The Beverly Hillbillies: The Official Second Season DVD
Amazon Products

 Rating: - A Great Show That Almost Had An Equally Great DVD Release
Despite one serious flaw (discussed below), this set is well worth buying and should be supported wholeheartedly by all BH fans. We vote for a product (whether good or bad) by purchasing it, which we hope encourages the bigwigs to continue to produce it. There are nine seasons of this show, all of which deserve to be released on DVD, so we have a long way to go. We don't want this show to suffer the fate of "Green Acres" (which the bigwigs stopped releasing after three of six seasons, presumably due to lack of sales). So buy it not only for its own sake and the enjoyment you will surely derive from owning it, but also as an investment in the future release of the other seasons in the series.

This show is a true classic, one of the all time greats. It holds the world's record for the most highly rated single episode of a sitcom ever broadcast (the episode entitled, "The Giant Jackrabbit", which is contained in this set). The scripts are well written with witty and hilarious dialog and loveable characters. This show is also genuinely FUNNY, with no hidden agenda to convert the viewer to leftist ideology like today's TV shows. Also unlike today's TV, no attempt is made here to defile the innocence of any defenseless children who may be in the room, so you may safely allow your kids to view this show (and they will love it!).

Even if you already own both volumes of the BH Ultimate Collection (which you should), this set is still worth having since it includes 17 episodes from season two not previously released. The sound and picture quality of the episodes on this set is quite good. The length of the episodes varies, the shortest being 25:07 and the longest coming in at 25:36. Average length overall is 25:22, thus they can reasonably be thought to be free of edits.

Extras include an Irene Ryan screen test/comparison with an excerpt from the pilot episode (1:16), "The Stars Address is CBS" 1963 fall preview spot (2:33, but you can tell it is edited, they cut out the Twilight Zone segment), a CBS network promo spot from 1963 (0:46), and an excerpt from a 1969 Paul Henning interview (2:39, also edited. Part, though not all, of this interview is included in the BH Ultimate Collection Vol. II).

But the greatest extra of all, and the one that makes this set so much worth buying, is the inclusion of some of the CAST COMMERCIALS!! While the previously released BH Ultimate Collections also (fortunately) contained the cast commercials (some of which are duplicated here), this set also contains a few not found on the previous BHUC releases. Also very convenient here is that the menu provides an option to watch each episode in it's entirety with the CC's integrated into the episode as they were intended to be seen, instead of just lumping them altogether at the end of disc 4 as with the previously released Ultimate Collection sets.

On a brand new DVD release we already expect full, complete, unedited episodes (and factually speaking they are not truly complete unless they include the cast commercials), with good sound and picture quality. That much is a given; anything less and the bigwigs can take a flying leap and forget about getting my hard earned money. But the inclusion of the cast commercials takes any DVD set to a whole new level. We've all seen these episodes before (in edited form) on network/cable TV, and we know how enjoyable they are. But what you will never see on TV are these awesome Cast Commercials, which feature the characters from the show hawking the sponsor's products in very clever and witty spots which often continue the story line of the episodes. These things are great!! It really is all about the cast commercials, the inclusion of which here is the single best of many good reasons to buy this set.

Which brings me to its one shameful flaw. There are 36 episodes (the complete 2nd season) on this set, so there should have also been 36 cast commercials on it. Instead, there are 11 missing, NINE of which (and here we come to the shameful part) are the Winston cigarette commercials (the commercials alternate each week between the show's two sponsors, Winston and Kelloggs). Specifically, the only Winston commercials present on this set are the same ones that were already released on the BHUC sets (the fact that they are to be found on a competitor's set is doubtless the only reason they were included on this set). So the powers that be deliberately cut out the remaining Winston commercials, apparently afraid that if they let us watch 40 year old Winston cigarette commercials we all might start (gasp!) smoking (I don't smoke, never have, and no amount of persuasion is going to make me start. I'm not nearly as weak minded as the bigwigs think I am). Or more likely they just lack the moral courage to stand up and do the right thing for their customers and for posterity, it being easier to just cave in and sell out to the political correctness thought police (doesn't it make you feel good to know there are people out there smarter and better than we are, who care so much about our safety and welfare that they are willing to protect us from ourselves and make our decisions for us since we are all just a bunch of ignorant hicks and simplistic little children?). They even went so far in their cowardice as to put little mandatory blurbs at the beginning of the Winston episodes (even the ones which have had the commercials cut out) warning about the dangerous evils of smoking (I agree that smoking is not the smartest way to spend your time or your money, but that is still something adults have the right to decide for themselves, without holier-than-thou paternalistic busybodies attempting to dictate and force their personal preferences on the rest of us).

Indeed a shame that what could have been a great release is marred by moral cowardice and lack of principle. Even so, to have some cast commercials is better than to have none. Hopefully future releases of BH will be at least as good as this one, if not better (i.e., they will include ALL the cast commercials, not just the ones that the political correctness stormtroopers deem "acceptable"). So buy it for yourself, for your friends and relatives, for anyone who needs a good laugh, or for anyone who could benefit from having their cultural horizons expanded.

Search: