For a period of time starting in the mid-2000s, it became common for most major DVD releases to have both 1- and 2-disc editions. Typically, the 2-disc edition just had more bonus content and cost a few dollars more, while the 1-disc edition had less content and was cheaper. I never understood this. This was before streaming became huge, so it didn't incentivize buying the DVD, nor did the 2-disc edition cost much more, so it couldn't have had much impact on profit. So why was this even a thing?
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Answer: From my experience, the 2-disc versions provided two different formats. Typically, the 1-disc version was Fullscreen and, depending on its release, did have additional content like commentaries and deleted scenes. The 2-disc version included a Widescreen version as well as extra materials, extended cuts, remastered versions, or special edition, etc. Later, when Blu-Ray came out, the 2-disc set usually included a standard DVD version. Some DVDs were sold as 2-sided without a lot of extra content but having a Fullscreen and Widescreen version.
This doesn't really answer the question. I'm not referring to those. I'm more so referring to titles like "Spider-Man 3" or "Super 8". Their DVDs only came in widescreen, but had two versions. A single-disc edition with just the movie and a few special features, and a 2-disc edition that had more special features. I'm curious as to WHY many titles had single and two-disc editions with the only difference being the amount of special features. It just seems more logical to release just the 2-disc edition. This answer basically just explains that 2-disc existed.
I apologise for misunderstanding the question, because what you described in my experience was atypical. And in my opinion, it makes sense to release two versions, but I'm afraid to answer why if I turn out to still not understand the question.
No problem. It's a very weird, specific question, hahaha. Wouldn't surprise me if there isn't even really an answer beyond just "they decided to try it for some reason."
Answer: Simply put MONEY.
Profits are almost always, if not always, a factor. The two-disc versions with "extras" might have been enough to get certain movie buffs to buy them, even though they already had the single-disc version - but I doubt very many people actually did so.
I remember a sitcom episode in which a man got angry if someone mentioned David Letterman. He would shout something like "David Letterman? Slowly I turn around!" I don't think he was a main character, though.
Answer: It's from the TV series "Cosby", s02e17, "Fifteen Minutes of Fame." Hilton and Griffin are in a jail cell and Griffin tells the guard they need to get to the David Letterman show. Gilbert Gottfried (who's credited as playing himself) gets angry hearing David Letterman's name and goes into a rant about how David Letterman ruined his life.
Thank you! That sounds like what I saw.
Before the mid-2000s or so, people used to joke about bribing the cable guy to hook up the premium channels (movies, adult channels, etc). Was that always just a misconception? Today's technology prevents the installer from doing it without the cable company knowing.
I know companies pay a lot of money to advertise during events such as the Superbowl, but what about "regular" TV? Did they choose to have their ads run during particular shows? I am mostly thinking of broadcast TV, before streaming was popular.
Answer: Companies typically pay to run their ads during times when their target audience will be watching TV, such as toy companies running ads during Saturday morning cartoons, and in particular, a popular company like McDonald's would run their Happy Meal commercials during that time as well.
Answer: To add to the other fine answer, TV advertising costs are determined by how many viewers watch a particular program. TV networks set advertising rates based on different programs' ratings. Those with the highest viewership are the most expensive to advertise on. TV ratings were (and still are) determined by the Nielsen Media Research Company, who measure who and how many people watch each TV show. Companies naturally want to advertise their products and services when the largest number of viewers are watching and also to their target market.
I watched this movie recently, but I think it was a miniseries first. A woman reads an erotic novel. The author is mysterious and has never revealed his appearance. Some fans speculate that "he" is actually a woman. After a book club meeting, a man introduces himself to the woman. He is the author. Later, it turns out that he is lying - he is actually an editor employed by the author. The roommate meets with the real author, but only his or her shoulder area is shown.
Answer: "Submission" (2016). It was a mini-series, but is now showing as a movie on the Tubi app.
A guy in a sitcom episode was describing his dream woman. A fantasy woman appeared while he described what he wanted. At one point he said, "I want her to be sporty...but not too sporty." The fantasy woman bounced a ping pong ball on a paddle about twice, then she said, "This is boring. Let's have sex!" Pretty sure I saw it before the late 2000s.
Answer: I think it's from the TV series "Unhappily Ever After".
I participated in an online survey about a possible new TV show. In the "pilot" episode, a woman's boyfriend proposed to her, but he and another girlfriend/wife were actually scheming to steal her money. However, he sent her a German Shepherd puppy, which she had always wanted. The ending implied that he had mixed feelings and really cared about her. I think I watched this sometime between 2016 and 2021 (I know I didn't see it in the past two years).
