Some Things Old, Some Things New in ’96 : Video: Expect plenty of long-awaited titles to hit the shelves. But perhaps most awaited: Buzz and Woody.

To be or Knotts to be? Knotts to be! “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken,” one of Don Knotts’ most requested comedies, will at last be released on videocassette in 1996.

Fans of Joan Crawford, “Heavy Metal,” Ingmar Bergman, Rock Hudson, the Beatles, Quentin Tarantino and even Winnie the Pooh also have something to look forward to this year, as studios continue to mine the vaults for unreleased treasures and to reintroduce previously released classics to new buyers.

Vintage movies and contemporary one-hit wonders have distinct niche appeal, but studios are looking beyond film buffs to market titles to a more mainstream audience of budding collectors. Specially created labels, star-driven collections and consistent release schedules foster consumer awareness and help carve out space on retail shelves.

“The Dolly Sisters,” a 1945 musical starring Betty Grable and June Haver, kicks off the fourth year of FoxVideo’s line of “Studio Classics.” At least one new title, the majority of which are chosen by a consumer fan club, will be released on the first Tuesday of each month for the suggested retail price of $19.95 each. Among the movies coming out are the 1940 classic “The Grapes of Wrath,” Elia Kazan’s 1947 mystery “Boomerang,” the all-star 1942 anthology “Tales of Manhattan,” the 1957 Tony Randall-Jayne Mansfield comedy “Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?,” the 1950 Jimmy Stewart comedy “The Jackpot” and 1969’s “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie,” featuring the Oscar-winning performance by Maggie Smith. Also expected to be released is the 1950 family comedy “Cheaper by the Dozen,” starring Clifton Webb and Myrna Loy.

Fox also plans to release in time for Mother’s Day the premieres of two Bette Davis creepers, 1965’s “The Nanny” and 1968’s “The Anniversary.”

In February, MCA/Universal Home Video will add four new titles to its “Deanna Durbin Collection”: 1939’s “First Love,” which marked the film debut of Robert Stack; the 1943 musical “His Butler’s Sister”; the 1945 comedy-mystery “Lady on a Train”; and the 1938 musical-comedy “Mad About Music,” each retail priced at $19.98.

Don’t rule out an end-of-the-year release of “Toy Story,” but Buena Vista Home Video has plenty to keep families occupied meanwhile. Following the Feb. 28 release of “Pocahontas,” two of Disney’s designated animated classics will receive their video premieres. “The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh,” never before released in its 1977 theatrical version, will debut March 27, with “The Aristocats,” finally unleashed on April 24 after being advertised as “coming soon” last year on the “Lion King” video.

February will also see the debut of “Muppet Sing-Alongs: Muppet Treasure Island” as well as a collection of “The Best of Roger Rabbit,” featuring Maroon Cartoon’s most animated star in “Tummy Trouble,” “Roller Coaster Rabbit” and “Trail Mix-Up.”

Live-action family films will also receive prominent play. Columbia TriStar Home Video launches its direct-to-sell-through “Columbia TriStar Family Collection” with “Indian in the Cupboard,” available Jan. 16 for the suggested retail price of $19.95. Future titles being considered for the collection are “The Baby-Sitter’s Club” and “Jumanji.” MCA/Universal Home Video will bring its not-so-little piggy to market with the March 19 release of the sleeper hit “Babe” for $22.98 retail.

On the classics front, Kino on Video will premiere the 1952 film noir “Sudden Fear,” starring Joan Crawford and Jack Palance, and the 1951 fantasy-romance “Pandora and the Flying Dutchman,” starring Ava Gardner and James Mason. Both will be released Jan. 20 for $19.98 each.

But silents continue to be golden for Kino, which released the lauded “Art of Buster Keaton” sets last year. In March, the New York-based company will unveil restored and remastered versions of F.W. Murneau’s “Faust,” “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” and Augusto Genina’s 1925 color spectacle “Cyrano de Bergerac.” Buster Keaton’s “The Railrodder” is poised for a spring release.

Kino will also introduce in May a “Douglas Fairbanks Collection,” 12 films on 10 videocassettes, including the 1926 silent swashbuckler “The Black Pirate” in two-strip Technicolor. A film noir collection is also being prepared for the fall.

