Melba Moore

The Beatrice Arthur Special

Jeff Margolis, Howard Morris

Bea Arthur, Rock Hudson

The Beatrice Arthur Special was a prime time U.S. television special broadcast on CBS on January 19, 1980. The production centered around Bea Arthur, who was joined by guest stars Rock Hudson, Melba Moore and ventriloquist Wayland Flowers with his puppet Madame in a series of musical numbers and comedy sketches.

Purlie

Rudi Goldman

Robert Guillaume, Melba Moore

Based on Davis' 1961 play Purlie Victorious (which was later translated into the 1963 film Gone Are the Days! and which included all of the original Broadway cast, including Ruby Dee, Alan Alda, Beah Richards, and Godfrey Cambridge), Purlie is a musical with a book by Ossie Davis, Philip Rose, and Peter Udell, lyrics by Udell, and music by Gary Geld. It won two Tony Awards and was also nominated for Best Musical. This 1981 television adaptation is directed by Rudi Goldman and stars Broadway cast members Guillaume, Moore, Hemsley, and Hopkins, with Brandon Maggart as Cotchipee, Clarice Taylor as Idilla, and Don Scardino as Charlie. The production won a CableACE Award.

Hair

Miloš Forman

John Savage, Treat Williams

Upon receiving his draft notice and leaving his family ranch in Oklahoma, Claude heads to New York and befriends a tribe of long-haired hippies on his way to boot camp.

Night of 100 Stars II

Clark Jones

Debbie Allen, Peter Allen

This special is the second "Night of 100 Stars" to benefit The Actors Fund of America. Edited from a seven-hour live entertainment marathon that was taped February 17, 1985, at New York's Radio City Music Hall, this sequel to the 1982 "Night of 100 Stars" special features 288 celebrities.

Mother's Day

Susan Rohrer

Denise Nicholas, Bernie Casey

A young black man is arrested for a crime. Now the police and the D.A. are convinced that he is guilty, but his mother doesn't believe this and sets out to prove his innocence.

A Bing Crosby Christmas

Bing Crosby, Kathryn Grant

The program on this DVD is basically a retrospective produced in the early 1990s for public television that was originally called «A Bing Crosby Christmas: Just Like the Ones You Used to Know» that was narrated by Gene Kelly and hosted by Bing's widow, Kathryn Crosby. The program itself features clips from fifteen of Bing's classic television specials, concentrating on the period from the early 1960s onwards when he included Kathryn and their three children in the programs.

All Dogs Go to Heaven

Don Bluth, Dan Kuenster

Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise

When a casino-owning dog named Charlie is murdered by his rival Carface, he finds himself in Heaven basically by default since all dogs go to heaven. However, since he wants to get back at his killer, he cons his way back to the living with the warning that doing that damns him to Hell. Once back, he teams with his old partner, Itchy, to prep his retaliation. He also stumbles onto an orphan girl who can talk to the animals, thus allowing him to get the inside info on the races to ensure his wins to finance his plans. However, all the while, he is still haunted by nightmares of what's waiting for him on the other side unless he can prove that he is worthy of Heaven again.

The Adventures of a Two-Minute Werewolf

Mark Cullingham

Knowl Johnson, Julia Reardon

Adolescent werewolf Walt Cribbens finds himself transforming into a wolf-boy form for two minutes at a time. He has no idea why he is a werewolf, so he decides to seek answers with the help of his best friend Cindy, who witnessed his very first transformation. This quest is complicated by a series of local robberies that throw suspicion on Walt.

Lost in the Stars

Daniel Mann

Brock Peters, Raymond St. Jacques

A black South African minister searches the unfamiliar back alleys and shantytowns of Johannesburg for his son.

The Sidelong Glances of a Pigeon Kicker

John Dexter

Jordan Christopher, Jill O'Hara

After a young man graduates from a prestigious college, he rebels by preferring a carefree existence rather than the life of fighting the rungs within the treacherous American corporate ladder. For his means of survival he becomes a New York cab driver.

The Fighting Temptations

Jonathan Lynn

Beyoncé, Cuba Gooding Jr.

Darrin Hill, a slick-talking but down-on- his-luck NYC advertising exec, returns to his hometown in Georgia to claim the inheritance his aunt left him. But before Darrin can collect the money, he must fulfill his aunt's final wish -- to create a local choir.

Some Kind of a Nut

Garson Kanin

Dick Van Dyke, Angie Dickinson

A New York City bank teller becomes a media celebrity when he refuses to comply with his employer's demands that he shave his beard.

Charlotte Forten's Mission: Experiment in Freedom

Barry Crane

Mary Alice, Ned Beatty

At the beginning of the Civil War, Union gunboats sailed into Port Royal Sound, on the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia. White plantation owners fled, and the 10,000 blacks who lived there, almost all of whom were slaves, were freed in the first test of President Abraham Lincoln's dream of emancipation. Charlotte Forten, a 21-year-old educated black woman, helped the freed slaves to begin to build a new society. That experience forms the plot of this drama, based on Charlotte Forten's journals, which was telecast on "American Playhouse."