A look at the new DVD

I'm just going to describe the presentation of the newly available DVD, not the Annette series itself, for which there are several reviews on this site. Of course, the most important thing is that the entire serial is present, and has excellent video and audio quality. After 50 years, I assume this required some remastering work.

Actually, the serial is a bit more than complete. In addition to the 19 episodes described here at IMDb, there's a preview segment called "An Introduction", which I don't recall having seen before. In this episode, Katie (Mary Wilkes) addresses the viewer directly, giving an overview of almost the entire plot (up to "The Farewell Letter"). Her narration is accompanied by clips from many of the episodes. Since this counts as Part 1 on the DVD, the numbering is one off from the episode numberings you'll see on this site.

The extras on this 2-disc set aren't particularly impressive in length or quantity, although what there is to the content is interesting. There are two entire episodes of The Mickey Mouse Club, the ones that included "The Newcomer" and "The Mystery is Solved". Since these episodes are half an hour minus ads, and the "Annette" segments are slightly over 10 minutes each, the additional time with the Mouseketeers is limited. There's the roll call song, a couple other numbers, advice from Jimmy, the "M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E" song, and closing credits. (These include credits for Annette, which are present only for these two segments.)

Other bonus material consists of informative introductions by Leonard Maltin, 1993's "Musically Yours, Annette", and the new "To Annette, With Love", which covers more recent events in Annette Funicello's life, mainly though interviews with her husband and co-workers, plus archival clips of Annette and others.

As this is in the "Walt Disney Treasures" series, the DVD case itself comes in a tin. This also contains an eight-page brochure, a "certificate of authenticity" (mine says I have number 2924 of a limited run of 39,500), a 4.5 by 7 publicity still of Annette in character, and some advertising material I didn't keep.

I guess I'm lucky I ordered Annette when I did, as it didn't seem to have remained available for very long. Could it be that many of those 39,500 copies were bought up by someone who intended to resell them for big bucks on e-bay or the like?