New on DVD: Rugby studs, bloodsuckers, soaps, sharks and "Pufnstuf"

Turns out French rugby players aren't the only ones willing to strip down for a fund-raising calendar; meet the Australian Gods of Football on just one of several new DVDs of note out this week.

Read on for more!

French rugby stars became international pin-up sensations with their "Dieux du Stâde" calendars (and making-of DVDs) but now it's the Aussie players' turn. With Gods of Football: The Making of the 2009 Calendar, out on DVD this week, some Down Under sports studs get in on the act and strip down for their team's benefit. (And the viewer's, of course.) If you like your guys brawny and athletic, this is one locker-room tour you'd no doubt hate to miss.

There's also no shortage of hotties on True Blood: The Complete First Season. Gay Oscar-winner Alan Ball's successful follow-up to his HBO hit series Six Feet Under, this new show adapts Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse novels for the small screen, showing us a world in which vampires are making themselves known to the rest of society after the invention of a synthetic blood substitute that allows them to live without murdering innocent victims. Ball plays up the beefcake alongside the gay metaphors (an anti-vamp church has a "God Hates Fangs" sign), so it's no wonder the show has a fervent queer following.

Get hooked on the show that entranced nighttime soap fans when Dallas and Desperate Housewives were still in the far future with Peyton Place: Part One. Based on the hit movie and the best-selling potboiler by Grace Metalious, Peyton Place exposed the lust and lies that lurked beneath the seemingly stately veneer of a small New England town. The show's cast features the immortal Dorothy Malone alongside Barbara Parkins (pre–Valley of the Dolls), Ryan O'Neal (pre–Love Story) and Mia Farrow (pre–Frank Sinatra and her Rosemary's Baby bob).

Finally coming out on DVD after decades in legal limbo is the feature film Pufnstuf, which preceded the hit Sid & Marty Krofft series H.R. Pufnstuf. If you were born after 1979 or so, there's no explaining the Krofft's brand of semi-surreal kids' entertainment, but it's a cornerstone of Gen X sensibilities. And the Pufnstuf movie features Mama Cass Elliot singing "Different," a song that would go on to become an anthem for gays and drag queens everywhere. ("Different is hard/Different is lonely/Different is trouble for you only/Different is heartache/Different is pain/But I'd rather be different than be the same.")

And for our Title of the Week, there could be no other choice than Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus, the most promising-sounding monster movie title since Snakes on a Plane. And it stars Deborah Gibson. And Lorenzo Lamas. Can't. Wait.