The Hogan Family (The Valerie Harper sitcom)- why no syndication or DVD release?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by PaulKTF, Jan 27, 2016.

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  1. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Hollywood, USA
    Yep, TONS of shows. We did many sitcoms like Facts of Life, Webster, Golden Girls, Will & Grace, Dave's World, Third Rock from the Sun, That '70s Show, Moesha, and tons of others that are not as well-remembered like Life with Lucy, Foley Square, Cybil, Bob Patterson, Off-Center, Oh Baby, Working, Harry & The Hendersons, Claude's Crib, and many others. I would always chuckle at the fonts used in credits, because they were basically the same ones we used on damn near every show.
     
  2. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Often, these stories are more complicated than people know. I see both sides: actors are often taken advantage of early in their careers and develop a offensive attitude over time. And producers get nibbled on all sides, by rising production costs, by the network reducing their licensing fee (the budget), plus actors demanding more money and even a share of the profits.

    What's always fascinating to me is when the actor attempts to go over the heads of the producers and goes directly to the network in an attempt to get the producer(s) fired. In some cases, this has worked: Cybil Shepherd did get Chuck Lorre fired from her show (which Brett Butler had also done to Lorre several years before), and Roseanne Barr also got control of her sitcom as well. Mark Harmon similarly was able to fire NCIS creator Don Bellisario from NCIS and has basically run the show for many years. Valerie Harper was not so lucky.
     
  3. Mirrorblade.1

    Mirrorblade.1 Forum Resident

    It's ashame they act like this show is poison? For pete, sakes.. they show celebrity bowling ..
    And yet this can't be shown in re-runs when about everything is..
    Life with Lucy is dirty secret of sorts. I want to see it too Lucy was game enough to do it.
    Why shouldn't the public see it ? Put on Cozie since air almost the Lucy shows..
     
  4. Mirrorblade.1

    Mirrorblade.1 Forum Resident

    Vidiot... why are you so obsessed with everything having to being remastered in HD? huh?
    It's not like it was made in 1948 or something..
    It won't hurt the general public if not remastered ..
     
  5. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    One of my younger friends was telling me today that his family refuses to watch anything in black and white. I'm old enough to have had a B&W TV and grew up watching many B&W shows. There are generations now that have only known HD and their interest in older shows is going to be non-existent if it looks like a VHS dub.

    By remastering in HD or colorizing B&W shows, the studios might get another few decades of life out of them before they are completely forgotten.
     
  6. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Once Roseanne got control of her show it (not-so-coincidently) started its slide into pure crapulence.
     
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  7. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    That's so sad... I grew up as a kid in the 1980's watching and loving black and white sitcoms from the 50's and 60's thanks to Nickelodeon/Nick At Nite.

     
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  8. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

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    Hollywood, USA
    I think she and Tom Arnold grabbed control like 12 episodes into the first season, and the show lasted for 9 years and more than 200 episodes. From a financial and ratings point of view, it did extraordinarily well. If I recall correctly, Roseanne made about $300 million on the show and wound up having to pay Tom Arnold about $50 million of it after their divorce.

    I also lament that all the cable channels have strayed so far from their original intentions. Call me crazy, but I wish The History Channel would only show history-related shows, MTV would just show music shows and videos, Nickelodeon would show kid's shows, TV Land would just show old TV shows, and so on. Instead, it's a huge mish-mash of bad reality shows and infomercials, 24/7.
     
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  9. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    She had to have gained some kind of control towards the last 3 seasons of the show that she didn't have beforehand. Or she must have fired the people who were keeping her ego in check.

    Have you seen the last two seasons of thee show (8 and 9)? They're some of the worst episodes of any sitcom I've ever seen.

    http://epguides.com/Roseanne/

    Compare them to (say) the 3rd, 4th and 5th seasons. The show jumped the shark and jumped it hard during those last two seasons.

    I'm going to assume it was her idea to have the relatable, working-class family win the lottery and it's one of the stupidest decisions (along with how it was handled) that she could have ever made. It ruined the core thing in the show that made it work.

    Roseanne is a prime example of a terrific show with a fantastic cast going to all to hell towards the end because of the egomaniacal main star/writer having way too much power.

    (Can you tell I'm a big fan of the show up to a point and totally hate what it ended up as?). :)
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2016
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  10. Torontotom

    Torontotom Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    Roseanne's control of the show was a double-edged sword. In the beginning, it was fantastic. She presented characters and situations that people could relate to. Her initial vision of showing a family who was always two paychecks away from poverty and their struggles made for some ground-breaking TV. But then Roseanne and Tom became media monsters. They were everywhere trying to get attention and it started negatively impact the show, even though the show itself was still creating classic episodes. The off-screen drama became too much and people soon grew tired of "the Arnolds".

    I also think towards the end of the show's run, Roseanne got away from her original vision. I found the show started to become very nasty towards the end. The characters became more bitter and unpleasant, and it wasn't funny. Add to that, John Goodman wanted to leave the show so it lost the wonderful Roseanne/Dan dynamic because he didn't appear in batches of episodes. And then the horrible last season where everyone was left to their own devices and the acting became hammy.
     
