The complete Swiss Family Robinson series will come out June 30, 2009 through Image Entertainment.  TVShowsonDVD.com lists Swiss Family Robinson as a 1976 series.

There’s confusion about when the show debuted – it varies from 1973 to 1976.  I’ll defer to Wikipedia’s date of 1974.  The Wikipedia entry actually has sources.

This is the American release of Swiss Family Robinson, as Morningstar Entertainment released a series set in March 2007.  I assume the show is popular enough for Image Entertainment to release a similar set Stateside, Dove Family Approved logo and all.

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Life with Derek‘s second-season set might come out August 11, 2009 through E1 Entertainment.  This is very early information, but I’m sure this set will come out.  Life with Derek has its fans and is part of a lucrative market.

For those who haven’t seen Life with Derek, it’s not like Hannah Montana or its clones.  As such, the show isn’t on the Disney Channel home page like Hannah Montanas I through IX are.  I refuse to believe people watch Wizards of Waverly Place.

Dumb aside: I’ve watched the Wizards of Waverly Place episode with the talking zit twice.  I don’t know why as I otherwise never watch WoWP.  It’s not even the best show on Disney Channel where an anthropomorphic pimple has featured.  Please don’t ask further about this.

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Survivorman third-season box set art.  I assume this is the American release, as Canada hadn’t adopted the current Discovery Channel logo at the time of the announcement.

You know a show is popular when a King of the Hill episode bases a subplot – a Dale subplot, yet – around it.  Mind you, I prefer Mantracker to Survivorman.  I’ll be honest, I’ll watch a documentary on TVO before watching Survivorman.  All survival-oriented reality shows give me that “might be fake” feeling.  Television, you know?

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Finalized list of extras for Corner Gas‘ sixth-season set.  It’s the final season, so buy the set and help restart Canada’s moribund economy!  Come on!  CORNER GAS!

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The 2007 version of Flash Gordon comes out on DVD July 14, 2009 through Peace Arch Phase 4 Films.  It’s a Canadian-only set, so American fans will have to import the series for now.

From what I understand, Flash Gordon started off horribly and improved midway through the season.  The show is still a failure considering it’s Flash Gordon, the venerable grandfather of comic book sci-fi.  It won’t be until I’m 45, but there will be a good Flash Gordon television series one day!

As for Peace Arch becoming Phase 4 Films, I don’t see the point.  It’s not like the company will magically be better run due to the name change.  The change is about as pointless as Koch Entertainment becoming E1 Entertainment.  I’m sure VSC will merge with itself next week and become H831 Video Space Pow!  It seems to be the trend of the moment.

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May 2009′s Acorn Media releases include a DVD compilation of Red Green Show-related specials.  Apparently PBS flogs the series like A&E Home Video flogs Monty Python’s Flying Circus DVDs.

This release is mainly for Red Green Show completists.  I’ll just wait for more season sets.  Maybe I’ll wait until the Dave the Barbarian series set with the talking z

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Sun Media article about the Nature of Things: Visions of the Future two-disc set.  Wow, that news just slid by me.  Mongrel Media and CBC Home Video put the set out.

I don’t want to sound like an idiot, but did CBC advertise this heavily?  The Nature of Things is an institution more battered than even Marketplace, but David Suzuki is still a well-known Canadian icon.  I know of Mongrel Media through its release of Manufacturing Dissent and other documentaries, but it’s not a familiar face in the world of TV-on-DVD.

Mongrel Media/CBC Home Video will also put out India Reborn on May 5, 2009, if you’re into CBC documentaries.

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Finally, here’s an American “newspaper” reference to Slings and Arrows‘ DVD sets.  I quote “newspaper” due to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer being an online-only news outlet these days.  Changes, aren’t they sweeping?

I’m amazed Slings and Arrows is so loved in America.  It never received that love in its own country, though that’s not surprising for Canadian television.

As a bonus, TV Guy’s opinion on the future of Canadian television.  I thought it was a good article, if a bit simplistic.  Your mileage may vary since, you know, Canwest.

I haven’t done one of these Canadian TV-on-DVD entries for a while, purely since there hasn’t been much movement on that front.  I also grew disinterested with the “new box art for Season 1 of Flying Pig-Dog Hour!” entries on TVShowsonDVD.com.