Answer: I want to add: I think I remember the main character woman having red or reddish-brown hair. Her fiancé's "real" girlfriend (the other scammer) was blonde. Of course, if this show continued after the pilot, there might have been changes to the cast.
I watched this movie on TV in 2006-ish. A woman was pregnant, and the father was one of three or four guys. Somehow, none of them really knew which one had slept with her; only she knew.
Answer: After some searching, I think this is the 1999 movie "Kimberly", also called "Daddy Who?"
Answer: You saw it in 2006, did you mean it was set in 2006? Because I know two movies with that plot but made in the 1960s. "Doctor, You've got to be Kidding?" Sandra Dee plays a young woman who is pregnant, and three different men want to marry her. "Buona Sera, Mr. Campbell," an Italian woman, Gina Lollabridga, who had an affair with three different men during World War II. She had a daughter but doesn't know which one is the father. She solicits support money from each of them. Then all three men return to Italy for a G.I. reunion.
I watched it on TV in about 2006. It was probably made before then, or it was a new TV movie. It was not set in the '60s, probably in the '80s or after. The setting was "modern" (not necessarily what we call modern in 2023 but more modern than the '60s). I appreciate your suggestions, though.
I remember seeing a movie on Hallmark that had three brothers, a little girl and a lighthouse. I can't remember the title.
Answer: Possibly "Three Wise Men and a Baby" (not the 1987 film "Three Men and a Baby") but more likely, "Christmas With Holly." Both are Hallmark movies. The latter involves three adult brothers caring for their deceased sister's young daughter. It is set in Friday Harbor on San Juan Island in Washington state. San Juan Island has two lighthouses. (The movie was actually filmed in Nova Scotia.)
What is the name of a movie about a teenage girl having a "crush" on a writing/English teacher, and he claims to have had books published? Eventually, after they have sex, she finds rejection letters and discovers that none of his writing was published. I think the movie ended with her leaving town.
Answer: "Blue Car" (2002). Agnes Bruckner plays the student, and David Strathairn plays the teacher.
Looking for a late 2000s, early 2010s show involving humans and alien species living together. I don't remember if it was a new city on Earth or a different planet. One family of aliens was human-like, but with white-blonde hair. The husband openly visited prostitutes because it was the norm for males of their species. His wife had a brief affair with one of his regular prostitutes. The couple had an adult son, who married a human woman.
Answer: Submitter here. It's "Defiance" from 2013-2015. I found clips on YouTube.
Answer: It sounds like Alien Nation.
What show had a joke about a male character going through a gay phase, and he was shown watching "Caroline in the City" (the joke being that only a gay man would watch)?
Answer: There's a cutaway gag in "Family Guy" (S01E06, "The Son Also Draws") where Peter tells Lois he's tricked people before. Then he says, "Remember that time I pretended to be gay?" and it cuts to him watching TV with the "Caroline in the City" title card showing.
I remember seeing a film in theatres in the 90s when I was a kid. I think it was a children's sports film. I seem to recall there being a scene where a boy spots another boy through a gap in a shelf at the store and remarks something like, "What a hunk!" At least I think it was two boys... one may have been a tomboyish girl, though. And I think it had something to do with football. Ring anyone's bell? Trying to rewatch childhood movies and it just popped into my head.
Answer: Sounds like the movie Little Giants.
Looked it up and that is 100% it. Thanks.
Saw a black and white movie on TBS in early morning hours in 1981. Guy with an eye patch holding a woman hostage in an apt that was sub ground. Looking out of the window she saw people's legs walking by. Anybody ever see it?
Answer: The movie is "Something Wild," 1961. Carroll Baker plays a young woman who is raped. Feeling ashamed, she doesn't go to the police or the hospital. Later, she learns she's pregnant. Distraught, she tries to commit suicide by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge. Ralph Meeker plays a blue-collar mechanic who stops her, taking her to his sub-ground apt. He refuses to let her go until she gets rid of her suicidal thoughts. At first, she is antagonistic towards him, injuring his eye. As time goes on, she accepts her situation and realizes that Ralph loves her and she loves him.
There was a movie about a bed that seemed to be possessed by evil. In one scene in the movie a woman is lying in the bed when suddenly, what looks like a huge black claw comes out of the bed and through her stomach killing her. What is it?
Answer: It isn't a movie, but there is a TV series episode with that plot. "The Hunger," S01E05, "Bridal Suite." Sally Kirkland plays the owner of a B&B who gives a honeymooning couple a room, whose bed is possessed.
