The Corner Penthouse

About 10 years ago, I typed up notes intended to be used to write reviews for a lot of different items. As I was cleaning up the digital clutter on my hard drive recently, I found all of these notes. Most of the products are out-of-print and no longer available for their original cheap prices, so there is no reason to use most of the notes. However, for a few items, the information contained in my notes doesn't seem to be available elsewhere online, so it still seems prudent to write the reviews as intended.

Read on as I tell you all about the Lassie & Mr. Ed Double Feature DVD released by Digiview Entertainment in 2007...

If you're into classic television rarities, this "Dollar DVD" is a steal. For your buck, you get these two Lassie episodes with Tommy Rettig from the show's early years:

• "The Trial" (Jan. 22, 1956) (Season 2, Episode 20) (25:49)
• "The Tree House" (Feb. 5, 1956) (Season 2, Episode 22) (25:43)

Those episodes have appeared on other public domain DVDs, such as Diamond Entertainment's "T.V.'s Lost Shows". The real rarity on this disc are the two Mr. Ed episodes/shorts:

• "Wilbur Gets The Message .....About Payroll Savings!" (1964 U.S. Department of Treasury short film) (18:57)
• "The Wonderful World of Wilbur Pope" (1958) (27:32) (original pilot - without Alan Young!)

While the U.S. Treasury promotional film extolling the virtues of U.S. savings bonds also appears on "T.V.'s Lost Shows", the original pilot was not available on any other DVD at the time of release. "The Wonderful World of Wilbur Pope" pilot features different cast members in the lead roles. Scott McKay plays Wilbur (later portrayed by Alan Young) with Sandra White playing his wife Carlotta (later portrayed by Connie Hines as "Carol").

Personally, I think this is an EXCELLENT DVD. For as low as a buck (in Walmart at the time) you get two Mr. Ed rarities and two Lassie episodes. The quality is good, and all appear to be unedited. While you can no longer find it for a Dollar, cheap copies are still available. Since this DVD was released, a Mister Ed Rarities DVD was released by Reel Vault that contains "the original 1958 unaired pilot, a rare promo film, 2 bonus episodes, and more!" I don't have it, so I can't provide any further information on it.

In the 15 years since this DVD was released, all of the content has been uploaded to the Internet. So, if you only want to watch this stuff, not own it on disc, embedded videos are below.