He-Man and the MOTU (2002) DVD defect

February 18th was the release date for the first box set of the 2002 He-Man and the Master of the Universe animated series. Just before that, however, some news started coming in about a defect on the first disc of the set.

BCI Guy a member of the He-Man.org forums and representative of BCI itself (the company producing the sets) had this to say:

“Sorry for the delay getting back to everyone, but I needed to make sure we were totally sure what happened, how we could fix it, and what we could do about it before reporting anything.

The masters that we received from Mattel are complete – the scene is not missing. The problem was in authoring. There is a layer break in the episode (Disc 1, Episode 4) and when the layer switches, it skips over about 3 minutes of the program. Unfortunately, it’s during a transition and there is no visible or audible break, so the only way to notice it’s there is through story continuity. And no one that watched the check discs caught that it was missing. Honestly, that’s not a valid excuse – it should’ve been caught by someone, and the authoring house needed to realize that one episode was running 3 minutes short. It’s inexcusable, and we’re taking drastic measures to fix this problem once and for all. We’re committed to giving everyone the best possible product – content, features, packaging and quality control. 3 out of those 4 is not nearly enough, so we’re moving Volumes 2 and 3 to a new authoring house that has assured us of the quality and depth of their Quality Control department.

We have already reauthored Disc 1 and will have replacements available by street date – Feb 19th. We will be setting up an 800# to request replacement discs which we will ship out along with a new exclusive bonus item for your trouble and as an apology from us.

We appreciate your continued support.”

This was posted here.

As a follow up a few days later, this was posted on He-Man.org, once again from BCI Guy:

“The replacement disc for Mattel’s He Man Volume 1, Disc One can be ordered by either sending an email to HeManDisc@gmail.com or calling 866-641-3472. Please include your name, your address, a daytime telephone number and the store name and location where you purchased your DVD.”