Coronation Street home video releases

Many selected episodes, specially produced episodes, and feature length spin-offs of the British television soap opera Coronation Street have been released on video and DVD.

In 1982, a VHS video entitled The Magic of Coronation Street - Distant Memories 1960 -1964 was released by Granada Video. Its running time was 172 minutes and it featured six episodes of the programme, together with specially shot sequences featuring Annie Walker, Elsie Tanner and Len Fairclough. Later, The Magic of Coronation Street was released as two separate packages, each containing three episodes, by Vestron Video.

Episodes featured:

Part one: Episode 1 (9 December 1960); Gas Main Leak (9 February 1961); Christmas Day 1961

Part two: Elsie discovers that Bill Gregory is married (11 July 1962); This is Your Life (12 December 1962); Cinderella (23 December 1964)

In 1985, to celebrate the serial's 25th anniversary, two video tapes were released (again on Vestron Video), entitled The Jubilee Years - Part One and The Jubilee Years - Part Two. These featured a previously unseen character Alice Hughes revisiting the Street to recall characters like Ena and Elsie and catch up on 'current happenings' with Ken and Deirdre Barlow, Betty Turpin and Hilda Ogden.

In 1987, The Life and Loves of Elsie Tanner was released, with the characters of Mike Baldwin, Emily Bishop and Elsie's daughter, Linda, recalling Elsie's time on the Street. In this production it is hinted that Elsie has died, an event not referred to in the series proper until 2011, when her son Dennis Tanner said she and her husband Bill Gregory died in 2004 after a car crash in Portugal (Emily tells Linda that she was "sorry to hear about her mother"). Pat Phoenix, who played Elsie, had died the previous year. So many may imply that this one off special is not at all a part of the series canon.

In 1990, as a celebration for the serial's 30th anniversary, 10 video tapes were released by Windsong Video Productions, each featuring four episodes from a specific year and introduced by someone who was close to the stories that year (for example, Betty Turpin's husband Cyril died in 1974, therefore Betty Driver hosted the 1974 tape). These tapes were initially distributed by Granada Video for viewing in the UK only, but were reissued on NTSC tape (a year later) for viewing in the US and Canada.

...
Wikipedia