Jackie Gleason Color 1960s shows from Time-Life

Some of you who know the collector market, could you say if you find Teresa Brewer anywhere, Gleason or other. Or say if a certain collection does NOT have her. Use PM if necessary.

 

I remember that. I disappointedly changed the station because the show wasn't going to be funny! But I must have seen(only the beginning), since this was more like '71!

 

My recollection is that Gleason did more than one of those "country music specials", so you are probably correct about seeing one circa '71, too.

 

The other problem is there is no set fee for those music clearances. So every publisher can ask whatever they want to clear the songs they represent. You either pay it or you take it out of your release. A publisher can even simply refuse to allow you to use their song, no matter how much you offer to pay. If you have a medley of 10 songs, you may have 9 publishers who play ball and one who doesn't and then you have to decide if you want to cut out part of the medley or just get rid of everything.

Sync and master rights are the biggest, most expensive, headache associated with releasing old video commercially. (Sync rights are publishing rights, required for every song no matter who performs it; Master rights may reside with the artist, their label, or they may have been signed away when the video was shot. But even if they are, having the master rights without the sync rights does you absolutely no good).

 

100% true. Most of the time, everybody in the game understands the concept of a "most-favored nations" deal and they get that, going in, the producers only have a maximum budget of X$ per song, so there is no way somebody can possible get 10X$ per song. For this reason, they generally prepare the original list, then a B-choice list, then a C-choice list. The only people who always get their original A-list choices would be somebody at the level of James Gunn of Guardians of the Galaxy, where he goes to the trouble to actually write the songs into the script. I think Marvel also had "Immigrant Song" in mind for Thor: Ragnarok, and that had been featured in TV promos and trailers all year... and the song is in the movie twice. I would bet this could well have cost $1 million. (I won't mention the name of the movie, but I saw a major Carole King used in a film not too long ago, and that was $300K for all rights for a feature.)

99% of the time, the sync rights and master rights are at an identical level, so if one is $50K, the other is also $50K. But that's a lotta dough if it's a 50-year-old TV variety show for which they don't expect to sell a lot of copies. Generally if the artist owns all or some of the publishing, they have some say in whether the song is used at all: famously, Steve Perry owned 1/3 of the publishing and songwriting on Journey's "Don't Stop Believing," and he almost killed it from being used in the final episode of The Sopranos. Perry's condition was that the song not be made fun of or used while people were being killed, and when they showed him the segment, he finally approved it. And I think it still cost north of $100K.

Mad Men producer said that he pursued the Beatles' lawyers for a year in order to secure permission and a reasonable fee for using "Tomorrow Never Knows" in an episode of his show, and that still cost him $250,000 -- unheard of for TV, but relatively inexpensive for anything performed by the Beatles...

'Mad Men' Paid $250K for Beatles Song

Even if you're doing a very small home video release like The Tonight Show or Jackie Gleason, if each episode has 6 songs and they're $5000 apiece, that's a huge amount of money to pay when there are hundreds of episodes involved. Note that some publishers will give you a quantity discount if you negotiate on a bunch of songs at one time. Even worse if it's determined that AFM musicians performed the music and they have to get a small residual, and if SAG-AFTRA members (including dancers) are visible on stage. I know of a case where somebody got the rights for an Andy Williams song clip for a record commercial, but then it was discovered that there were a few seconds of dancers visible in the shot at one point; AFTRA came in and initially wanted $20,000 for East coast airings and $20,000 for West coast airings. I think they finally cut that number in half, but it was still a huge, awful, unexpected expense that hurt the project.

 

Reminds me of when I was telling my Grandmother that I was sad that the '66 ABC Milton Berle Show was cancelled, and she said "Oh, they'll show repeats of it one day". I replied "They don't repeat those kind of shows!" My Grandmother didn't understand. "They don't repeat Show Shows! They only repeat story shows!" She was confused. "SHOW SHOWS! SHOW SHOWS! They don't repeat SHOW SHOWS!" I was only 6 or 7 and I didn't know the term "Variety Show". My Grandma probably wasn't up on the difference between a Summer re-run and a syndicated one anyway!

 

When you two talked about "Your Show of Shows" it must have been really confusing.

 

I was too busy mourning my MILTON BERLE(ABC)SHOW! LAUGH-IN was kind of the replacement for that, but my Parents wouldn't let me stay up for it the first season.

 

Speaking of the color Berle show, do any episodes exist on tape or are only black and white kines left?