On average, it takes about seven months for a movie to go from theaters to the video store. An exception is the art-house film, which tends to receive more limited theatrical distribution and needs nurturing to develop audience awareness.

“Crumb,” Terry Zwigoff’s academy-snubbed profile of the dysfunctional underground cartoon artist, and the Cinderella hit from Australia “Muriel’s Wedding” will be released to the rental market in March, nearly a year after their heralded theatrical engagements, on Columbia TriStar and Miramax Home Entertainment, respectively.

A diverse sampling of never-released favorites will debut in April. In addition to “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” (“The one everyone asks for,” said Knotts’ longtime personal manager Sherwin Bash), MCA/Universal will also release 1967’s “The Reluctant Astronaut” and 1969’s “The Love God?,” in which Knotts plays a Hugh Hefner type.

In March, Chicago-based Home Vision Cinema, which distributes the Janus Film Collection, will release Ingmar Bergman’s acclaimed 1973 film “Scenes From a Marriage” for the first time in the original Swedish language.

The oft-bootlegged 1982 animated cult classic “Heavy Metal” will receive a theatrical re-release in advance of its video premiere on Columbia TriStar Home Video. Current fave rave “Pulp Fiction” will be re-released March 6 by Miramax in a special edition containing additional footage and priced for $19.95 retail.

One of the year’s most anticipated video events is the release in mid-May of “The Beatles Anthology” on Capitol Video. The expected eight-volume set, which will most likely be priced for less than $25 each, promises to contain twice the footage as the ABC broadcast.

For Paramount Home Video, the sky’s the limit as it launches its 30th-anniversary celebration of “Star Trek” with a series of video collectibles. “Star Trek Memories,” available Feb. 6, will reunite William Shatner with the original crew of the Enterprise. “All Good Things,” the final episode of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” will be released in March.

A 50th-anniversary edition of “Miracle on 34th Street,” which is currently on moratorium and unavailable for purchase, is in the works at Fox Video, as is “the re-release of one of the great Fox movies,” said Fox Video President Bob DeLellis. “E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial” may return home in a special edition at the end of this year, according to Andrew Kairey, MCA/Universal’s senior vice president of marketing.

The studios with the deepest archives are creating collections that will encompass new and previously released catalog titles. In January, Fox Video will introduce “Family Features” with the re-release of the Jules Verne adventures “Journey to the Center of the Earth” and “Five Weeks in a Balloon,” in repackaged editions for $14.98 each.

MGM/UA Home Video will also debut in January its new “Family Treasures” line with the 1973 musical version of “Tom Sawyer,” the 1960 Doris Day comedy “Please Don’t Eat the Daisies,” George Pal’s “Tom Thumb” and the 1968 Lucille Ball-Henry Fonda comedy “Yours, Mine and Ours.” Each will be priced at $14.95 each.

In February, Columbia TriStar debuts an eclectic sampling of six titles in its “Columbia Classics” line: the 1967 romantic comedy “Divorce American Style”; the 1971 drama “The Go-Between,” starring Julie Christie and Alan Bates; the 1936 screwball comedy “‘Theodora Goes Wild,” with Irene Dunne; the 1945 Arabian Nights fable “Thousand and One Nights”; Joan Crawford in 1950’s “Harriet Craig”; and the 1958 Danny Kaye comedy-drama “Me and the Colonel.”

To coincide with the American Film Institute’s honoring of Clint Eastwood, as well as hoped-for Oscar nominations for “The Bridges of Madison County,” Warner Home Video will release in spring “Clint Directs Clint,” 12 re-priced Eastwood titles, including “Unforgiven,” “A Perfect World,” “White Hunter, Black Heart” and “The Outlaw Josey Wales.”

MCA/Universal has several collections in the works. The Rock Hudson comedies “Come September” (1961), “Lover Come Back” (1961) and “Strange Bedfellows” (1964) are set to debut in the first half of 1996. Also to be released this year for the first time are the war films “Battle Hymn,” starring Hudson, 1952’s “The Red Ball Express” with Jeff Chandler and Sidney Poitier and the westerns “The Appaloosa,” starring Marlon Brando, and “Wells Fargo” with Joel McCrea and his wife, Frances Dee.

And then along comes Jones, Buck Jones, that is. MCA/Universal will saddle up a collection of the hero’s 1940s westerns in the second half of the year.