1967)

The Immortal (1971)

The Sixth Sense (1972)

The Evil Touch (1973)

The Fantastic Journey (1977)

Lucan (1977 - 1978)

Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected (1977)

The Next Step Beyond (1978)

Project UFO (1978-1979)

Cliffhangers (1979)

Salvage 1 (1979)

Supertrain (1979)

Automan (1983)

Manimal (1983)

Otherworld (1985)

Once A Hero (1987)

Werewolf (1987)

Freddy's Nightmares (1988 - 1989)

Something is Out There (1988)

Hard Time on Planet Earth (1989)

The Burning Zone (1997)

Sleepwalkers (1997)

Prey (1998)

Brimstone (1999)

G vs. E (1999)

Strange World (1999)

The Others (2000)

Freakylinks (2000)

Of all those series, I'm most interested in official releases of The Evil Touch (1973) -- an Australian horror anthology with American guest stars like Darren McGavin -- The Fantastic Journey, Otherworld, Werewolf , Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected, Project UFO, and Cliffhangers.  
These are all series I remember from my youth, and would like very much to see again, with clear pictures and no commercial breaks.

If anyone can think of any programs I missed let me know in the comments!

Don't forget to ask me your questions at Muirbusiness@yahoo.com

4 comments:

  1. YouTube is absolutely a terrific source for retro tv!!! I was able to get every episode of every season of 'The Hitchhiker', Fear Itself, Tales of the Unexpected, The Next Step Beyond, all Twilight Zone episodes from the 80's and 00's, not to mention many, many obscure genre movies from the 70's/80's. There are other video streaming sights and I do some serious trolling...but nothing beats YouTube.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Good choices. I want official dvds of The Fantastic Journey.

    SGB

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  3. I would add "VR 5" to that list, which is one of my three "holy grails" along with "The Sixth Sense" and "The Fantastic Journey". Make that four because you just reminded me about "Strange World". Love Kristen Lehman!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Automan (1983)

    Manimal (1983)

    I believe both of these are upcoming Shout Factory releases:

    http://insidepulse.com/2015/07/14/shout-factory-to-release-manimal-automan/

    ReplyDelete

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