Did Syndication Prints really look this bad?

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by goodiesguy, Jun 13, 2013.

  1. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    I could tell a horrible story, but I'm going to omit the details. Let's just say it's a bad idea for a mass-duplication company to ever try to re-use videotape. Especially if the original recordings were of an adult nature.
     
  2. Dave Garrett

    Dave Garrett Senior Member

    Location:
    Houston, TX
    There was once no shortage of actual adult films based on famous characters from children's stories. Hard to forget the X-rated version of Pinocchio, with the immortal tagline "it's not his nose that grows". :laugh:
     
  3. antoniod

    antoniod Forum Resident

    There was actually a TV news story about that in the 80s!
     
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  4. Benjamin Edge

    Benjamin Edge Forum Resident

    Location:
    Milwaukie, OR, US
    Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie were two different shows produced by Screen Gems that have had their openings changed almost throughout their run... but in syndication they streamlined the number of intro sequences.

    For Bewitched:
    Season 1 (1964-1965) = version 1
    Season 2 (1965-1966) = version 2
    Season 3 (1966-1967) = version 3
    Season 4 (1967-1968) = ditto
    Season 5 (1968-1969) = version 4
    Season 6 (1969-1970) = version 5 (when Dick York was replaced by Dick Sargent)
    Season 7 (1970-1971) = ditto
    Season 8 (1971-1972) = version 6
    Syndication:
    Season 1 intro/theme tune intact on season 1 reruns aired 1970s to early 1990s
    Season 5 intro/theme on seasons 3-5 on reruns aired 1970s to early 1990s
    Season 6 intro/theme on seasons 6-8 on reruns aired 1970s to early 1990s

    For I Dream of Jeannie:
    Season 1 (1965-1966) = version 1 (animated)
    Season 1 (1965-1966) = version 2 (live-action with narration; on 9 episodes)
    Season 2 (1966-1967) = version 3 (new animated intro; missing Sidney Sheldon's creator credit)
    Season 3 (1967-1968) = version 4 (like season 3, but with Sidney Sheldon's creator credit restored)
    Season 4 (1968-1969) = ditto
    Season 5 (1969-1970) = ditto
    Syndication:
    Season 1 intro/theme intact on Nick at Nite reruns (animated intro only)
    Season 2 intro/theme was still intact on reruns aired 1970s to early 1980s; one S2 episode today still has the specific intro sequence but with the S3 theme.
    Season 3 intro/theme intact on season 3-5 reruns aired 1970s to 1990s, but also used on season 2 reruns since the mid 1980s

    In the case of Bewitched, the intro themes for seasons 2-5 were replaced in syndication with the season 1 theme and also, when the black-and-white episodes were remastered in the 1990s, the original S1-S2 intro sequence was replaced by the S3-S5 intro (but still using the S1 theme tune). Whoever re-arranged the Bewitched theme tune for seasons 2-5 had probably demanded a fee.

    ~Ben
     
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  5. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    Yep, the incident I'm thinking of was in 1980 and it did make it to the trades. I don't think more than a few dozen tapes got out, but the irate parent who got one of these official Disney tapes sent it to Ron Miller, then president of Walt Disney Productions, and there was Hell To Pay when they figured out what happened. The company that did the duplication was out of business, six months later.

    I don't think so. I think that was an outright buyout with no residuals at all, and Screen Gems definitely owned all their own music publishing (with very rare exceptions). My bet is that it's just a screw-up.

    I'm very much opposed to changing anything substantial in a TV open or close, and I think you have to remain true to how it was originally aired. I think I mentioned before how I have cleaned up some TV show main titles and gone back to the original pilot to drop in the "real" shots (4 generations cleaner) to avoid optical ugliness. I did that on Ghost & Mrs. Muir and Lancer (to name 2), and the content was completely unchanged -- just the color and sharpness was 10 times better than it used to look. I really wanted to do this with M*A*S*H, which had the worst main title in the history of TV, but unfortunately wound up getting booked on other projects.

