When the Billy Bob Thornton movie The Astronaut Farmer came out, a lot of us were amazed how the plot sounded similar to Salvage 1, a TV movie and later short-lived series on ABC that starred Andy Griffith as the owner of a scrap and salvage company who builds a spaceship and goes to the moon. I don't think this show has been seen that much since the late 70s, but TVShowsOnDVD is hearing from a source that Sony is going to release the show (the pilot movie and all the episodes, including 4 never shown on ABC) some time in 2008.

But that's not the only DVD news that TV fans are going to be interested in...

I thought of this show a few weeks ago when I started to see the commercials for Billy Bob Thornton's new movie, The Astronaut Farmer, about a guy who builds his own rocket in his barn so he can blast into space.

Salvage 1 was a short-lived show that starred Andy Griffith as a salvager who sells scrap that he finds and goes on various adventures with his cohorts (rescuing people, battling fires, getting involved with crooks, that sort of thing). The series co-starred Joel Higgins (Silver Spoons), Trish Stewart (whatever happened to her?), and Richard Jaeckel (Spenser: For Hire), and it was based on a TV movie of the same name in which Griffith built a rocket on his own and blasted off into space.

I can't tell you how much I loved this movie when I was a teen. If you had asked me in the late 70s what the best movie of all time was, I probably would have said this one. Sadly, the show died after only a season and a half. It couldn't quite match the charm of the pilot, but was pretty darn entertaining.