Buyer's Guide to Fifty Years of TV on Video [Paperback]

Sam Frank (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1999

This TV treasure trove is packed with information on all available sitcoms, drama series and anthologies, science fiction, westerns, children's shows, variety shows, specials, documentaries, and much more--over 50,000 shows, from 1948 to the present.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Want to buy episodes of 77 Sunset Strip but can't find them at the local video store? This massive, consumer-oriented guide by a former staff writer for Daily Variety will provide you with a telephone or mail order source not only for this series but for a wide range of TV programs, from daytime game shows and prime-time sitcoms to specials and TV movies. This book covers some of the same territory as Tim Brooks and Earl Marsh's The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows (Ballantine, 1995), and there is also considerable overlap with Video Source Book (Gale, 1998), which is not, however, a consumer title. The volume includes much material beyond the essentials necessary for a buying guide, making it difficult to locate information that should be the core of the book. The coding of video vendors within listings is not highlighted, requiring patience and much page turning to locate the code and convert it into a purchase source. All the extras would have made a good companion volume. Still, this includes good tidbits for television trivia freaks and patient buyers of television programs.?Kathy Breeden, Univ. of Tennessee at Chattanooga Lib.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"...enormously useful as a resource for finding out if a TV show is available on videotape." -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer, November 26, 1999

Product Details

• Paperback: 1500 pages
• Publisher: Prometheus Books (February 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1573922269
• ISBN-13: 978-1573922265
• Product Dimensions: 9.8 x 7 x 2.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 1.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,662,795 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars 'Buyer's Guide' is flawed but valuable resource, May 26, 2003

By 

DBW (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Buyer's Guide to Fifty Years of TV on Video (Paperback)

While it is still several years before DVDs completely push "Buyer's Guide to Fifty Years of TV on Video" into obsolescence, it may be useful to note that the book, for all of its flaws, contains some extremely valuable information.

Yes, the late Sam Frank hammers away relentlessly at the mistakes of other TV historians, then makes numerous errors of his own; and certainly his editorial comments often seem like unwarranted intrusions, even though the premise of an opionated buyer's guide isn't inherently wrong (Leonard Maltin's annual Video Guide is clearly meant at least in part to be a consumer guide, to name one example; yet the Maltin guide is superior because it is seems far less capricious).

Nonetheless, there are things here that are difficult to find elsewhere. For example, it lists the episodes available from many of the series released by Columbia House Video Library through mid-1997 (and does so in chronological order, rather than the order of each volume). Even if you ask Columbia House for a list of every episode it offers of, say, "The Untouchables," you will get just a list of episodes, with no airdates, and no plot descriptions. Frank doesn't always give you plot descriptions, but generally he does, and with the airdates included, you can at least choose episodes from your favorite period of the show's development, if you're so inclined.

Frank's guide is particularly good for anyone interested in television's so-called "Golden Age." He was a Baby Boomer, and takes a great interest in playing up -- and simultaneously debunking myths about -- what made this era special.

It is here that his editorializing, particularly on things like picture and sound quality, is quite useful, as there are some horrible third-or later-generation public domain video dubs out there that should be avoided. The worst of these sometimes use kinescopes that are just overexposed or otherwise compromised to begin with. Yet, there are others that look and sound quite good, and it's good to have a reference point that helps to make the distinction. Listings are included for a lot of the "Playhouse 90," "Studio One," "Four Star Playhouse" and other early anthology shows released by Video Yesteryear and other public domain dealers, many of which are still available through retailers like Movies Unlimited. Inevitably there are listings for dealers in the book that no longer exist, or have since stopped selling videos, but in the age of the Web, a lot of this stuff can be found.

The book also includes exhaustive appendixes about the history of videotape and the development of color television, which seem to be squarely aimed at TV historians. In fact, throughout "Buyer's Guide," Frank's extreme interest in both innovations is underscored again and again. His main point seems to be that old television shows that can now only be seen on somewhat blurry black and white kinescopes looked crisp and bright in their original telecasts, and for that reason, among others, we shouldn't automatically judge these shows, and the audiences who appreciated them, harshly today. Whenever Frank does find a tape of something shot on video before the late '60s that actually looks close to pristine, he makes sure to draw our attention to it. How relevant this is to the typical reader is open to conjecture.

Numerous items from the MPI Home Video catalog are another welcome feature, including their "Nightline" tapes, "Hullabaloo," "The Missiles of October" and more. Frank's overview and descriptions of a number of episodes in the "Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concerts" series are solid, and again represent something you don't see discussed very often today.

"Buyer's Guide" is a good supplementary reference if you've already got Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh's "The Complete Directory to Primetime Network and Cable Television Programming: 1946 to Present," or Alex McNeil's "Total Television." Frank's myopia keeps it from being anything like the definitive tome he apparently envisioned, but it's hardly a disaster.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Authors with grudges should not write books., December 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Buyer's Guide to Fifty Years of TV on Video (Paperback)

When I first heard about this book being published I couldn't believe it! This is a dream come true! I can finally stop searching and let this book do all the working for me. What I found instead was an author that was very opinionated, arrogant and, I'm sure, held several grudges. In the beginning of the book he lists several sources of where to order the listed tapes (many of which is either wrong contact information or the companies are now out of business) Did he verify and update his sources before this book was published? He also includes a brief description of each company, many of which he criticizes. It almost seems the author either is an ex-employee or somehow clashed with these companies, but what he says ranges from total praise to downright rude, even calling some of these companies "Greedy" or "They steal from some of the other public domain companies". He also states throughout the book many complaints about companies who refused to give out thier owner's name or "lend" him screener tapes. Unfortunatly just because someone is writing a book does not mean that these companies are obligated to either lend him tapes, or they will receive a bad review. That aside I found the reviews not too helpful, I put this book down MANY times because the opinion got in the way. There are several sources to find information on what's out there without the opinion (the internet is a HUGE palce) so I cannot suggest this book.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Obnoxious and ungracious, February 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Buyer's Guide to Fifty Years of TV on Video (Paperback)

I never thought I could be offended by a reference manual for videos, but Sam Frank has somehow done it. While I'm willing to overlook the abundant misinformation and hypercritical show reviews, I am awfully bothered by Frank's hit-and-run attitude concerning other author's works. Mr. Frank delights in chiding Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh's "Complete Directory of Prime-Time Network and Cable TV Shows" every chance he gets, cackling gleefully, for example, at the fact that those authors never bothered to check exactly how many "Beulah" shows Hattie McDaniel starred in before taking ill. Then he has the gall to quote almost verbatim the Brooks/Marsh rundown of the Farrah Fawcett craze in "Charlie's Angels", not to mention the fact that most of his cast listings seem to have come directly out of that book...he makes several of the same errors (for the record, Sagan Lewis was in "St. Elsewhere" from start to finish). Brooks and Marsh's groundbreaking encyclopedia has been through six editions in 20 years, Alex McNeil's "Total Television" through almost as many for almost as long. These books have made research a cinch for the likes of Sam Frank and students of TV everywhere. The sad irony here: if Mr. Frank had stuck to his book's title by giving us a practical buyer's guide and nothing more, he wouldn't have even needed their help. Instead, his seemingly endless and often unkind references to their works weaken his text substantially. Consequently, he seems to have bitten the hands that fed him in the first place...