I don't think they even want to check as long as the time slot is filled. There are so many prints of films and TV shows from different eras that stations probably can't or won't sort out. Pretty funny watching some of the studio logos at the end . I've seen Naked City episodes with the Coca-Cola Columbia pictures logo on MeTV There's an episode of the Monkees on Antenna with the Screen Gems (S from hell) followed by the old NBC snake logo then Colex!
This happened a lot back in the 1980s and early 1990s with the many old CBS shows distributed by Viacom, such as I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C., and Hogan's Heroes. (W)TBS and WGN had prints of these shows from varying years depending on the logo at the end. I'm not even sure when syndication prints get remastered (5 years? 10?). For example, if the prints had the "V-IA-COM" (pinball) logo at the end, it was mastered between 1971-1976. The more familiar "Big V" logo, aka the "V of Doom," appeared late in 1976 and appeared both filmed and videotaped. 1971: V-IA-COM 1976: "V of Doom" (filmed) 1981: "V of Doom" (videotaped) 1986: "V of Steel" 1991: "Wigga Wigga" Speaking of Hogan's Heroes, some early syndicated prints of the show omit the Bing Crosby Productions ("BCP") logo, a practice that occurred until videotaped prints became common around 1981. That means it would go straight from the closing credits to the Viacom logo. However, I saw a few episodes of this series on the old (pre-FOX) Family Channel in the early 1990s, and the BCP logo was left intact before whatever Viacom logo followed it (I want to say filmed). ~Ben
Bad prints used to be on TV in Australia up until the mid 1990's. The most recent was channel 7 playing "The Huckleberry Hound Show" in 1997. Whoever transferred these to video did not understand optical sound because the first two seconds of every segment was silent, apart from the hiss from the sound reader trying to read what had been cut off, thus reading nothing. Every episode. Every segment. As in each cartoon, each interstitial, the theme song both opening and closing. *faint scratch sound* CLUNK ....ur old pal Huckleberry Hound! If I'd had a VCR at the time, I probably wouldn't have taped it anyway because of that. [Edit] ** At Ben above, in Australia, all screenings of "Hogan's Heroes" since 1997 have had the BCP logo on them. Although some episodes screened around 1997 were black and white and I'm certain the show was only ever produced in colour. Australian TV didn't go fully colour until 1975 so maybe the network had some old prints in their vault? I'd never even heard of the show prior to then! (I was 19 at the time)
The original 3-track 35mm master mag tracks do survive for about 99% of all the Hanna-Barbera material -- now owned by WB -- and I know an effort was made to rescan and retransfer a lot of them from original camera negatives or very clean low-contrast prints. It's very possible whoever wound up with the rights in Australia just doesn't want to pay to get proper videotapes of the transfers done in Burbank, and they're just sitting on very old PAL transfers done 25-30 years ago. I can say that we were doing optical sound transfers for H-B, Ruby Spears, and several other major animation companies in the early 1980s, but it all started evolving to mag by about 1985 or so. I actually put up a fight with Ruby-Spears and convinced them that they'd save money not doing an optical track and only using the mag track, and actually did not charge them to transfer from the mag masters. We didn't tell anybody about it, but damn if Ken Spears didn't call the show's producer and go, "wow! What happened? The show sounds FANTASTIC!" So people did notice the 5kHz of extra high end between optical tracks and mag tracks.
Ever notice that on commercials from the 1960s and 1970s, there is often a second of silence at the beginning before the audio starts? I think this was done deliberately with the idea that whoever was working in a TV station's film department would be splicing the commercials to be run together onto one reel, and it eliminated the issue of missing audio at the beginning. Just one example...
Before the DVD set came out about ten years ago WB was soliciting collectors via the internet for footage from the Huckleberry Hound show, because while they had all the short cartoons, they did not have an archive of the interstitial skits from the beginning and end of the show (featuring the various characters together) and the short bits that introduced each cartoon. If they existed in Australia in 1997, I sure hope someone held on to them! They used what they had, and some of the ones that did end up on the DVD set came from multi-generation VHS dubs of B&W 16mm film, and who knows where said original film went?
Reminds me of how CFTO (the Toronto CTV affiliate) cut the lyrics "through the courtesy of Fred's two feet" from the opening of every Flintstones episode (which they aired at noon on weekdays, from well worn prints, for at least 15 years). The sound effects at the end of the open no longer lined up with the action on the screen, and would end with a few seconds of silence (IIRC). I guess they thought the "through the courtesy" line was for a sponsorship.....
I remember that happening here in L.A. on KTTV channel 11. I never could understand how some episodes had that line, and some didn't. Vidiot????
