Alternatively titled, “My So-Called Saga.”
Disclaimer: This is a story that 1. everyone who knows me personally already knows (so, sorry) and 2. that I have been meaning to document here on SWTS for quite some time. And I’ve probably started a draft post 100 times since the inception of this blog. The end.
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I have no recollection of what the weather was like on that fateful Saturday in the spring of 2001. All I know is that I was a 15-year-old at the mall with some friends carrying a wallet filled with about five week’s worth of allowance burning one of those metaphorical holes in my pocket.
My friends at the time (and probably throughout my entire public school career) were partial to stores like Claire’s and Icing, while I preferred to wander the aisles of the Rock/Pop section at Best Buy running my fingers across Sonic Youth albums I feared I was too uncool to buy. And that’s where I was on that aforementioned Saturday. When my friends decided to go rifle through the sales racks at Marshall’s to look for designer labels, I parted ways with them and headed into my electronics haven.
It seemed that pretending to be fashionistas was holding their attention longer than usual because I made it all the way to the X, Y, Z section and no one had come in to find me. Bored and dissatisfied with the lack of new music, I strolled towards the DVD section of the store. I wove in and out of those aisles, reading the spines as I went along, until I stumbled into a new section that was filled with DVDs, but none of which were movies or even exercise videos. This was a brand new section I had never seen or explored before. This was the TV-on-DVD section.
Eyes as wide as a character from Sailor Moon, I stood in front of the single section of shelf and mouthed the titles as my eyes moved over them: Friends, Seinfeld, South Park, My So-Called Life—MY SO-CALLED LIFE?! My heart constricted and did the angry baby dance inside my chest*. MTV had long ago ceased rerunning episodes of this brilliant cancelled-before-its-time drama. I had recorded all 13 episodes on various VHS tapes, but owning the show in a professional package without the MTV logo hovering in the corner and cuts of commercials in the middle of each segment would be so very nice.
The shrink-wrapped set was perched on the top shelf, glittering under the fluorescent lights. Standing on my tiptoes, I reached for it, arms completely outstretched, and once I curled my fingertips around the back it fell off the shelf into my arms. Elated, I turned the package over in my hands, but my elation quickly faded once I saw the price tag. It read, “$79.99.” 80 dollars?! That was all the money I had with me! All the money I had saved over the last month. I couldn’t blow my entire savings on one thing, even if it was for the greatest show ever made. Plus, my parents would KILL me!* Reluctantly, and perhaps feeling true heartbreak for the first time, I placed the box set back on its shelf (okay, so maybe I put it back on a shelf I could reach, whatever), reassured myself that the price would come down eventually and left the store.That was the day I did not buy My So-Called Life on DVD. That was the day of my biggest regret for seven long years.
The price never came down, I never got up the courage to make the 80 dollar purchase and, within a few months, that DVD set vanished from store shelves everywhere. I might have put it out of my mind for awhile, for when I was 15, I was pretty damn clueless* (I missed Firefly entirely for goodness sakes!), but I eventually realized that I didn’t get to buy something that I really wanted to own.
Over the course of the next six years, I made it my mission in life to get my hands on those damn 13 episodes. I performed constant internet searches to look for news of a re-release. I diligently checked the DVD section of every retail store I entered to see if they just magically happened to have a set somewhere. I searched on Amazon Marketplace and Half.com and Deep Discount DVD and everywhere else for a used set to purchase, but nothing ever came under 300 dollars. And, as much as I love My So-Called Life, that shit ain’t worth 300 dollars unless it comes with a lock of
In 2004, I thought there had been a breakthrough. My father, who had just recently become acquainted with eBay, had taken up my cause. He called me frantically one day, shouting into the receiver that he had bid on a set for 100 bucks and won. It would be coming in the mail within the week.Any feelings of relief and joy I had regarding my five-year crusade finally coming to an end were short-lived. What arrived in the mail was a set of burned discs—black market or bootlegged DVDs, if you will—which, to be honest, I would have settled for at that point had they not been of the shittiest quality mankind has ever seen. It was like trying to stream an episode of Fringe off of Fox.com in the middle of a thunderstorm using a wireless connection you’re secretly bumming off of your downstairs neighbor. BUT IT WAS ON A DISC! The pixilation and skipping and gray color and bursts of robot noises were all too much. In short, the discs were too painful to watch. I decided I wasn’t going to settle.
So, my crusade carried on for another year and a half just the same as before: internet searches, looking in every store, relentlessly checking auction sites and re-sellers. The description on the Amazon product page, “This item has been discontinued by the manufacturer,” taunted me ceaselessly. I became numb, and I believe a part of me resigned myself to the fact that I would never be able to own My So-Called Life on DVD ever.
And then, glory of all glories, a miracle happened. In late 2006, an entertainment distribution company called Shout! Factory announced that they had just acquired the distribution rights to My So-Called Life and were planning a re-release of the show on DVD for the next year. I cannot articulate the level of emotion that rose up inside my insignificant little body. P.B. Shelley’s renowned phrase “frail spells” doesn’t even begin to describe the inability of words to convey my feelings upon hearing this news. I felt as though I had been personally vindicated by the PCPTBs, and while I was, of course, relieved and overjoyed by the news, I also found myself living in a state of disbelief that my quest had finally come to an end.It was a few months before I saw the fruits of Shout! Factory’s labor. I maintained my constant internet searches to uncover bits and pieces of news on the progress of the re-release. Typing in “tvshowsondvd.com” became more of a habit than typing in the login name and password to my own email account. When the release date of October 30, 2007 was finally announced, I went through all the hoops. I signed up on Amazon to be notified when the item was finally available for preorder; I waited patiently for my notification email; and, when Amazon was ready, I entered my credit card and billing information in the appropriate fields and saved my order confirmation email.
What arrived in the mail a mere few months later (mere compared to the years I had been waiting for my chance to fold such a thing again) ended up being Entertainment Weekly’s #1 DVD of 2007. Shout! Factory had pulled out all the stops putting this set together: they convinced Claire Danes to give an interview for the special features and they obtained written messages of gratitude from some of the biggest names in television (Joss Whedon and Janeane Garofalo, anyone?). Reading the letters from my own heroes about how My So-Called Life influenced their personal and creative lives brought tears to my eyes.
That box set sits proudly on the DVD shelf in my living room, a trophy that reminds me of a day when the fans felt victory for once rather than defeat. And when times get tough and my shows are on the chopping block, I hold that DVD set in my arms ever so tightly and I say—
Okay, so I don’t do that. But I do stare at it sometimes and get a warm fuzzy feeling and then I immediately get bitter because Daria and Ally McBeal are not on DVD and I really want Shout! Factory to work on that.
In conclusion, this is the story of why I am the way I am today. And the way I am today is a story that is to be continued. Lame, I know, but so very true.
If you have no idea what My So-Called Life is or why it is important, please contact me directly at the email listed above. If you’d like information on how to get your own My So-Called Life box set (because it’s STILL on sale, thank goodness), then click here.
My parents keep asking how school was. It's like saying, "How was that drive-by shooting?" You don't care how it *was*, you're lucky to get out alive. – Angela Chase*Note: You know, when kids get frustrated and they shake really hard and sort of jump around a little bit.
*Note: My parents wouldn’t have cared one bit. When I was younger, I had an irrational fear of angering my parents over things they would never even notice or form an opinion about.
*Note: I capitalized this word initially. Out of habit, out of respect, I do not know.
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