Sped-Up TV Shows: "The Waltons" are the new "Keystone Cops?"*

Years ago, when time compression was still new, I read an interview with one of the station managers of WKBD Detroit. He openly bragged about the station's ability to now shoehorn more commercials into each original Star Trek episode. Sometime later I watched a time compressed ST episode and somehow the voice-adjustment control became disengaged: for 15 minutes Kirk, Spock and everyone else actually did sound like chipmunks. It was hilarious and disgusting at the same time.

 

I've noticed this with Family Guy, too.

 

I think about 25 years ago, Ampex (then a great videotape recorder company) demonstrated a new modification for their top-of-the-line VTR that allowed station owners to play back shows 10% faster than normal without any visible artifacts. I watched the picture and listened to the sound -- which did not sound like chipmunks -- but the problem was, everybodytalkedlikethis, without any pauses. I told them this was an awful and immoral invention that just screwed up the shows, but the guy kinda shrugged and said, "TV stations are demanding this, and it's their decision to use it or not use it."

Now, it's very, very easy to speed up digital files and make them any runtime you want. But there's always a price to pay for speed changes. And it does totally screw up the artistic intent of the show.

 

I stumbled upon an episode of The Donna Reed Show on Decades a few weekends ago (they were doing a 48-hour marathon), and the time compression made it unwatchable. Everyone talked liketheywereallonspeed.

 

I hate what networks have done to the end credit sequences, I actually like to see who guest starred on the show and be able to read it at a normal speed, not to mention see it.

 

To sum up, watching any shows on basic cable channels is garbage. Why do it?

 

GSN is pretty bad at this - in watching some episodes of "Match Game" and other shows, sometimes it's just part of a segment that's spedup - so for 2 min or so everyon'estalkiinglikethis, then it's back to normal. I hate hearing the theme music going at a much faster speed than it's supposed to.

I know TV network's main purpose is to make money, but with the speed-ups, credit crunches, long commercial breaks, etc. it's just too much. No wonder they're all losing viewers to other forms of entertainment.

It's a joke, really

 

They've been doing this on the radio, for the same reason, since forever ago. Why not TV?

 

It must have made some kind of impression on you though, to remember that all these years later.

 

Because it's there.

Seriously, that's the best they can hope for when rerunning a 50 year old show for the 5000th time.....nobody is planning their evening based around what time The Donna Reed Show is going to begin....they get the channel surfers, the impulse viewers.

 

Those irritate me!

 

My grandmother's set is like that. And we, for the life of us, can't figure out how to fix it. She used to notice, but has probably gotten used to it.

 

Indeed, it pissed me off! one of my favorite shows...year later I got the complete series on DVD...so all was good.

 

WKBD is where I first saw and fell in love with I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, The Jeffersons, and all those great reruns. I remember when they used 16mm prints for their noon reruns of Lucy. I used to have some recorded and to this day in my mind I still go to where the audio and picture would jump from WKBD's edits. Then one day when the series rotation started back with episode #1 they were using videotape, and clean copies instead of their 20+ year old 16mm prints and it just was not the same. The magic was gone. I also remember the shows being more edited and running even shorter, maybe 17 minutes in 30 minutes. Now I know it was the pre-edited videos as well as time compression but at the time I was like WTH?!?!?!

 

Enjoy your s****y shows, I guess. All of those channels will be gone in 10 years anyway, as pay TV implodes.

 

After a long time watching Star Trek reruns on WKBD, I bought several Paramount beta tapes of the original series. I was shocked at how draggy and dull the show seemed-- the result of my warped perceptions of the show after years of watching WKBD's sped up episodes.

 

IIRC, in the early 90s, when "The Sci-Fi Channel" was airing the uncut episodes of the original "Star Trek", they had the show run over like 10 or 12 minutes so they could still get in all their commercials...

 

God, I can't imagine "Gilmore Girls" sped up. They already talklikethis.

 

SOUTH PARK ON CCHD:
I know we've had previous threads on this issue, but I think this is the most recent show I've come across where the speed up applied so is extreme that it's highly noticeable. Honestly, this is probably the worst example of this practice I've seen. Instead of speeding things up but attempting to keep the pitch the same, everything simply sounds like it's running way too fast. All so Viacom can slip in an extra commercial or two, I assume.

 

I watched Forrest Gump a couple of weeks ago on cable and I really noticed the speed up whenever a song was played.

 

This is why my family doesn't watch TV as much. My mother loves Netflix, dad likes the news, and me? I don't know.