o/t: OFA{Our favorite actor}wraps up SNL's year: Simpsons DVD's

[robert]

Issue 1: I have no news article to confirm this, but word around the newsgroups{which can be found at groups.goggle.com}is that OFA{again, our favorite actor}Mr Faust...I mean Mr Chris Walken, will host the season finale of Saturday Night Live next week, making that his 5'th time hosting, which mean he'll join their "5 Timers Club" group. BTW, Weezer is the musical guest, whoever or whomever that is{you guys know?}
Issue 2: This article posted a week ago on snpp.com, but first, would you like some fine cham-pan-ya? Oops, I'm still on Walken, that was the catchphrase of his recurring character on SNL, the Continental. Now back to this Simpsons stuff....

For years, Simpsons fans have yearned for a comprehensive collection of episodes in high-resolution, digital format. That dream nearly came true in early 1998, when 20th Century Fox Home Video and Gracie Films began a collaborative effort to produce laserdisc releases of the series.
Plans initially called for a season 1 boxed set, complete with ancillary materials and “directors' commentary”-style audio tracks featuring the show's key producers and creator. When Chatsworth, California-based Image Entertainment was charged with remastering the series' first 13 episodes for the release, there seemed to be little doubt that the show was indeed about to make its debut in the world of digital video. But following the tweaked master tapes' return to Fox, no laserdiscs ever materialized, and 20th Home eventually confirmed without explanation that the project had been postponed indefinitely.
The good news is that Fox is now working to assemble a similar product in the wildly more popular DVD format, with plans for multiple region releases throughout the world. So far, The Simpsons Archive has confirmed with 20th Century Fox Home Video that the DVDs will be, as rumored, issued in seasonal boxed sets, featuring every episode from their respective seasons. If all goes according to plan, successive seasonal boxed sets will be released on a periodic basis thereafter, a la Fox's DVD editions of The X-Files.
What about ancillary materials? No official word on that yet. However, according to the BBFC database, the first boxed set will feature a 1m:45s easter egg, over 8 minutes of never-before-seen outtakes (of which 3m:43s reportedly is to involve Albert Brooks' past involvement with the series), a 1m:49s excerpt from an unknown episode's “animatic” pencil animation test, the first Simpsons interstitial broadcast April 19, 1987 on Fox's “The Tracey Ullman Show,” and a mystery item entitled “America's First Family” (4m:48s). Fox demonstrated its thirst for fan feedback concerning such bonus contents earlier this year with an official ePoll.com questionnaire.
While no official estimates for the first boxed set's release date have materialized, a suggested date of September 2001 has been quoted by The R2 Project, backed up by The Digital Bits' own report of a likely third quarter 2001 retail date. Meanwhile, The Simpsons Archive has verified with the Los Angeles-based production house charged with creating multi-language subtitles for the DVDs that general production of the first boxed set is now underway.
Official news concerning the DVDs will be added as it becomes available. In the meantime, keep an eye on our Newsbites column for future DVD rumors.

[Calhoun07]

I had heard, I believe on digitalbits.com or dvdfile.com or some other news site (in other words, it wasn't a rumor some fan started up on a newsgroup, there was an actual statement from Fox about it) that Futurama was coming out in season box sets as well, possibly as early as December. So...do you have any news about that? I haven't heard any follow-ups.

Any reason why the laserdisc releases were delayed? I know that the original source material must be a little more than worn for a good digital transfer, making me wonder if we will see a Futurama set before the Simpsons set? Hey, it could happen! Star Trek Voyager is due out on DVD before Next Generation for that reason.

[don Jaime]

Remember a video of an alt band in Arnold's Malt Shoppe with Richie and the Fonz? That's Weezer.