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  11. driverdrummer

    driverdrummer Forum Resident

    Location:
    Irmo, SC
    Off topic, but are the Cheers and Seinfeld Dvd box sets worth purchasing? I would like to have some sitcoms in HD quality.
     
  12. balzac

    balzac Senior Member

    I've always agreed with man/most "Roseanne" fans that the last season or two was definitely a quick downhill slide.

    I have, however, come to appreciate those seasons a bit more in more recent years. I still think they're the weakest, but the surreal sort of humor employed occasionally was so weird that it accidentally stumbled into brilliance. The guy who played the boyfriend "Mark" was maybe one of the funniest people on the show by the end of the run. *Completely* nothing like this character was when it started (brooding bad boy boyfriend, etc.).

    Back to "The Hogan Family", there's little chance that the show is ever going to regain a new audience. I can't fathom them ever doing HD rescans (again, they didn't do it for Urkel, etc.). Do we even know for sure that all the film negatives were kept?

    The only way we'll ever see this show again is Netflix or Amazon or Hulu picking it up, and/or Warner Archive or someone similar grabbing the best video masters they can and doing a set. And in all likelihood, the "First Season" set probably wouldn't sell well enough to warrant further seasons. I think even Urkel has stalled out and/or come out slowly on DVD and has only seen four or so seasons released.
     
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  13. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    In case you're interested, Season 5 of Family Matters is coming out on DVD in February as an Amazon/Warner Bros. Archive online exclusive. :)
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2016
  14. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    The only way Valerie/The Hogan Family might generate interest would be if Jason Bateman became a massive Hollywood star, but that seems unlikely as the season of Growing Pains with Leonardo DiCaprio wasn't released until this month and he's been a huge star for a decade.

    These shows served their purpose 30 years ago, when you had to watch what was on and there were few options outside of the network offerings. I really don't see them getting a new audience as there is nothing that makes them stand out other than nostalgia from those that grew up with them.
     
  15. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    Yeah, but there are entire TV networks built on nostalgia. :) Antenna TV, ME TV, COZI, and to a degree Nick At Nite and TV Land.
     
  16. DreadPikathulhu

    DreadPikathulhu Senior Member

    Location:
    Seattle
    True, but do the people that have nostalgia for these shows care if they aren't in HD? They can just take whatever masters they have lying around and put them up there for the devoted Hogan Family fanbase. Thirty years from now, these shows will be as forgotten as Fibber McGee and Molly is today.
     
  17. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    There are tons of shows that air on these Nostalgia channels in SD. HD isn't going to help the old masters look any better since most of them were shot on video anyway.

    Many consumers do not care about HD.
     
  18. Torontotom

    Torontotom Forum Resident

    Location:
    Canada
    I was surprised that Aaron Spelling's Hotel was released as an entire set late last year. So, there is some hope. I mean, Hotel was a moderate success, not a huge hit. Hopefully something can be done.

    I still think the whole Valerie drama would make for an interesting documentary. Which would make a nice addition to a box set :laugh:

    I'm still waiting for 227 to be released in full. The first season got a release.
     
  19. guy incognito

    guy incognito Senior Member

    Location:
    Mee-chigan
    It takes a lot to make a stew.
     
  20. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Generally, they do keep the negatives and master tapes for successful sitcoms as a matter of policy. The fly-by-night ones that only lasted 6 months or a year... not so much.

    I think they just ran out of story ideas and went in some different directions. I think there's a natural process that happens with sitcoms where right around season 4 or 5, they start to run out of ideas and something has to give. For some shows -- I would put M*A*S*H and Cheers high on that list -- they shook up the cast and that itself generated new story ideas just with old people leaving and new people coming in. Other shows, like Seinfeld and Frasier, managed to stay constant with one core cast and were still very successful, critically and financially.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2016
  21. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    One of my favorite sitcoms from that era along with Wings , Benson , Family Ties et al. From reading the IMDB board I've gathered the issue is Valerie herself when it comes to DVD release. And it isn't as well remembered as some of its contemporaries.

    In Australia a few years back they ran the entire series and I recorded a whole bunch of them - as well as Perfect Strangers , another favorite from that period that AFAIK isn't available on DVD (except for S1/2)
     
  22. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I don't think it's up to her at all, unless she's asking for a huge amount of money as co-owner of the show. There have been rare cases where shows never made it to home video for the simple reason that somebody (or their estates) erroneously believed the show was worth more than it was. Batman was one of those, but they eventually worked that out last year. But I don't think Valerie is nearly in this category. Heck, Rhoda was a much bigger show in terms of ratings. Neither was re-runned very much in the years after the show aired on network.

    There's hundreds of 1980s shows out there that have evaporated in the last 20 years, simply because nobody cares about them. I think in general, the actors would love to see them come out because they'd get a few bucks in residuals, but the money is generally not as high as you might think.
     
  23. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member Thread Starter

    Location:
    USA
    I'm probably alone in thinking this but I think the show was actually better (and funnier) after Valerie was turfed and Sandy was brought in.
     
  24. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    That could - partly - be due to a show improving as it progresses. Sandy though was a very good replacement.
     
  25. AFOS

    AFOS Forum Resident

    Location:
    Brisbane,Australia
    You're probably right - that's just what I gleaned from the IMDB board. I think the supposed motivation was a continuing grudge against the producers
     
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