The Andy Griffith Show looks superb on DVD. The original CBS Television logo is intact on the closing credits as well.
Same thing with Metromedia's WNEW-TV channel 5 NYC. I think all the syndicated prints were that way when they removed the original opening from the first 2 seasons and spliced on the later opening. Still don't know why they removed that line though.
These prints looked nice and colourful but were very badly scratched. They played an equally scratched "Wacky Races" and "Dick Dastardly And Muttley" (stop that pigeon!) in 1996 then, it seems, lost the Hanna Barbera contract by 1998. Channel 7 had that contract as far back as I remember, at least as far back as 1983. Then nothing was on free TV in Australia until Channel 9 got fresh copies of everything off Warners around 2009. Actually, just as a thought, if Channel 7 had the HB contract before 1983, they probably were using the pre-mag track films. Until Cartoon Network came long, almost all HB shows were Channel 7 with a few on the national broadcaster ABC (our PBS) which I think 7 rejected as these were mainly little little kids shows (Fantastic Max) or bizarre, unpopular ones (Ed Grimley). Australian channels can be cheap. In 2003 through 2005, ABC repeated "Doctor Who", the old ones, of course, using nothing but the old tapes they'd had since goodness knows when. The B&W episodes were scratched like mad, the film inserts in the colour ones, likewise. The 1980's Peter Davidson ending, when it went **VOOOM!** at the end and faded to white, was covered in black film dots and dirt. And they skipped most Dalek stories at the time as there was some dispute between BBC and Terry Nation's estate. Most Jon Pertwee material from prior to 1973 went out in B&W, even the material that had been restored to colour years prior.
Over the last couple of months I've been watching the early Gunsmoke (and a great show it is -- go to http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/tv-show-westerns-what-are-your-favorites-least-favorites-and-why.437930/page-4#post-12578329 to read more) Many of the episodes uploaded to YT are syndication prints, apparently recorded from a Dallas TV station For some reason the director's name is often removed in these prints
They still butchering shows like steers at the stockyards? I tried watching Rawhide on the HC c. 2000 but it was so sliced up -- fight scenes starting the middle and ending before the finish, reaction shots missing, etc... I finally gave up.
That open is exactly what the CFTO Toronto version looked like. Guess it was part of the package sent to other stations as well. The only thing I can think of was someone at the syndicator heard "Through the courtesy of...." but couldn't understand the "Fred's two feet" line, thinking it was the name of a product. So the whole line ended up getting the ax (along with the Winston ads).
Probably lucky that no one decided to take an axe to "we'll have a gay old time", which got replaced with "groovy time" and "great old time" in the different 70s iterations of the theme song.
Could anyone share the time frame for the airing of this cutup version? I watched the show on WNEW (Channel 5, New York) as a kid - probably from the early to middle 70s and I remember the introduction being intact (or I never would have learned the lyrics).
Until this thread, I've never understood that line. I always vaguely thought it was something like, "through the turn and see the best to beat." Harry
CFTO ran this syndication package from (at least) the mid 70's until the mid to late 80's. It's possible an earlier syndication package had the line intact (or it was changed sometime during the syndication run). Others recall that this edited open was only used on episodes from the first two seasons. Those seasons had their original opening/closing sequences (which had different theme song) replaced with ones from a later episode. WB/Hanna-Barbera has since restored the original opening/closing sequences to the episodes (on the DVD set for sure, and on the episodes shown on Boomerang IIRC).
I've never heard those replacement lines before.....I can't even recall the last time The Flintstones was in syndication.
The opening theme here is missing at least 2 lines from the version I'm familiar with from 1970s syndication.
Another example of bad syndication prints I recall is from when Buffalo's (then independent) WUTV got the rights to "Mork & Mindy" in the early 80's . Those were some of the nastiest, most scratched up prints I'd ever seen (probably trashed by the last station that ran 'em). Eventually the station got better looking replacements. I worked at a station that aired a later Flintstones syndicated package in the mid nineties. This was kind of a limited "best of" package with very few (and very edited for time) episodes. All had the familiar 1963 open/close (with lyrics intact). We aired them from 3/4" tape.
The "groovy time" and "great old time" lines are not from syndicated versions of the original show, but 70's revisitations, such as:
I don't have any recollection of the New Fred & Barney Show at all. I remember Pebbles & Bam Bam's spin-off.
Nothing like that crunkly sound of old syndication TV shows. Remember the old Bugs Bunny Loony Toons cartoon where he was on stage and it looks like typical film wear, but Bugs yells something like 'Get that hair out of here"
