By Mike Snider, USA TODAY

Some fans are making the case that DVD stands for "democratic video disc."
 
  Viewers speak: Fans’ demands prompted Lions Gate to put the first two seasons of Moonlighting (with Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd) on DVD. 
Capital Cities, ABC Inc.

Empowered by the DVD-fueled resurrection of Fox's Family Guy, fans of other TV shows are standing up for their faves. Fox canceled Family Guy in 2002 after its third year, but it became a hit on video and is set to return to the air in May.

Fan support has prompted the DVD release of such shows as Jim Henson's HBO series Fraggle Rock, the Bruce Willis-Cybill Shepherd ABC series Moonlighting and Sci Fi Channel's Farscape.

"Studios have started to realize that listening to fans of shows will result in better products and build pent-up purchasing excitement," says Gord Lacey, founder of www.tvshowsondvd.com.

Primarily, fans want beloved TV series to come out on DVD so they can put aside their fading VHS copies. "We want to have crystal-clear copies, unedited and, of course, with extras, if possible," says Diana Maiocco, a New York television advertising buyer and media director of the Moonlighting Strangers Fanzine (www.moonlighting21.com).

Through the Web site, which was started in 2001 by Christie Taylor and Joy Chodan, fans began lobbying for a reunion of the Moonlighting cast. After Bravo began replaying the series, fans began pushing for a DVD.

Last week, Lions Gate announced that a six-disc set of episodes from seasons 1 and 2 (1985-1987) would be out in May. "I know in our conversations with them, they were very interested in what we were doing," Maiocco says.

Other fan-inspired DVDs:

• Farscape. After the Sci Fi Channel show was canceled in March 2004 without an ending, fans organized a campaign at savefarscape.com and paid for TV and print ads to save the show. As a result, Jim Henson Productions made a four-hour miniseries called Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars to resolve the story lines. It aired in October, and Lions Gate released it on DVD last month ($20).
• Fraggle Rock. This 1980s Henson/HBO production is hitting DVD after more than 30,000 fans signed an online petition. Two Fraggle Rock DVD collections ($17, three episodes each) were released last month. "It gives me and other fans a way to connect to the show that we loved so much as children," says Tyson Craemer, 22, who designed and operates www.fragglerocker.com. Now, the fans are pushing for box sets of entire seasons, he says.
  
  "We're considering that," says Jamie Cygielman of HIT Entertainment, which is releasing a third Fraggle Rock DVD on April 26 and new Fraggle plush toys and merchandise. "We had some passionate fans really looking for this property to come back."
• Wonderfalls. Fox credits unrelenting fan support for the DVD of this 2004 series that was canceled after four episodes. The three-DVD set (out last week, $40) has all 13 episodes that were produced.