    I actually get a kick out of the old studio logos and would absolutely keep them at the end if it were my decision to make. Hell, I'd keep the network logos at the head (like the NBC peacock) if there was a way to do it legally. I think Image Entertainment did that for some episodes of I Spy, a couple of which I did for them.
     
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  6. antoniod

    antoniod Forum Resident

    This isn't about a TV show, but I really resented King World Productions replacing the titles of the OUR GANG/LITTLE RASCALS shorts with incredibly cheesy ones of their own(the 1972 variant). And people actually came to think that King World was the original producer of them!
     
  7. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    That is haaaaaaarible. Nobody should replace the titles of live-action or cartoon shorts, not ever. One of the mantras of anybody involved in film restoration is first, do no harm. You can't screw this crap up -- it's much too historically important.

    I saw not too long ago where some fans precisely duplicated the look of some of the old Popeye Fleischer Studios cartoon opens, many of which were snipped off when the shorts were sold to TV. They were able to recreate the old ship with the sliding doors and the right typefaces and all that stuff. I dunno who owns the right to Popeye anymore, but they should hire those fans and pay them to use their work.
     
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  8. nosticker

    nosticker Forum Guy

    Location:
    Ringwood, NJ
    It can simply be someone's 8-hour gig to replace the logos at the tail of every episode as ownership goes from one studio to another. There may be multiple versions of each show, each season, etc., both NTSC and PAL, with 1", D2, DigiBeta and maybe even a Beta SP in there somewhere. This translates into HUNDREDS of edits. It can drive one absolutely batty to hear the same logo over and over, and lots of things enter into the mix to make mistakes happen: notoriously inept customer service people who pull incorrect tapes and/or write bad work orders, indifferent operators who just push buttons without paying attention to the insert edits they are doing or do not review their edits. All it takes is someone not totally awake to replace the audio and NOT the video, or vice versa.

    We're talking about machine-to-machine edits here, not the way it would be done today after the show is dumped into something like Final Cut or Adobe Premiere.

    Dan
     
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  9. antoniod

    antoniod Forum Resident

    I think the Popeye cartoon openings in the Warner DVDs are all the original ones anyway. But the openings of the Betty Boop cartoons on Olive Films' are mostly still those U,M,&M logos, with "Paramount" brushed out and replaced by "U.M. & M. Presents". I think I'll get some M&Ms.
     
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  10. MarkTheShark

    MarkTheShark Senior Member

    Betty Boop mostly has UM&M titles as you say. The weird thing is, for certain public domain ones like "Crazy Inventions," I might have the same cartoon on two different DVDs from different PD companies, both with UM&M logos, but one will have an altered UM&M copyright line and the other will have a Paramount copyright (on the title screen beneath the name of the cartoon).

    I think some of the Popeyes may have full original titles, but most are very good re-edits. Warner did a nice job on most of them. But in some cases they goofed. One cartoon, "Proteck The Weakerist," had original Paramount titles in syndication, with a reference to the stereoptical "3-D" multiplane camera system. That line is missing from the DVD version. Also, a guy named Dave Mackie had a great website with a lot of info on many different cartoon series including a full list of Popeye cartoons with full credits. I don't remember the specific cartoons in question, but he accidentally switched the credits listed for two of the cartoons. When they were released on DVD, Warner "corrected" the credits and (incorrectly) switched them, assuming Mackey's list was correct. I was very glad to see the original intros on the three color two-reelers, but on at least one of them, for technical reasons the audio still has the end music from a later Famous Studios cartoon, which was the same ending spliced onto the a.a.p. versions of all the color Popeyes. So some of the restorations must be based on original materials, since some of the intros have footage I never saw before. And like I said, even if most are recreations, the majority were done so well I can't even tell.
     
  11. bmasters9

    bmasters9 Forum Resident

    Location:
    Fountain Inn, SC
    Are you saying, for instance, that if it were your decision on something like Blue Thunder (short-lived '84 ABC adventure series w/the late James Farentino), you'd have its DVD release keep CPT's 80s Coke Lady of the time?
     
