Sink the Pink …

So, over at the Agony Booth there’s a series of commentaries on a short-lived — six episodes, of which five were actually shown — variety series called “Pink Lady … and Jeff”:

http://www.agonybooth.com/recaps/Pink_Lady_and_Jeff/

The heading paragraph describes it like this:

“It was the Spring of 1980. Disco was dead. Variety shows were dying. What better time for NBC to launch Pink Lady… and Jeff, a variety show starring two average-looking Japanese pop stars who sang disco songs phonetically, and the mediocre stand-up who loved them?”

(Of course, the first recap calls them “hot” instead of “average”, so that’s what I’m gonna go with).

Now, after reading the recaps I thought “Hey, this might be good for a laugh and I like attractive Japanese pop starts in skimpy outfits as much as the next guy, so let’s see what it would cost me to get this DVD”.  And here it is:

http://www.amazon.ca/Pink-Lady-Jeff-Keiko-Masuda/dp/B00005JH9Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1295443491&sr=1-2

Okay, it’s out of print, that’s not a surprise … so how much are people selling it for?

…

How much?

$471.48 new (Canadian, I think) and $368.18 used.  One copy a piece.

Now, again, I like watching attractive Japanese pop stars in skimpy outfits as much as the next guy, but if that’s all that this show has going for it — and the recaps make it seem like, yeah, that’s pretty much all it has going for it — I can’t imagine anyone actually paying that much for this box set.  And $400 can get you a heck of a lot more attractive Japanese women in even skimpier outfits (like they’re wearing nothing at all!).  Possibly even singing.

Now, maybe this is rare and you’d have someone who is, in fact, a rabid fan of either Pink Lady or, shudder, Jeff Altman and might pay that much.  But I can’t imagine it.  Not just because I can’t imagine someone being such a big fan of, at least, Jeff Altman that they would pay that much, but also because I can’t imagine someone being that big a fan who didn’t get that set when it was first released, since, you know, they’d have actually heard about it.  Unlike me, for example.

If that’s at all a reasonable price — meaning that past history has shown that, yes, you could actually get that price for that set — then this is crying out for the company that released it in the first place to re-release it and both undercut such sellers taking advantage of buyers who are clearly insane, but also to make more money off of this thing that clearly wasn’t successful the first time around.

As a point of comparison, the original Battlestar Galactica series — also out of print — sells for $80 new on Amazon.  Yes, it’s certainly less rare … but it’s also both a far better show and contains far more hours of entertainment.  And you get to see Lorne Greene for more than just a short segment; it’s all Lorne Greene all the time.