 

Wish I knew? I only ever saw it in B/W so I think of it as a Black and White show!

 

Question. I picked up the 10-DVD set (found it for $47 on eBaY, good deal). Just checking the shows out, all seven of the "Honeymooners shorts" are here, and Art Carney appears two other times as Norton outside of the Honeymooners skits. Reginald Van Gleason appears maybe three times, and Joe The Bartender only once (with Crazy Guggenheim's song cut). That appears to be it as far as any of Gleason's characters.

That's a disappointment to me, having seen half-hour reruns of the American Scene Magazine years ago, where Gleason did these characters as well as the Poor Soul and others. (I remember a recurring skit where he is a burglar. What is that character's name?)

Did Gleason do a lot of his characters in the color shows? If he did, they are not well represented in this set. It seems like the emphasis is on a lot of stand-up comedy (some shows have as many as three stand-up comics doing their routines) and once in a while an occasional skit. And it's good stuff, with great guest stars, but very light on the sketches.

(Although there are music rights issues, there are some musical performances included, including a great appearance by Louis Armstrong, just to name one.)

I sure would like a set of those American Scene Magazine years.

One other thing I noticed, in the booklet there is a short write-up on the episode "The Passing Politician" (airdate 9/24/1966) and a couple photos from it, but the show itself is not included in the set. They make reference to issues with the elements: "The master film (sic) didn't weather the years well." Given that this is not a comprehensive series release, I thought it was interesting that they mentioned this at all.

Anyway, a nice set to have, if compromised by rights issues. I would rather have it than not have it. It's a little weird though, since I'm pretty sure just about everyone in these shows is dead now. I don't know why that seems a little eerie to me. Maybe because these are on color video and they look so good. (I'm not thinking about that when I watch the "Classic 39" or the Stooges.)

 

Has this source not been mentionned: JACKIE GLEASON AMERICAN SCENE MAGAZINE - TV SERIES - 20 DVDS
I know someone who got it and it's the similar half-hour edits, with little music.

 

Thank you. Not to dive too deep into questionable areas, but how is the qualitu?

 

My old man watched Gleason Sunday night show pretty religiously and I asked him at one point about these characters 'Poor Soul' and RVanG (he told me how Shangri-La played when he came in the room). The old man told me that Gleason must not do them anymore, cause he hadn't seen him do either character in his memory. I know that's hardly an authentic reference, but from my memory he didn't do either character much on this show.

 

Well, I saw them live during their original broadcasts in the early 1960s on CBS, and they were played then. My memory is that as the show got more "modern" and switched to color, Gleason gradually left the old characters behind. But they did occasionally do a Poor Soul or Reginald Van Gleason III sketch. I can recall long Honeymooners sketches where they figured out ways to bring each character in during a segment, while "Ralph Kramden" was off stage.

 

yea, my memories are definitely Mid 60's..............

 

We don't live in the same place. I think he said the quality is fine.

 

Sounds like you're referring to the Christmas skit, which was repeated multiple times. Gleason trots out all his characters while Ralph is off getting potato salad. But that's from '52, '53, '54.

 

Decent.. all the way to blurry overly-dubbed crap.
Episodes seem to come from 80's airings in LA and NJ, newer digital/streaming/webrip and collector video. One or two unedited kinescopes, like the first American Scene, turn up. Some half hours get repeated in better or worse quality, likely because whoever digitized the tapes wasn't paying attention.
There's good stuff, like some monologues, all the well-known character pantomimes, plenty of Joe the Bartender, some walk-ons from guests including Georgie Jessel and Art Carney, and Gleason's "accident" that Vidiot previously referred to makes an appearance in one episode-- Gleason plays two versions of the same stunt and explains what went wrong (an additional laugh comes from the sound of the quad tape machine cueing up.. how quaint!).

Mind you, the episode segments are heavily, obviously and sometimes clumsily edited, and though Crazy Guggenheim is there a lot, most of his songs are gone and his stories chopped to bits.
Despite the problems with the set, it is hard to stop watching once you get into it. I can only imagine what it would be like to have access to the complete shows.
What a riot!

 

Thanks for the info. The "accident" sounds familiar. Does it involve the "Poor Soul" and a bicycle? Does Gleason say something like,"Take it away, you poor soul!"

 

I don't know if this was mentioned before. Has anyone seen or remembers seeing the 12/24/66 Jackie Gleason Show broadcast in which The Poor Soul visits The Land of Fables, where he meets Old King Cole (Art Carney), The Old Woman in the Shoe (Sheila MacRae), and a Princess (Jane Kean)?