In fact, TVShowsonDVD.com hasn’t been making with the truly interesting news as of late.  Sure, The Dana Carvey Show and American Gladiators, we all want that.  Was the world clamoring for more Brothers & Sisters and California Dreams, though?  Sheesh, give me Automan and Manimal.  I want to see Simon MacCorkindale fail to act, damn it!

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The complete Zeroman series out on DVD June 2, 2009 via kaBOOM!/Peace Arch.  I honestly never expected this to come out on DVD, although Teletoon shows frequently merit series sets.  Then again, Zeroman isn’t exactly Delilah and Julius or Cybersix.  Nothing could be Cybersix.

Zeroman isn’t the worst thing Leslie Nielsen’s ever done.  Liocracy, Dracula: Dead and Loving It and 2001: A Space Travesty are all worse than Zeroman, although that’s damning Zeroman with faint praise.  At this point, Leslie Nielsen should retire the deadpan humour he used to be so good at with Airplane! and The Naked Gun.

Ron MacLean and Don Cherry have recurring roles on Zeroman, as do Ryan Reynolds and Kevin McDonald.  Did I mention Zeroman was shit?  At least the show’s animation was surprisingly decent.

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Corner Gas‘ sixth season set will come six weeks after the show’s series finale airs.  The June 9, 2009 release will have the retrospective behind-the-scenes filler It’s Been a Gas and “footage of the final read-through,” at least according to CTV press bumf.  Not a bad deal, especially since CTV is pimping Corner Gas‘ final episode out.  It’s Canada’s greatest-ever mainstream comedy series.  Canada will fall apart when Corner Gas ends, right?  Won’t it?

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Corner Gas II, also known as Little Mosque on the Prairie, will see its second and third season sets come out in the fall of 2009 through Morningstar Entertainment.  The information comes from CBC Shop, so let’s just vouchsafe that the discs will come out.  After all, if The Collector can come out on DVD…

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In a related segue, The Collector‘s second season set comes out May 26, 2009 through Morningstar Entertainment.  I’m rather surprised The Collector sold well enough to merit a second-season DVD set.  It just goes to show you how people like certain Canadian programs, but CityTV aired The Collector.  Murdoch Mysteries and Less Than Kind fans know CityTV is where Canadian shows go to die.

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Acorn Media releases Murdoch Mysteries‘ first-season set on June 16, 2009.  There are many hardcore Murdoch Mysteries fans out there, so I have a feeling this will sell well.  Why is it that an American company can cherry-pick shows like this and gain a reputation for quality releases?  If Acorn Media snaps up Less Than Kind, I’m going to lose my shit.

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Blood Ties “Season 1″ out June 2, 2009, while “Season 2″ might come out September 2009.  The reason I quote the seasons is that the show aired worldwide as a 22-episode season.  Lifetime split Blood Ties in two seasons for U.S. consumption.  Eagle Vision is releasing this since, you know, strong fanbase.

Yeah, another Canadian show’s home entertainment rights snapped up by an American company.  If nothing else, Peter Mohan stands to make serious bank off the DVD releases.  Vampires are trendy these days, so he might as well profit from the trend.

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Critical Mass Entertainment and Anchor Bay Canada released another Hilarious House of Frightenstein DVD set on March 31, 2009.  It’s an Igor-centric compilation, for those Fishka Rais fans.  It’s hard to fault Anchor Bay for putting the Frightenstein comps out, since they come out with some regularity.

If Critical Mass gains DVD rights to Maniac Mansion, John Hemphill fans are going to have an epileptic seizure.  Watch, I’ve now set in motion events that are going to culminate in Maniac Mansion season sets, at least in my mind.  After all, I am Turner Edison.  You think “Cameron Archer” is a real person?  Bullshit!

Gord Lacey reviews The Border‘s first season for TVShowsonDVD.com.

I don’t normally point things like this out as I am the king of generalization, but Lacey begins his review with the “I don’t watch Canadian television even though I’m Canadian” and “most Canadian TV is cheap and cheesy” caveats.

Considering that I talk about Canadian television for this site, I’m curious to know why Lacey makes this comment.  The “low production values” argument is weak in the age of Tripping the Rift, Heartland et al.

Canada is the king of badly-tweened Flash cartoons, I’ll grant Lacey that, but the Canadian television industry knows how to put out a good-looking show these days.  I’m not saying the industry’s a torrent of wonderment, but it’s not like it was in the 1980s or 1990s.