Can't remember a movie, probably from the 80s, about a family having a funeral on a hillside, sort of like Next of Kin, mountain people go after justice for their loved one?
Answer: It could be the "Winter People," 1989. Kurt Russell plays a widowed clockmaker with a daughter whose truck breaks down in the Appalachian mountains. Amid two families feuding, he falls in love with Kelly McGillis. She has a baby with her father's rival son. When the son finds out about Kurt and Kelly, they have a brutal fight. He kills the son, and the family demands justice for his murder.
Trying to remember a movie I saw when I was a teenager on IFC. The movie was in Italian or another European language, set in the future, about a boy who can't go outside or he dies. I only watched the end. In the movie he's always stuck indoors so he talks to call girls on some webcam. The thing though is that you don't see the main character's face. It just shows the people he's talking to. When talking on the webcam he falls in love with a call girl. And vice versa, then he breaks it to her that he can't go outside. Then she shuns him, he ties to get in contact with her again but he can't reach her. So feeling heart broken he gets frustrated with his disease. The last part was sad because he calls his mom and asks her how's the weather outside that's when his mother knows he's going to go outside meaning certain death, she just tells him to put on a coat, it's chilly outside. The last part just shows the security camera of the boy about the go outside. Just about when he's going outside the movie ends.
Answer: There was a TV movie in 1977 titled "The Boy in the Plastic Bubble." It was an American film with John Travolta. The other is a Yugoslavian film from 1988 titled "The Dark Side of the Sun." It was Brad Pitt's very first starring role.
I'm looking for the name of a movie that I saw on HBO in the late 80s or early 90s. It was a western movie with a teenage or young adult girl who runs away with a group of men on horseback for adventure. I want to say the name of her horse was something like Honeybelle and the title of the movie may have been "The Adventures of..." Any suggestions?
Answer: There is a movie from the 1980s titled "Cattle Annie and Little Britches." Two young girls, Amanda Plummer and Diane Lane, join a gang of outlaws led by Burt Lancaster.
It seems to me that older shows, for the most part, had more "stand-alone" episodes: you could easily watch them if you missed the previous episode or two. If I am correct, this is why characters often had new love interests for just one episode. Nowadays, a show is often called a "series" and all episodes must be watched, even a "Previously on..." recap doesn't cover everything. Any thoughts on why this is?
Answer: Well, in the old days, people couldn't really watch whenever they wanted or even record what they wanted to see. So trying to follow a continuing show was a lot harder. That's why there were way more shows where every episode was standalone, as you didn't have to bother watching every single one to be able to follow it. You could skip a few without a problem. These days, watching all episodes is a lot easier because of recording and digital releases. You can watch whenever you want, in the right order.
Answer: There's a lot of factors that go into this. I think the biggest one is that seasons in general have gotten shorter, meaning there is less room for stand-alone episodes. It used to be the norm for shows to have 20+ episodes per season, whereas now, seasons with 13 or fewer episodes are more common. (This is for many reasons, including higher production costs, viewership fluctuations, streaming making shorter seasons more in vogue, etc.) And as a result, many shows now just basically feel like one big movie that's split up into chapters/episodes since there's less time for side-stories or stand-alone episodes. There's good and bad to this. On one hand, it means shows need to be more efficient and concise, and there's likely to be fewer dull moments. But on the other hand, it also means that there's slightly less time for side-characters, sub-plots, world-building, etc. So it's a double-edged sword. Also, "show" and "series" have always been used interchangeably. That's nothing new.
I don't remember what year it was, but if I understand correctly, one of the results of one of the writers' strikes a while back was reduced episodes to make a complete season or a half season (with some exceptions, like daily shows).
Yeah, from what I recall, during the 2007 writers' strike, a lot of seasons had to be produced with fewer episodes due to lost time from the several months the strike lasted. And that did help set a certain precedent that many shows could be successful with fewer episodes per season. Although, I think it wasn't really until about five years later that you started to see shorter seasons becoming more widespread.
Answer: I also think another point is, there's just so many more shows being produced today, so we see more examples of these types of series shows. And, if more shows are being produced, there's more competition to get viewers to watch live (as opposed to recording to a DVR or streaming). Companies that buy ad time during a show know if viewers are recording, they can skip their ads (which is why we see more countermeasures to this).
Answer: Adding to the other answers: In TV's earliest days (from the 1950s), shows had more episodes per season, over 30. During the summer hiatus, fewer reruns were shown until the new Fall season. That resulted in self-contained episodes and one-time characters or situations that were rarely mentioned again. Episodes could be shown in any order, without losing continuity. The half-hour sitcoms were like extended skits. Many early TV shows were written by radio-era writers when maintaining a consistent, non-visual storyline was more challenging. It was just a different way of doing things. As TV evolved, plots became extended throughout a season with fewer episodes. Keeping viewers involved and guessing what happens in the next episode helps ratings.
