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CNN Saturday Morning News

Interview With David Bianculli

Aired January 26, 2002 - 08:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: You're looking at the landmark TV miniseries "Roots." Arthur Hailey's widely acclaimed series made its debut on DVD earlier this week as it celebrates 25 years now.

"Roots" isn't the only popular release shows headed to your DVD collection. DVD fans are in for a blitz of oldies and newbies.

David Bianculli from the "New York Daily News" joining us this morning to talk about technology and how it's reviving some older technology-based shows.

Good to see you, David.

DAVID BIANCULLI, "NEW YORK DAILY NEWS": Good to see you, too.

O'BRIEN: All right, I've got in my hand here, it's not my favorite, but this is "Buffy the Vampire Slayer."

BIANCULLI: Well, that's my favorite, so behave.

O'BRIEN: If you're so inclined, you can get every "Buffy" episode from the first season. And you can find out all kinds of important things like what was it, what, the angel is or some deal like that.

BIANCULLI: It's a, you, if you sit down with this, you will actually, by the time you're through watching these first 13 hours or whatever is in the DVD set, you will be a convert.

O'BRIEN: Oh my gosh. All right. Well, I'm going to go home and I'm going to watch this and I'll let you know how that goes. But, first of all, I think we have a clip of this, by the way. Let's take a look and listen for a second.

BIANCULLI: OK.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, "BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER")

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: Is there a problem, ma'am?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTRESS: Yes, there's a problem. Why are you following me?

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: I know what you're thinking. Don't worry. I don't bite.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

O'BRIEN: All right, David, I'm not converted just yet, but nevertheless, that came from Twentieth Century Fox. We couldn't get the credit up there, we're sorry, to our friends over there.

What's different about these DVDs? It's shelf space, right?

BIANCULLI: Well, shelf space is one of the best things about it. I mean that half season, that first season of "Buffy" on my shelf takes up an entire shelf. Now it takes up like one paperback book or the size of one video. You can get through it faster. It doesn't degrade. It's better visual quality. This is like when the compact disc came out for audio. This is a perfect format for TV fans that want to get miniseries or entire episodes of seasons of their favorite shows. It's just great.

O'BRIEN: Lots of content and a little space. The other thing about DVDs which is kind of interesting is, you know, you can go through and watch it a couple of ways with different tracks, different, you know, directors' narration, insights on how they were doing things. I noted that you enjoyed particularly "The Simpsons" track when, listening to Matt Groening and -- who's the producer of that? Albert Brooks...

BIANCULLI: Matt Groening and James L. Brooks.

O'BRIEN: James Elbrooks. I had the wrong Brooks. Anyway, what is it about their little discussion that's entertaining?

BIANCULLI: Well, they've got it going back, they actually were looking at the early stuff when they first saw "The Simpson's" animation...

O'BRIEN: Gosh, it looks early, too, doesn't it?

BIANCULLI: Yes. And they hated it, the earliest stuff, so much that they ended up, James Brooks walked out of the room. You're actually listening to someone leave his own audio commentary in disgust.

O'BRIEN: Well, that's good because sometimes those tracks, you try to listen to them and they get so bogged down in the minutiae of how they got this shot and that shot that it really ends up being boring.

BIANCULLI: Yes. There are some boring ones. "Twin Peaks," a series I love, has a deadly one on one of the best segments. But there's other ones that are lots of fun. Josh Whedon on "Buffy" is fun. And on "Mash," when you get the first season of "Mash," you can actually just switch off the laugh track. That's a great thing.

O'BRIEN: Ah, that is a good thing. You know when to laugh. You don't need a cue.

BIANCULLI: Right.

O'BRIEN: Let's dial the way back machine to the '50s now, one of the greatest shows ever on television, "Sid Caesar," the show of shows. Now, I believe this was restored only on Kinescope initially. And so the quality of the original project is not so good. Now, has DVD improved it in any way?

BIANCULLI: Oh, improved it really significantly. People who have had any of the "Caesar" shows on video on the raw Kinescopes, it's almost like looking at it through a well. But now you really get to see it so much more clearly. The sound is better. It's a great package.

O'BRIEN: So did they digitally enhance the original product at all or...

BIANCULLI: Yes. Yes.

O'BRIEN: ... or sweeten the audio and all that stuff?

BIANCULLI: They go back and they clean up the audio, they clean up the video and they even have one of the extras on one of the "Caesar" sets that I have does a side by side split screen, so you get to see how much better it is. And it really is better.

O'BRIEN: All right, we -- we've just got to watch one more "Sid Caesar" clip because I just enjoy watching it. It's just so funny to watch him with Imogene and doing their thing.

BIANCULLI: It's good I don't have to sell you on "Caesar." You're right about that.

O'BRIEN: No, no, no. I mean this is live TV, remember, folks? Of course we're not watching it live now, just in case you wondered. And, of course, live TV had its appeal, even though I've seen this before and know what's going to happen, I still laugh every time I see it because, of course, this happened before millions of people as he kisses her and -- that's good stuff. You know, it's so simple but that is, you know, you cannot replicate those moments, can you?

BIANCULLI: No, and there's a "Johnny Carson" DVD collection where you get to see the Ed Ames tomahawk throw, which anybody that's an old poop like me really knows what a great moment of television that is. And you get to see that clearer than anywhere else. He throws a tomahawk on live TV at a dummy and it gets him at a point that Carson called a frontier bris. It was amazing.

O'BRIEN: You just can't top those moments. It's a great thing if you are truly a TV-phile to have these DVDs.

Thanks for joining us, David Bianculli, with New York's "Daily News." We appreciate your insights and we hope you enjoy happy viewing out there, folks, on DVDs. And we're going to leave you with one more clip. What's it from? What is it from? We have one more clip, don't we? No. Guess not. David, thanks very much.

BIANCULLI: So, we leave you without a clip. Thanks a lot, Miles.

O'BRIEN: We are clip-less.

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