During a recent romp through my favorite discount store (you know the one-- it features prominent red bulls eyes all over the place), I paused for a moment in the DVD section. I usually buy children's DVDs for my kids-- you know, stuff like "Dora the Explorer's Fairytale Adventure" and "Barbie's Princess and the Pauper". But on this particular day I stopped to look at a large display of adult-oriented DVDs. And I couldn't believe my eyes. Classic TV was back and it was everywhere.

Now I'm a diehard classic TV fan from way back-- the type that cried when Nick at Nite changed their format to 80's shows (too young to be true classics, in my opinion) and the type that petitioned my local cable company to acquire TV Land (they finally did in the late 90's). But because programming directors like to mess with the schedules as soon as I get used to them, I'm never really satisfied with the classic TV offerings-- even though I have digital cable and hundreds of TV channels to choose from. So when I saw this awesome display of classic DVDs, I simply had to peruse them a bit.

There were the "I Love Lucy" box sets which I've admired from afar for a while now, and there was the recently released "The Brady Bunch Compete First Season" (okay, I admit I own that one, but I only bought it for the retro kaleidoscope cover). Okay, so "Lucy" and "The Brady Bunch" were both blockbuster hits, still seen in syndication decades after they first aired-- I don't think either show has ever been off the air since. But what blew me away was the dozens of more obscure television shows that I never expected to see on DVD-- yet here they were, staring me in the face, in full color.

Shows like "Planet of the Apes"" and "Soap" and "Little House on the Prairie" and" The Bionic Woman"-- campy shows that I used to love and really hadn't thought about in 30 years. Heck, they even had my sister's all-time favorite comedy, "What's Happening".

If money wasn't an object, I would have piled them all into my cart and started my own classic TV DVD collection, but instead of spending my kid's college fund in one shot, I decided to start small-- just one precious "Starsky and Hutch " DVD (and no, I don't mean the Ben Stiller/Owen Wilson movie remake-- I'm talking the original 1970's series starring Paul Michael Glaser and David Soul). And with one classic DVD in hand, I would start my collection, adding one modestly priced box set each month. They will add up quickly and then I'll just have to find the time to watch them all.

Next month it will be "Bewitched", the classic 1960's series starring Elizabeth Montgomery and Dick York. The complete first season comes out any day now and it will be offered two ways-- the original black and white version or a colorized version. I'm opting for the color. It may be a classic show, but I'll take the modern technology any day.