Marshall

The Jackie Gleason Show In Color-DVD Review

 

The show was taped on 2-inch, not filmed.

 

Yeah. Evidently Time-Life was confused about that.

 

That's the one, the watch commercial spoof. You see the final clip here:
The Poor Soul - Jackie Gleason Video Clips
I think that might have been the end of his rough-and-tumble pratfall stuff, too. We wouldn't see any more of the roller skates, climbing all over furniture/destroying sets with "Whitey" nor the soft-shoe bit that ends with a failed somersault.
He did recreate his "acrobatic" act one more time..

 

For those interested, here is what's on the set:

12/31/1966 0:38:50
"New Year's Show"
Steve Allen, Jayne Meadows, Morey Amsterdam, Louis Nye, Jerry Lester, Gene Sheldon

1/28/1967 0:47:21
"One Man Show"
Jane Kean, Larry Douglas

3/25/1967 0:40:09
"Birthday Show"
Gene Kelly, Eydie Gorme, Sheila Macrae, Frank Gorshin, Danny Thomas, Lucille Ball, Art Carney, Frankie Avalon, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen

11/11/1967 0:30:39
Dom Deluise, George Gobel, Sheila Macrae

11/25/1967 0:30:42
Bing Crosby, Alan King, Liberace, Stan Ross

12/30/1967 0:35:36
(Features Joe The Bartender)
Louis Armstrong, Milton Berle, Jerry Collins, Frank Fontaine

1/27/1968 0:32:08
Diahann Carroll, Tim Conway, Dom Deluise, Wayne Newton

10/19/1968 0:37:38
Sid Caesar, Imogene Coca, Mike Douglas, Bob Newhart, Cesar Romero

11/2/1968 0:39:27
Shelley Berman, Edgar Bergen, Tiny Tim

11/9/1968 0:36:23
George Burns, Mel Torme, Martha Raye, Jack Carter

11/23/1968 0:36:10
Honeymooners/Six Months To Live
Frankie Avalon, Red Buttons, Phil Silvers

12/7/1968 0:43:50
Honeymooners/Alice's Birthday
Morey Amsterdam, Red Buttons, Florence Henderson

1/4/1969 0:42:56
Honeymooners/Lawsuit
Red Buttons, Jan Murray, Nipsey Russell

1/25/1969 0:42:39
Milton Berle, George Carlin, Edie Adams, Morton Storm

2/8/1969 0:36:26
Honeymooners/Hot Tip
George Gobel, Jack E. Leonard

3/8/1969 0:42:00
Tony Bennett, Milton Berle, Nipsey Russell, Jackie Vernon

3/15/1969 0:42:04
Sid Caesar, Myron Cohen, George Jessell, Timmie Rogers

3/22/1969 0:40:53
Honeymooners/The New Bowling Ball
Wally Cox, Slappy White, Tiny Tim

3/29/1969 0:41:19
Jack Benny, Robert Goulet, Jack Haley, Alan King

4/5/1969 0:49:13
Honeymooners/Norton Moves In
Orson Bean, Victor Borge, Frank Sinatra Jr., Ray Milland, Sonny Sands

4/12/1969 0:41:02
Charlie Manna, Groucho Marx, Jane Morgan, Mickey Rooney, Sid Gould

4/19/1969 0:39:04
Honeymooners/The New Manager
George Burns, Georgie Kaye, Lou Marsh & Tony Adams

10/25/1969 0:48:59
"Yes, We Have No Bonanzas"
(Features Reginald Van Gleason III)
Art Carney, Milton Berle, Jerry Bergen

12/13/1969 0:51:07
"Reggie And The Red Baron"
(Features Reginald Van Gleason III)
Art Carney, Milton Berle, Charlotte Rae

1/10/1970 0:48:07
Art Carney, Milton Berle, Allan Drake, Jackie Gayle, Irwin C. Watson

1/31/1970 0:37:02
Jack Benny, Sonny Sands, Aaron Williams

2/7/1970 0:46:05
Art Carney, Milton Berle, Jerry Collins, Rodney Dangerfield, Timmie Rogers
(Ed Norton sings "If I Were A Rich Man")

5/22/1974 0:45:12
"How Sweet It Is" (Special with Julie Andrews)

2/27/1975 0:50:07
"Dean Martin Celebrity Roast"