Family Home Entertainment

Family Home Entertainment (also known as F.H.E.) is an American home video distributor that released a number of Generation 1 episodes on video (both VHS and Beta) during the 1980s, and was also responsible for the first home video release of The Transformers: The Movie. In addition to Transformers, F.H.E. also released home video collections of other Sunbow cartoons, including G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero.

The company changed its name to International Video Entertainment in the mid '80s, and then again to Live Home Video in 1990, but all the while kept the F.H.E. brand working for them as a sub-division of the larger company. In 1991, Avid Home Entertainment, another imprint of Live Home Video (dedicated for releasing budget titles from the archives of Live/IVE, Vestron Video, Carolco Pictures, and ITC Entertainment), released their own VHS of The Transformers: The Movie. The company then changed its name again in 1995 to Live Entertainment, then in 1998 to Artisan Entertainment, and was eventually folded into Lionsgate Home Entertainment in 2003.

Perhaps the most memorable thing about the F.H.E. video releases was that the back of each box featured a comic strip summarizing the episode rather than a one paragraph plot description. With the strips being so extremely truncated, their coverage of the episode's plot was sometimes downright perplexing if the reader had no knowledge of the episode's content ("Why is Ravage mauling that guy in the wheelchair?"). They also had a memorable logo for all their video releases, featuring the company's "child's handwriting" logo and an INCREDIBLY LOUD "bwaaaaannnnnnnng" noise followed by a series of tones.

You can own all these character models on VHS, for the low price of $24.95!

Releases

• The Transformers — Volume 1: "More than Meets the Eye" (1985)
• The Transformers — Volume 2: "The Ultimate Doom" (1985)
• The Transformers — Volume 3: "S.O.S. Dinobots" (1985)
• The Transformers — Volume 4: "Fire in the Sky" (1985)

• 
  Volume 1
• 
  Volume 2
• 
  Volume 3
• 
  Volume 4

• The Transformers — Volume 5: "Divide and Conquer" (1985)
• The Transformers — Volume 6: "Roll for It" (1985)
• The Transformers — Volume 7: "Transport to Oblivion" (1985)
• The Transformers — Volume 8: "Fire on the Mountain" (1985)

• 
  Volume 5
• 
  Volume 6
• 
  Volume 7
• 
  Volume 8

• The Transformers — Volume 9: "War of the Dinobots" (1985)
• The Transformers — Volume 10: "Heavy Metal War" (1986)
• The Transformers — Volume 11: "Countdown to Extinction" (1986)
• The Transformers — Volume 12: "The Secret of Omega Supreme", "War Dawn", "A Plague of Insecticons" (1986)

• 
  Volume 9
• 
  Volume 10
• 
  Volume 11
• 
  Volume 12

• The Transformers — The Return of Optimus Prime (9/17/1987)
• The Transformers: The Movie (9/17/1987)
• The Transformers — Five Faces of Darkness (1990, also available on laserdisc)
• The Transformers: The Movie (Avid Home Entertainment, 1991)

• The Return of Optimus Prime
  The Return of Optimus Prime
• The Transformers: The Movie (1987 release)
  The Transformers: The Movie (1987 release)
• 
  Five Faces of Darkness
• 
  The Transformers: The Movie (1991 Avid release)

Notes

• The VHS releases of Volumes 3 through 11 came in two different types of packaging. The first releases came in larger red and black boxes which were close to the size of a plastic clam shell case, typical for early VHS releases. Later on the packaging was changed to a light gray sleeve with shrunk down versions of the front and back panels from the corresponding earlier box. At least one tape, "S.O.S. Dinobots", even has a third version with a black sleeve that has the artwork and comic strip taking up the entire front and back panels.
• Volumes 1 and 2 display an "Award of Excellence" from the Film Advisory Board, an organization which, by its own admission, does not judge the quality of material, looking instead for "family-friendly" fare (most other FAB award winners are direct-to-video).
• The entire box art, including the comic panels found on the back, were not from Marvel, even though the show was a Marvel production and the comic license was theirs, too. The artist was an independent, named Steve Vance, while another independent – Bill Black (from AC Comics) – helped. Steve would send him pencilled, lettered art with a copy marked up with color instructions, and he’d ink it and do the color separations.
• Quite possibly the very first Transformers and GIjoe crossover in ANY form, came from Steve Vance's mini-comic pamphlet promoting FHE's two VHS series of Transformers and GIjoe. It was a promotional piece intended for video retailers in 1985. The story had the Autobots teaming up with GIjoe to battle the Decepticons and Cobra who were trying to foil the shipment of FHE VHS tapes to stores.

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External links

• Family Home Entertainment at Wikipedia
• Archive of F.H.E. comic strips