In 1999 the NBC sit-com/drama “Freaks and Geeks” earned massive critical acclaim, a small but loyal fanbase and was hailed by most critics as smart, funny television. NBC, realizing it finally had a show existing somewhere outside of the tepid ilk of “Friends,” promptly canceled the show after only 18 episodes.

With the release of an extras-packed six DVD boxed set, however, Paul Feig’s quirky and endearing show will hopefully sate fans of the short-lived program and wrangle in converts who never saw the show while it was actually on the air.

“Freaks and Geeks” follows the Weir siblings, Lindsey and Sam, as they navigate through a Michigan high school, circa 1980. Although this simple premise has been done almost literally to death, the thing separating “Freaks and Geeks” from the cadre of shows like it was its brutally honest and realistic-or as realistic as an NBC sitcom is going to get-subject matter.

While the show itself is wry and sometimes hilariously funny, the DVD extras are what will ingratiate the package to diehard fans and make the disks worth owning for even casuals watchers of the show. Packed with deleted scenes, 29 audio commentaries and a small booklet by Paul Feig, this six-disc set offers almost everything any fan might want.

Even though the set may only sell a few thousand copies, it’s apparent all those involved packed as much material as possible into the set. In an age when it seems nearly any television show can come out on DVD, it’s nice to see actual work put into the boxed sets being released rather than simply putting a few episodes on a few discs and hoping someone will bother to buy it.

The commentaries are humorous and insightful, while the deleted scenes are often funny if not unnecessary to the episodes. Even the behind the scenes footage, although at times just self-congratulatory and a bit boring, is largely entertaining and worth seeing. It seems the highest compliment DVDs can receive now is that the actual content is good (otherwise, why buy it at all?), and that the extras themselves serve a purpose and are worth watching.

“Freaks and Geeks,” fortunately, realizes the only real point to owning a television program, which could simply be taped or Tevo-ed, is for material other than just the show itself. Programs like “Family Guy,” “Chappelle’s Show” and the “Buffy” series all failed to pack their respective DVD sets with enough extras to really make the boxed sets a good deal both economically and in terms of the amount of entertainment offered, and it ultimately hurt the DVDs.

The price tag is more than a little steep, $50 for six DVDs, but for fans of the show the set contains the entire series, a horde of extras and enough entertainment to warrant multiple viewings.