I love collecting my favorite Black shows on DVD. I already own the first three seasons of Girlfriends, own the first season of Living Single, and I'm working on acquiring the various Good Times seasons as well. I'm a huge fan of A Different World, and even though I hated the first season, I bought the DVD set just to satisfy me in anticipation of purchasing Seasons 2-6. I'd even bought the Season 2 DVD online, but when Urbanworks got bought out, it delayed the release date twice and Season Two's release was eventually canceled.
Now I'm hearing that Viacom, who subsequently bought Ventura after it bought Urbanworks, will not only not release the Season 2 DVD of A Different World, it won't release Seasons 3-6 of the show either. Their excuse is that the poor sales of the Season One DVD is evidence that the show doesn't have a fan base. Excuse me?
Umm, A Different World was a Top 5 show for five of the six years it was on the air from 1987-1993. Many HBCU's (historically Black college and university) credit this show with increasing enrollments at HBCU's by 25% during the 90's.
So the claim that this show doesn't have a fanbase is about as credible as Sarah Palin's claim to be more qualified for the presidency than Sen. Barack Obama. Besides, the major reason the Season One DVD didn't sell well is how can I put this, season one sucked.
You had a writing team that had never attended, much less set foot on an HBCU campus try to recreate one on TV. Season One didn't even come close to having the authentic feel of an HBCU and it didn't happen until my Houston homegirl Debbie Allen took over as producer.
Under Debbie Allen, the show not only made a light years leap in quality, it actually began to have the flavor of an HBCU campus. Debbie was not only drawing from her experiences as a Howard University alum, she had the writing staff take an annual trip to Atlanta's Spelman College and talk to students, faculty and administrators about the issues they deal with.
The claim that there aren't enough A Different World fans to justify releasing seasons 2-6 of the show on DVD is crap. It's interesting to note that Seinfeld and Roseanne, Top 10 shows that were on during the same decade as A Different World have been fully released on DVD, but a quality show that tackled some interesting topics back in the day such as teen pregnancy, date rape, homelessness, divesting from South Africa, Black history, interracial dating, HIV/AIDS and the Gulf War isn't?
It's interesting to note that Living Single, another quality African-American show with Top 10 ratings, a loyal fanbase and topical shows hasn't been released beyond Season One either. But I'll save that debate for another post. A Different World's 2-6 seasons not being released on DVD is a travesty that needs to be corrected ASAP. I'd love to see some of my favorite episodes again such as the battle for Dwayne's affections between Kinu and Whitley, Patti LaBelle's always humorous turns playing Adele Wayne, the always elegant Diahann Carroll playing Whitley's mom Marian, Sinbad's crazy self, Freddie and Ron's love-hate relationship, Jenifer Lewis playing Dean Dorothy Davenport and Debbie's recurring psychiatrist character Dr. Langhorne...well, you get the picture.
But what I'm really hoping to get is an opportunity to purchase and add to my television DVD collection season's 2-6 of A Different World.