Can different episodes of a show "belong" to different companies? I ask because streaming services will sometimes have a show, but a few episodes are missing throughout. I know that a streaming service may not have the rights to the newest episodes of a current show, but why are random episodes missing from older shows? (As examples, I have noticed this with "ALF" and "Alfred Hitchcock Presents".)
Answer: In some ways, yes. For example, in "AHP", some of the episodes were stories written by other authors. S0401 was a Roald Dahl story. For whatever reason, the streaming services didn't get the rights to show that episode (too costly, wasn't given permission, or didn't try). Sometimes an episode contains a copyrighted song that they didn't get the rights to stream (sometimes they'll cut that scene or dub over the music with something else). Sometimes episodes are pulled for being too offensive or controversial. For example, Hulu pulled 5 episodes of "Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia" for using black or brown face. For "Alf", I didn't see any missing episodes. But sometimes a 2-part episode will be combined into 1 episode, so IMDB says there's 26 episodes, but only 25 episodes are listed, with 1 episode being about twice as long.
Thank you. I've been watching "Alf" on the Roku Channel. I think there is an episode missing from Season 1. "Border Song" is listed as 1x18, then "Going Out of My Head" is 1x20.
That's strange. It may have something to do with where Roku got the content from, and the content was already missing. Before answering, I looked up the shows you mentioned on Tubi, and all episodes of "Alf" are there, including "Wild Thing" (episode 19). Tubi is a free streaming app I use on my TV.
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Answer: OP here. From everything I've been able to find, it pretty much just looks like it was just a bit of a gimmick. Put some extra bonus content on a second disc, call it a "Special Edition" or "Collector's Edition" or "Limited Edition," and charge an extra $5 for it. People who wanted just the movie could buy the single disc for the standard price, and people who wanted more special features paid a slightly more expensive "premium price." And it would subtly boost profits.
TedStixon
I think you're right - the extra content largely existed already, there was no significant cost to produce it, and mastering a second version of the DVD wouldn't cost much in the grand scheme of things either, so any extra amount would have been pure profit. Showgirls (first example I found) apparently made $37m in cinemas and $100m in DVD sales. A couple of extra dollars per unit would add up. It might also serve as "anchoring" if that's the right term - having a more expensive 2 disc version makes the single disc version look like better value to the casual buyer (while also appealing more to the movie buff). There are certainly some films I splashed out on for the fancier version because I was a fan (and then of course never really watched the extras much!), but going back a while there was literally no other way to see this extra content unless you bought the special edition.
Jon Sandys ★
From the perspective of why they were simultaneously released (and with a relatively small difference in price), I'd agree. But this is different from why two-disc versions were released some time after the one-disc version (and with a substantial difference in price). That is, the reasons why this initially happened are different from why it continued to happen.
KeyZOid
I was trying to refer to concurrent releases in my question. Unfortunately, the character limit meant I could not give any examples. I was referring to titles like "Spider-Man 3" or "Transformers." I used to go to the store at midnight to buy new DVD releases around the time those movies came out, and there would almost always be a single disc DVD with just the movie and a few features, and a 2-Disc set with more special features released on the same day. (A 2-disc special/anniversary edition being released a few years later for an older title makes sense, and is a different matter entirely. I'm referring to when multiple editions of the same new release were put out at the same time.)
TedStixon
Yes, I finally figured this out! You are asking about a specific time period and looking for a straightforward answer, without putting things in historical perspective (the developing technology and decreasing costs of mass-producing DVD movies). The extras (plus a little more) that used to be included on the standard editions were now on a second disc with the package costing about $5 more. It probably came down to "will customers [be stupid enough to] pay extra money for this two-disc DVD?"
KeyZOid
It probably came down to 'will customers [be stupid enough to] pay extra money for this two-disc DVD?' "and unfortunately when I was a teenager, I was, hahahaha. But yeah, the more I look into it, the more it does just seem like a total gimmick. (I feel like a good modern comparison might be steelbooks... cool packaging, but usually sold for a very high markup even though it's the same exact discs.)
TedStixon
My "victimization" came much earlier. I had the standard release versions of movies and, later, when I started to see much more expensive two-disc versions, I thought, "Who would buy these now?" Well, I think I ended up buying 3 versions of "Terminator 2." [Why?]
KeyZOid