Canada’s just not releasing more of its good shows on DVD.  Someone should pick up the SCTV ball that Shout! Factory unceremoniously dropped.  You Can’t Do That on Television better come out on DVD before the tape masters rot.

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The Los Angeles Times reviews the Fraggle Rock complete series set.  There’s no mention of the set’s shoddy packaging, the review sticking hard and fast to the basics.  Newspapers are free advertising, after all.

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Spider-Man vs. The Vulture earns a stand-alone release.  This disc was originally part of the Villains Showdown box set, and I just love stand-alone releases!  These discs never go into the bargain bin within a year!

I should draw attention to the horrible cover art.  That image is almost on par with public-domain cartoon compilation artwork.  The Vulture’s face in particular is wretchedly drawn.  The Vulture is supposed to be ugly, but what the hell?

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This seems to have slipped past the radar.  I know Imavision’s promoting a Chaotic volume set on Teletoon.  The title is one of Imavision’s best sellers.  What I didn’t know is that My Goldfish is Evil has had a first-season set out since November 2008.

My Goldfish is Evil is one of those post-modern cartoons where the fish being out of water isn’t a detriment to its survival.  No one knows the fish is evil or capable of building machinery aside from a ten-year-old conspiracy theorist.  It’s the timeworn “pet has a secret life” premise currently employed by Phineas and Ferb and Kid vs. Kat.

Surprisingly, My Goldfish is Evil is not animated in Flash.  I know, crazy!

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John E. Mitchell of The Last Visible Blog reviews The Starlost.  He likes it!

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Todd Erwin of Home Theater Forum reviews Super Dave’s Super Stunt Spectacular.  He hates it.

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Press release for the upcoming Goosebumps DVDs, “Return of the Mummy” and “The Scarecrow Walks at Midnight.”

This Canadian TV-on-DVD Roundup entry has been the weakest yet.  Some Canadian television shows are going to make DVD debuts shortly, right?  Come on, Canada.  You’re killing me here.  A country where Beastmaster has season sets and CODCO doesn’t is not a country I’d like to live in.

Press release for The Border‘s first-season DVD.  True story – when I received the press release it had this in it:

WHITE PINE BOILERPLATE HERE

Good job editing the template, VSC.  The company does good work, don’t get me wrong, but one usually doesn’t see placeholders in finished press releases.  I’m sure White Pine Pictures was thrilled to see that.

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Life With Derek sampler DVD out February 10, 2009.  I hate sampler discs – they end up in $5 bargain bins and landfills.  I hope these DVDs are recycled if they don’t sell, otherwise it’s a waste of plastic and aluminum.  Shit knows I’m beyond sick of those Trading Spaces samplers and five hundred copies of Kid Paddle.

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URBMN BOILERPLATE HERE

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The Red Green Show‘s eleventh season out March 10, 2009.  The eleventh season, a/k/a “the 2001 season,” is where the show starts to show its age – Patrick McKenna comes back to the show after a long-enough absence, but somehow he’s not as funny as before.  Acorn Media still has three more seasons to go until The Red Green Show completely bottoms out.

No Smith & Smith/Smith & Smith’s Comedy Mill DVDs on the horizon, though.  Is that a good or bad thing?  I know Smith & Smith has its detractors, but the show ran forever on CHCH.  If Hilarious House of Frightenstein is worthy of multiple DVD sets, so is Smith & Smith.

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The Georgia Straight mentions ReGenesis in its latest article on new DVD releases.  The Georgia Straight is a Vancouver, British Columbia newspaper, yet it needs to mention ReGenesis‘ Canadian status.  I love this country.

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Blogcritics.org review of The Red Green Show‘s 2000 season.  What can I say, it’s been a dire week for Canadian TV-on-DVD news.  When the most exciting news is a Red Green Show release that won’t come out for another four months…well, I don’t know how to finish that sentence with a proper ending.  Here’s a clip from Smith & Smith.

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Don’t forget to visit the URBMN aStore, as I love blatant shilling!

Woo!  Tripping the Rift Season Three box art!  One of Chode’s tentacles is cupping Six’s right breast and TVShowsonDVD.com is asking whether that’s deliberate.  No, it’s not.  Tripping the Rift is also more hilarious than ten Mystery Science Theaters 3000!  I’m not at all being sarcastic!

