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Featured CED VideoDisc No. 9 - Summer 1998

Shown above are the obverse sides of this 2-Disc CED title. Although most of the 206 2-Disc titles listed in the CED Title Database have different reverse sides, this is the only one that has different obverse sides. Anyone who collects CED's will be aware that in general RCA 2-Disc titles have different reverse side art work and liner notes, while CBS/Fox 2-Disc titles generally have identical reverse sides. I wanted to do a detailed analysis of the differences, so the table at the bottom of this page lists all 206 2-Disc titles, along with the publisher, year of disc production, and whether or not the reverse sides are different. Looking over the data, some observations emerged that are summarized in the list that follows:

• Of the 206 2-Disc Titles, 129 have different reverse sides, and 77 have identical reverse sides. By identical, I mean all art work and text are the same except the print that indicates "Part 1" or "Part 2" and the printed time length of the disc.

• Ninety-eight of the 2-Disc titles have RCA as the publisher (based on the universal product code). All but 10 of these titles have both different art work and liner notes on the reverse sides. Six of these 10 titles are Columbia/RCA releases from late 1984 or later that have identical art work, but the liner notes are different, while the remaining four are late production RCA or Disney titles where both the art work and liner notes are the same. It appears that RCA cut back on their caddy design department after the cancellation of the CED system in April 1984.

• Sixty-four of the 2-Disc titles have CBS/Fox as the publisher. In contrast to RCA, all of these have the same reverse side art work and liner notes except six titles. Those six titles with different reverse sides were among the first titles pressed by CBS in 1982, with the publisher being listed as "CBS Video" rather than CBS/Fox. The CBS disc pressing facility was shut down in mid-1984, but RCA continued to release CBS/Fox titles with the same label styling. Oddly enough, the final title pressed by RCA in mid-1986 was Jewel of the Nile, a CBS/Fox title.

• Seventeen 2-Disc titles have MGM/UA as the publisher. These as well as the 2-Disc titles published by Embassy, MCA, Paramount, Vestron, and Warner were all pressed at the RCA pressing plant. Fourteen of the MGM/UA titles have different reverse sides, while their final three titles have the cost saving identical reverse sides.

• Nine of the ten 2-Disc titles published by Warner have different reverse sides, but the only difference is the liner notes are present on Part 2 and absent on Part 1-- there's just a blank area on the label where they would have appeared. Apparently they didn't think the notes were needed on Part 1, since the reverse side is hidden when the two discs were shrink wrapped together. The exception is The Right Stuff, where both reverse sides have the same liner notes as well as identical art work.

• The titles from the remaining four publishers can consistently be categorized according to publisher, so MCA has six titles with different reverse sides, Vestron has six titles with identical reverse sides, Embassy has three titles with identical reverse sides, and Paramount has two titles with identical reverse sides.

There also were one 3-Disc title "The Rocky Championship Collection," and two 4-Disc titles Jesus of Nazareth and Holocaust. The 3-Disc Rocky set was the first three Rocky movies packaged as a box set, with the caddies and discs being identical to the individual CED's issued earlier by RCA. Jesus of Nazareth was originally a four-part TV miniseries, and is the one title where all eight sides are different both in terms of art work and liner notes. The same could be said for Holocaust, but in this case only the color of the background is different on the obverse sides, and the reverse sides have the same art work with different liner notes.

So why does "Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines" have different obverse sides? I don't know the definitive answer, but believe it may relate to this being the only 2-Disc bilingual title, so on a whim the caddy artists may have decided to give it different obverse sides.

Two Disc CED Titles

• Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines in the Internet Movie Database

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