In TV’s afterlife, fan loyalty rules

When the acclaimed NBC series “Freaks and Geeks” premiered in the fall of 1999, the show’s creator, Paul Feig, and executive producer, Judd Apatow, unleashed a keenly funny, unapologetically painful and antiheroic gem about the struggle to live through puberty and high school.

The adolescents at the heart of the show, lead by bored A-student-turned-”freak” Lindsay Weir (Linda Cardellini from “ER”) and her younger “geek” brother Sam (John Francis Daley), weren’t the Dorothy Parker wits of “Dawson’s Creek” -- what Feig calls “the revenge of guys in their 30s writing for teenagers” -- but real kids, with perma-sneers, roiling emotions and awkward behavior.

When a network note asked to include more “victories” for the lovable losers, Apatow recalled, “We said, ‘Isn’t the victory that you survived a failure with your humor intact?’ They’re like, ‘No.’ ”

Despite aggressive outpourings of love from a committed viewership, “Freaks and Geeks” -- yanked, relaunched and jostled around during its short life -- was canceled in March 2000 after airing just 15 episodes.

But a school reunion of sorts hit stores Tuesday when the six-disc “Freaks and Geeks” DVD set was released. If nothing else, it underscores how important fan loyalty is to a show’s afterlife, and sets a new benchmark for series completeness, at least for a show that didn’t even survive a full season.

A fan’s bounty, it boasts all 18 episodes, deleted scenes, auditions, outtakes and a free-time-crushing 29 commentary tracks that include the musings of the actors, creators, cast members’ parents, fans, executives and even a few performers in character.

Then there’s the limited edition eight-disc set, sporting videotaped table reads, a Museum of Television & Radio seminar, and a photo-and-essay-packed 80-page “yearbook” for the show’s fictional 1980 McKinley High class. It’s arguably the most comprehensive case of closure for a short-lived series. Indeed, for a few years after cancellation such a package wasn’t a given. But the vehemence of the show’s loyal fans made all the difference.

DVD was mostly a movie medium four years ago when “Freaks and Geeks” was in its death throes. There were VHS copies available of major cult hits like “The X-Files” and “Star Trek,” but especially for a quickly canceled show, the only hope was another network or a berth on rerun-hungry cable.

Of the remaining “F&G;” episodes that were still being edited together after NBC gave the ax, Apatow would joke to Feig, “Well, we’re doing it for the museum,” referring to the Museum of Television and Radio, which would eventually hold packed marathon screenings of the unaired shows. But a new home was looking less likely.

“People don’t like to pick other people’s trash out of the garbage,” Apatow said. The big stumbling block for any “Freaks and Geeks” afterlife was the song rights, and for a series that memorably scored its characters’ ups and downs to the time-specific sounds of the Who, Billy Joel, Van Halen and Supertramp, music was essential.

MTV had offered to produce new episodes, but at a third less of a licensing fee; Apatow and Feig wouldn’t consider it. Eventually the international version -- with half the tunes replaced -- ran on the Fox Family Channel, but when Feig and Apatow began to scout out a DVD release, they wanted the original music -- nearly 100 songs -- intact. Anything less would be anathema to fans.

So they went back to the show’s website, which had stayed up and running since cancellation. To gauge DVD interest, Feig and Apatow in late 2002 posted a petition, word of which got to websites like www.tvshowsondvd.com (where fans of forgotten TV can play lobbyist), and before long 35,000 people had signed.

That caught the eye of Shout! Factory, a relatively new entertainment company started by former Rhino Records executives, where some employees explored how to clear the music. They devised a “favored nations” setup where all master rights holders and publishers were paid the same fee.

After nearly half a year of full-time clearance work, all the artists re-upped, including the Grateful Dead -- whose music had been crucial to the show’s de facto “finale” episode, “Discos and Dragons,” but who nonetheless had to OK the use of “Box of Rain” again for DVD.

The music rights make the sets pricier than most TV-related DVDs (list price: $69.98 for the six-disc set, and $120 for the yearbook version available only at www.freaksandgeeks.com). Apatow and Feig clearly seem concerned that some people will think they’re overcharging, even though they personally aren’t making money on it.

“It’s uncomfortable for us to market to [fans] because they’re so loyal,” Apatow said. “Paul always said, ‘Let’s have a relationship [with them] that’s based on how we all feel about the show.’ ”

To that end, Feig and Apatow recruited from the disciples in their quest to make the DVD the only “F&G;” keepsake one would ever need. A few volunteered to design menus, and in a intrepid feat of fan immersion, 34-year-old Los Angeles attorney Tami Lefko spent more than a month at Apatow Productions in Santa Monica with a notepad scanning every episode’s dailies and outtakes for stuff she thought fans like her would want to see.

Among the hidden treasures Lefko picked out: actor Martin Starr (Bill) kissing Samm Levine (Neal) after a take, and a three-minute, uninterrupted angle on lanky Jason Segel (Nick) disco dancing in the last episode.

Feig and Apatow would love to see their DVD sell the way the DVDs for the short-lived Fox animated series “Family Guy” did last year, notching over a million copies. But Shout! Factory acknowledges that 100,000 sold would be a more realistic sign of success.

Recently, Fox said “Family Guy” was going back into production because of its DVD selling power. While that isn’t in the cards for “Freaks and Geeks,” Feig -- who just directed the season-ending episode of Fox’s own ratings-challenged, critically loved comedy “Arrested Development” -- now thinks a timely DVD could lead to a reprieve for a struggling show.

“You do a season and the numbers aren’t great, but there’s a hard-core audience,” he said. “I feel [a network] might be more apt to order a half-season of it because the DVD will come out in September and maybe give it more life.”

Four years ago, Lefko was one of many dejected fans unable to save a series she was emotionally connected to, but now things are different. “If we had looked at it as setting the groundwork for an eventual DVD, I think we would have been a lot more pleased with ourselves,” Lefko said. “Is it worthwhile to go to those lengths for a show? I think it is.”