Sitcom gets DVD release - at last

Seinfeld is finally to be released on DVD in the States on November 23, it has been announced.

Columbia Tri-Star will be releasing four two-disc volumes, including 24 hours of bonus material, spanning the first four series.

The long-awaited first volume starts with the original 1989 pilot of The Seinfeld Chronicles, and an alternate version, plus 17 more episodes.

The sets are priced $49.95 (£27), or $119.95 (£66) for a two-volume gift set that includes Monk's Diner salt and pepper shakers, collectable playing cards plus a script with handwritten notes by co-creator Larry David.

It is not known if or when the DVDs will be released in Britain, where poor scheduling meant it never achieved huge popularity, although fans with the right DVD players will obviously be able to import the discs.

Producers say the DVD has taken so long to release because of the work needed to compile new interviews, commentaries, deleted scenes, outtakes and unused footage of Jerry Seinfeld's stand-up that kept the DVD from being released earlier.

Seinfeld’s co-stars Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Michael Richards and Jason Alexander originally said they wouldn’t be involved in creating the extras because they wouldn’t be paid – but they eventually agreed a deal that will give them a share of the profits from future DVDs.

The show, the most successful sitcom America has ever produced, also remains a profitable in syndication to channels across the country, and it had been feared an early DVD release might dilute that.

Executive producer Howard West called Seinfeld "the definitive TV-to-DVD release" and said it  would "be treated almost like a movie in attention to the detail and money being spent to promote it."

Published: 6 Aug 2004