As a long-time fan of David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks, I own multiple copies of the physical and digital releases of the series and Lynch’s 1992 feature film. I remember the excitement around the show’s first season being released for the first time ever on DVD in December 2001. Recently, I acquired an advertisement encouraging fans to “reserve a copy” of the four-disc release.
RESERVE YOUR COPY TODAY AD FOR TWIN PEAKS – THE FIRST SEASON ON DVD
Prior to 2001, Twin Peaks was only available on home recordings captured by VRCs or official video cassettes and laserdisc releases. On December 18, 2001, Lynch and Frost’s groundbreaking television series arrived on DVD for the first time ever.
Released by Artisan Home Entertainment, this four-disc DVD set contained only the first seven episodes – episodes 1.001 through 1.007 – of the show’s first season. Interestingly, the set did not include the pilot episode.
Originally, it was planned for release on Dec. 4, but the date was mysteriously shifted to Dec. 18, 2001 around Nov. 9 that year. Pre-orders for the set were available on Amazon.com starting Sept. 17 with cover artwork released on Oct. 9.
With those dates in mind, this places the “Reserve Your Copy Today” advertisement at some point after Oct. 9 as that was when the outside DVD sleeve with Laura Palmer’s Homecoming Queen photo was released.
A few days later, a print ad was published on Oct. 15 containing DVD specifications and additional packaging images. The ad stated the pre-order date was Nov. 6, 2001. So this cardboard advertisement could have been available around the same time.
ADVERTISEMENT DETAILS
The code numbers printed along the bottom of this advertisement are “3462N1 10108” and is dated “(C)2001 Republic Entertainment, Inc. All rights reserved. Twin Peaks is a trademark of Twin Peaks Productions, Inc.”
It also states those who reserved a copy of the DVD set would “receive a valuable savings certificate when you pick up your reserved movie.” Most likely, this was target for the video store audience who may have regularly visited dedicated shops to find the latest movies to own. It’s unclear what kind of savings certificate was included (probably discounts for other home video releases).
Artisan Entertainment and Republic Pictures highlighted important aspects of this first-ever DVD release including episode audio commentary (which you can read transcripts of all seven episodes in articles found on Twin Peaks Blog).
They also called out “the Log Lady Intros” produced when the show aired on Bravo TV beginning in June 1993, and “on-camera interviews with the cast” of Twin Peaks.
Finally, the advertisement mentions the set would include “archive materials from the Twin Peaks fanzine, Wrapped in Plastic.” John Thorne and the late Craig Miller published 75 issues in from the 1990s through the early 2000s which served as a lifeline to David Lynch’s worlds prior to the interconnectivity of technology today.
John Thorne provided the “Story So Far” summary in place of the absent Twin Peaks pilot.
One of my favorite interviews from this set features Miller and Thorne speaking with series co-creator Mark Frost. They recorded on interview on August 7, 2001 via the telephone.
This ad is yet another unique item for my always growing Twin Peaks ephemera collection. You can download a high-resolution copy of the advertisement HERE.