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Here’s the official press release for Super Dave’s Super Stunt Spectacular Volume One.  GAT Productions is handling PR for this title.  I wonder if this compilation will have a Tilden Rent-a-Car mention.

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Variety article about consolidation in the global entertainment industry.  It mentions Alliance Films and Entertainment One.  Entertainment One owns Koch and Séville Pictures, and Variety specifically mentions E1′s desire for more TV and DVD content.

E1 recently announced a “reverse takeover” of DHX Media.  Hooray, the prospect of Chop Socky Chooks on DVD!  I’ll go vomit now.

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Giant Tiger recently announced $19.99 and $29.99 box set sales, which usually include Canadian TV-on-DVD titles.  The sale ends November 5, although box sets come in from time to time.  Don’t worry if you miss a sale – they occur frequently.

What I saw at the Campbellford, Ontario store on November 1:

$19.99
The Forest Rangers Season One Volume Two: Episodes 21-40
The Greatest Canadian

$29.99
Corner Gas Season Two
Corner Gas Season Five
The Outer Limits (new series) Season Four

The fact that Giant Tiger had the fifth season of Corner Gas stunned the hell out of me.  Usually Giant Tiger doesn’t get DVDs that recent, since the fifth-season set hasn’t been out a month.

The fourth season of the new Outer Limits series isn’t listed on amazon.ca, which is nuts.  There are also six-episode single-disc Outer Limits compilations, but those discs can be safely ignored.

If anyone sees a Canadian TV-on-DVD set being sold at the Giant Tiger, post the show name and sticker price in the comments section of this blog entry.  Canadian TV-on-DVD sets often retail for $10-$20.  Sometimes they’re even relegated to the $6.88 pile or worse.  It’s annoying sifting through ten copies of Stranger Than Fiction and twenty copies of The Others just to get to something interesting.

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Finally, for those who shop at amazon.ca, I have an aStore dedicated to Canadian TV-on-DVD.  Someone has to go through the morass that is amazon.ca.  It’s like amazon.com, only shambolic and poorly organized.  In other words, it’s like the Canadian entertainment industry.

Tripping the Rift Season Three on DVD in early 2009!  This release, of course, makes Tripping the Rift: The Movie completely superfluous.

Considering Tripping the Rift‘s third season was buried by both Teletoon and Sci-Fi, why didn’t Anchor Bay put out the complete third season to begin with?  Why would anyone pay for the same lousy T’Nuk-is-ugly and Chode-McBlob-likes-Six-fucking-him jokes twice?

For those fans willing to rebut me with “you seem to know so much about the show” comments, I reviewed Tripping the Rift: The Movie and watched maybe five minutes of a few random episodes.  You’re kidding me if you think the show has actual depth.  What a waste of Stephen Root and Maurice LaMarche.

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Super Dave’s Super Stunt Spectacular Volume 1 box art!  I hate posting articles about box art, but the art’s fairly good here.  I like the shark in the top-left corner.

Bob Einstein looks a bit sickly, though.  I know he’s in his mid-sixties by now, but there’s something not right about the way he looks.  If that’s airbrushing, sheesh, at least use an older Super Dave picture.  He looks almost Roy-Orbison-in-1988 pancakey.

Super Dave – Super Stunt Spectacular: Volume 1

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Box art for The Border Season One.  Honestly, that’s awful box art.  Not only is it a bunch of heads backdropped by some blue, the artwork looks strangely unprofessional compared to, say, jPod.  Usually VSC has at least half-decent box art, but not here.  All that motion-blurred text…ugh.

The Border: Season 1

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The Starlost complete series set has been delayed by VCI until November 4 – no reason, VCI just felt like it.  Every time I see that logo for The Starlost I keep thinking “Coneheads.”

In other news, The Starlost is already being sold at amazon.com for half its list price.  It’s the price of the future…TODAY!

The Starlost: Complete Series  

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On a personal note, I recently posted to Canuxploitation.com‘s forums about the Canadian TV-on-DVD Roundup.  I don’t think I need to explain what Canuxploitation.com is about, but think Jon Mikl Thor films and Prom Night.  Hell, just think Jon Mikl Thor.  He’s a cottage industry in himself.

