‘Anthology’ Video Lets You Take The Beatles Home

Get ready for some serious twisting and shouting throughout the coming months by Hollywood marketing forces if not the Beatles.

Turner Home Entertainment and Capitol Records’ video division are spending $8 million to promote the 10-hour, eight-part “The Beatles Anthology” video series, which hits stores today.

What can consumers expect?

A blitz of ads on television and radio and in newspapers and magazines starting this month and continuing through the holidays. The companies are hoping to rattle and roll the wallets of the 60 million nostalgia-mad viewers who made the ABC version of the anthology a ratings hit last November.

Of course, the $160 video set differs from the TV series, which was nominated for three Emmys. It’s longer - much longer.

Indeed, the home version is 10 hours - twice as long as the broadcast series. It is split into 75-minute volumes, each containing a wealth of Beatles music, home movies, concert clips and interviews.

If video sales reflect that of anthology CD sales, Turner and Capitol certainly will be justified in their $8 million marketing campaign.

The double CD “The Beatles Anthology Volume I” made history as the fastest-selling double album (855,800 in the first week), making it the first recording available for platinum certification in its first week of release.

‘Nanny’ debut gets makeover

CBS is retooling the season debut of “The Nanny” and will not rebroadcast last season’s cliffhanger, as had been planned, out of respect to the victims of TWA Flight 800, the network said Tuesday.

The season debut, which was filmed in May and is the continuation of last season’s cliffhanger, has been revised and will air Sept. 18 from 8-9 p.m. as planned. The cliffhanger episode will not be rebroadcast next Wednesday, as had been announced.

Last spring’s cliffhanger saw Maxwell Sheffield (Charles Shaughnessy) proclaiming his love for Nanny Fine (Fran Drescher) and kissing her, because the plane on which they were traveling from Paris to New York seemed about to crash. The season debut sees the plane land safely.

Wendt joins ‘Naked Truth’

“Cheers” veteran George Wendt is coming back to prime time this season as the newest member of the cast of the under-rated comedy “The Naked Truth.”

He’ll be playing a magazine publisher in the Tea Leoni sitcom, a show that has been revamped in an effort to find a larger audience.

The pleasantly rotund funnyman says he’s looking forward to getting back into another series and feels he can add a bit of humor to the already funny show. Wendt starred in his own short-lived sitcom after “Cheers” ended production but says he expects to get more attention with this project.

‘ID4,’ ‘Nutty’ videos coming

MCA/Universal Home Video confirmed Tuesday that it will join the nutty video frenzy by pricing its hit summer comedy “The Nutty Professor” for sale at $22.98 on Nov. 12. And Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment has confirmed that it will release the year’s biggest box office release, “Independence Day,” on video on Nov. 22 for $22.98.

Who to tour with ‘Quadrophenia’

As expected, the Who will tour the United States with “Quadrophenia.” The rock musical, which sold out six shows at New York’s Madison Square Garden in July, will travel to 12 U.S. cities, starting in Portland in October.

Other towns on the parade route include Vancouver, British Columbia, as well as Los Angeles, Detroit. Buffalo, N.Y., Boston, Tacoma, San Jose, Calif., Chicago, Cleveland and Philadelphia.