The film has been released to VHS and Betamax in the early 80s. Copies for those formats are extremely hard to find.
In 2002, Paramount Home Video released the film on DVD in a dual-format edition containing the film in the full-screen or theatrical 2.35:1 aspect ratios, (though there is some slight windowboxing with the widescreen version selected); Dolby 5.1 English Surround Sound stereo/mono mix, or Dolby 2.0 mono in English, French, and Spanish. No other extras are included.
This release has been long out of print in the United States and is hard to come by in today's market.[citation needed] Region 4 full-screen DVD releases are somewhat common though.[citation needed]
There have been rumors that Paramount Home Entertainment is planning Blu-ray/DVD combo release containing a new remastered transfer, though no official confirmation has been made.
The film made a television premiere on CBS in May 1980, albeit with edits in some adult content and language to meet broadcast content standards. It has been broadcast only a few times over the past 30 years on various channels, though it had been aired uncut as recently as early 2009 on Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Showtime.
As of 2009, Warner Bros. Television holds the USA TV broadcast rights while Paramount Pictures retains all other rights, which explains why only the current Warner Bros. logo appears on Showtimes airings (though the original Paramount Logo is preserved on TCM's print and the DVD).


The Big Bus is set aboard a nonstop, nuclear-powered luxury bus commandeered by Joseph Bologna. Naturally, Bologna is a tortured hero with a deep dark secret (he keeps insisting he didn't eat all those passengers on his last disastrous drive). Stockard Channing and Harold Gould play the designers of the big bus, and of course they have a few skeletons in their closet. In fact, there isn't a passenger on the all-star manifest that isn't hiding something. The supporting cast features contributions by René Auberjonois (parodying his M*A*S*H role), Ned Beatty, José Ferrer, Ruth Gordon (doing a devastating send-up of Airport's Helen Hayes), Sally Kellerman, Richard Mulligan, and many others; Murphy Dunne contributes a memorable bit as a smarmy cocktail pianist. Unfortunately, The Big Bus was dumped onto the summer 1976 release schedule without fanfare by Paramount, and it sank without a trace