Abbott and Costello [Complete 36 Movie Collection]

In attractive packaging resembling a steamer trunk, the kind of thing one imagines Burlesque comedians lugged around the country while on tour, Abbott & Costello - The Complete Universal Pictures Collection is a handsome set of the duo's entire output at Universal Studios, some 28 full-length features released between 1940 and 1955, as well as the 1965 compilation film The World of Abbott & Costello. The set also comes with a batch of previously-released featurettes, including Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters and an enormously disappointing TV special, Abbott and Costello Meet Jerry Seinfeld.
For fans of the team, the release of the set is both exciting and exasperating. The good news is that it includes It Ain't Hay (1943), the only Universal-produced Abbott & Costello film heretofore never released to home video, in any format. It was left off the four-volume Best of Abbott & Costello DVDs released during 2004-05, presumably because of rights issues with the Damon Runyon estate. The set also features five new commentary tracks - for Buck Privates, Hold That Ghost, Who Done It?, The Time of Their Lives, and Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - along with an excellent 44-page booklet. The movies themselves have been authored on single-sided, dual-layered DVDs that improve upon the double-sided, double-layered DVDs Universal used in the past. Those older discs wouldn't even play on some machines.