I am Kyle's self-indulgence

The original title of this post was going to be "Spoon!" -- the absurd battle cry of The Tick -- to reflect my excitement over the new DVD release of the cartoon's first season on DVD. I consider this to be one of the funniest cartoons ever created, and I have been waiting years for it to come out on DVD.

As I read the details of the release, though, my excitement turned to disappointment at the pathetic quality of this release.

First of all, the set contains no extra features. None. You'd think they could have included some commentary tracks with Ben Edlund, or at least a featurette about his original comic book (it's not like he's doing anything else these days), but there's nothing.

Even with the lack of special features, the episodes alone are still brilliant enough to be worth the price of the set...or at least they would be if Disney had bothered to include all of them. Instead, they left out episode 11 for "creative reasons," whatever that means. Fans say the omitted episode really isn't that great anyway, but when I buy a DVD set I expect all the shows to be there.

Finally, reviews I've read say that even the episodes included are transferred from analog recordings, rather than the original cells. The result is that these new official DVDs look no better than the bootlegs that have been circulating for years.

All of these things add up to what is probably the most pathetic DVD release imaginable. And when fans of the series refuse to shell out $35 for episodes identical to what they already downloaded five years ago, Disney will point to poor sales as a reason to not release any further DVD sets of the series.

Update: I found info at tvshowsondvd.com that gives Disney's official word on the missing episode (yes, I'm a little late with the news):

"Due to creative considerations episode 11 ("The Tick vs. The Mole Men") is not included. However, we hope to include it in future Tick releases."

Now I know I'm not buying the current DVD release. Instead I'll hold out for a set that includes the missing episode and maybe some bonus features.