I’m already #1 or #2 at Google.com on the subject of Canadian TV-on-DVD, and I think sweetposer.com may be the first site to talk extensively about the subject.  Sure, there’s a hometheaterforum.com topic about Canadian TV-on-DVD releases, but this site may have set a trend.  Whether this translates into people actually reading sweetposer.com remains to be seen.

I’ve been reviewing some TV-on-DVD releases for “my sister’s site at http://www.currentmoviereviews.net/,” as I’ve been saying to publicists for far too long.  It would be nice if the reviews I have written for her would be on the site, but I have written them and they might be reworked for sweetposer.com soon, just to prove to people that I’m not continuing to blow smoke out my ass.  Also: that I actually post reviews here.

Canadian TV-on-DVD releases tend to be overlooked.  I remember first noticing that John Callahan’s Quads! had a season box set when I was doing Christmas shopping at Wal-Mart two years ago.  Granted, it’s John Callahan’s Quads! and the audience for sketchily drawn, poorly-animated cartoons about disabled assholes isn’t that big.  Canadian TV-on-DVD titles are far more likely to hit the bargain bins or be heavily discounted than American fare in this country, in my opinion.  When I look in discount stores like Giant Tiger and Liquidation World, I’ve seen titles like Atomic Betty and Jimmy Macdonald’s Canada there.  Is it because Canadian titles are almost always shit or are the wrong titles being released?

Maybe Canadian TV-on-DVD is just a weakly tapped market.  I’m amazed there isn’t a Four on the Floor box set, since there are Frantics fans out there.  I can see a market for The Tommy Hunter Show, and there are even hardcore fans of The Vacant Lot.  CODCO has yet to see a release.  There’s a lot of good stuff left untouched.  Even the titles that are out on DVD seem to suffer from poor marketing.  I didn’t know the first two seasons of This Hour Has 22 Minutes – make no mistake, that show was great in its early years – were even out on DVD until I received an e-mail from CBCShop.ca selling the first two seasons for $19.99 each.  Did CBC broadcast commercials for the box sets last year?  It’s not like I’ve gone out of my way to watch the Gavin Crawford/Geri Hall/Mark Critch era of the show, since I only watch shows I find funny.

All I have to say is, I’m glad there’s a TVShowsonDVD.com, otherwise my knowledge of home entertainment-related Canadiana would be even smaller than it is now.

Announcement for the complete series set of My Pet Monster.  Global used to air this show for years on end, since Nelvana produced it and the show counted as Canadian content.  I’m sure there are fans of this show, but this is the sort of title I wish would not be released on DVD.  kaBOOM!’s releasing a couple of these industrials lately – this and Tales from the Cryptkeeper.  Meanwhile, other Nelvana titles like Eek! the Cat and Beetlejuice lack proper DVD releases – the 20th anniversary Beetlejuice DVD has three episodes from its spinoff cartoon, which is inadequate.  Those two titles need more of a DVD release than a show based on a fad toy that was constantly rerun on Saturday afternoons for at least ten years.  I have memories of My Pet Monster that I wish would erode faster.  I want to forget about Mr. Hinkle and his dog Princess.

Review of Friday the 13th: The Series.

Corner Gas Season 5.  This is one of the rare Canadian series that’s marketed properly, given decent season releases and has television commercials advertising it.  I’ve never liked this show, but it has its fans and it’s being sold the right way.

Grantray-Lawrence titles Spider-Man and The Marvel Superheroes in grab-bag DVD sets.  I question the legality of these releases – I’m sure Disney owns the rights to the 1967 Spider-Man series and it put the entire three-season run out on DVD a few years ago, so I’m not sure what’s going on here.

Both seasons of The Tudors out on Blu-Ray November 11.  The second season of The Tudors is coming out in standard DVD format on the same day as the Blu-Ray releases, at least in Canada.

The Border‘s first season and Robson Arms’ third season on DVD.  Video Service Corp. seems to be the company that best exploits the Canadian TV-on-DVD market.

Mutant X and BeastMaster complete-run DVD sets cancelled.  This is due to ADV Films losing the home video rights to Tribune Entertainment’s shows, and aside from Farscape this isn’t much of a loss.  I always felt releasing these shows was a lousy way to wean the company off anime and manga.  I know the anime market is not nearly what it was a few years ago, but ADV could have done a better job of diversifying.

Also coming out in November and December: Fraggle Rock complete series (November 4), Super Dave Super Stunt Spectacular Volume One (November 25)