Odd Couple On DVD

I wanted to tell you that Time/Life has the Odd Couple coming out soon on DVD. You can get it if you click here. It has many extras like Tony Randall and Jack Klugman on the Mike Douglas Show, audio introductions by Garry Marshall, Tony and Jack in a scene from a play and a Gag Reel. This was a favorite in my household when I was a kid. However, the show was never a hit on TV back in the 70's. While most network shows these days would probably kill for the ratings they got back then, the ratings were not that good for the 70's when there were only 3 networks on the air. Why was it kept on? Rumor has it that a powerful network executive really liked the show. Part of the time it was up against the powerful show The Waltons. That was a huge hit at the time and since it was before VCR's you could not tape the Odd Couple while you watched the Waltons. I believe it was suring the last season they were againt The Waltons and not many people, myself included, ever got to see the last episode of the Odd Couple where Felix got re-married to Gloria and moved out of Oscar's apartment.
I really like the show but I did have one small problem with it. In the opening introduction the voice over artist (who was that anyway?) said that Felix moved in with his childhood friend Oscar Madison. Then in flashback episodes we see that they either met on Jury duty or in the Army. Not realizing how big syndication would be for network shows in reruns I guess they ignored or forgot about the continuity.
An interesting bit of trivia is that when the creator of the Odd Couple, Neil Simon, visited the set Mr. Marshall found out that Neil didn't like the TV show. It was mainly because he signed away the TV rights years earlier and was not seeing a dime from the show. Garry found out later from someone close to Mr. Simon that the comedy on the show was so well done that it won him over and he watched it every week.