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  12. Benjamin Edge

    Benjamin Edge Forum Resident

    Location:
    Milwaukie, OR, US
    I would totally agree with his views on logo preservation!

    I would envision the same for the following:
    The Flintstones (the original 1960-66 series)
    a. Screen Gems "Dancing Sticks" (spiel: "A Screen Gems Pree-sen-tation!" but not sure if he also says "Color by Pathé") on seasons 4-5
    b. Screen Gems "S from Hell" on season 6

    Bewitched
    a. Screen Gems "Dancing Sticks" (spiel: "A Screen Gems Production!") on season 1
    b. Original intro and outro audio specific to season 2 + original Screen Gems "S from Hell" (grayscale)
    c. Original intro and outro audio specific to seasons 3-4 + original Screen Gems "S from Hell" (color)
    d. Original intro audio specific to season 5 + original Screen Gems "S from Hell" (color)

    ~Ben
     
    Last edited: Nov 22, 2017
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  13. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    If we could get the rights, sure. The lawyers generally swoop in and say, "nope, take that out and put in the new one." This gets tricky when one studio buys another studio's property (like Universal now owning the big Paramount Hitchcock films), which makes it hard to use the original Paramount Pictures "VistaVision" opens.

    For crappy old TV shows like that, I would still say, "remaster it and make it available for streaming, just because." This stuff needs to be preserved, because it's part of history and pop culture.
     
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  14. torcan

    torcan Forum Resident

    Location:
    Toronto
    The reason is the companies that syndicate the shows are just plain lazy. When remastering for syndication, they'll usually take one standard opening and plaster it on every show, denying viewers to see how it was when it originally aired. In the case of some '60s shows I can understand it a little, because many of them (like "Bewitched") incorporated the sponsors into their openings. I guess that wouldn't fly in syndication. Still, editing just one opening on it is annoying, especially when there is footage of the others which is still in existance and could be used. It seems syndicators don't really care about authenticity.

    For "Bewitched", it really depended on what station you were watching. When CFTO ran repeats starting in 1968, for most of the seasons they ran the correct opening sequence, minus the sponsors. When it moved to CHCH in 1973, they aired most of the season 3-4 shows with the season 1 opening (color version), a couple with the season 2 music. and most season 5 shows with the correct opening sequence. When WUTV picked up the show in Feb 1976, most Dick York episodes had the season 1 opening, with the exception of only 1 or 2 season 5 episodes. I also caught some reruns of WHEC, and most of their Dick York episodes alternated between season 1 nad 5.

    It's surprising to think that different stations would have completely different versions, but back in those days each station received their own unique set of film prints, rather than have it all form the same master.

    There are also two different Dick Sargent openings - one without the announcer (season 6, except for a couple of Oscar Mayer sponsored episodes) and one with the announcer (seasons 7, 8 and most syndication prints).

    When the show was re-syndicated under a different company in the '80s, all the seasons 3-5 episodes had the season 5 opening, but sped up by 10%.

    In the '90s it was remastered and all replaced with the boring season 1 music.
     
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  15. Ken K

    Ken K Forum Resident

    Location:
    Sayreville, NJ USA
    Speaking of M*A*S*H, has it been remastered in 4K or at least from original negs? I know the show was restored a couple of times through the years, but I'd love to see it in HD on Blu-ray from camera negs.
     
  16. Benjamin Edge

    Benjamin Edge Forum Resident

    Location:
    Milwaukie, OR, US
    I also miss all of the original 20th Century-Fox Television logos that were initially seen on this series!

    Seasons 1-4 had the 1966 version (which can be distinguished from the 1965 version as the tower is shifted to the left, causing the word "TELEVISION" to appear out of place) with the short 1965 jingle.
    Seasons 5-9 (and season 10 through November 9, 1981) had the 1976 version (visually similar to the 1965 version but with an added ® mark, and the tower is shifted further leftward than in 1966), again with the short 1965 jingle.
    Seasons 10-11 had the 1981 version (visually more refined than in 1965), once again with the short 1965 jingle. This version first appeared on season 10 starting November 16, 1981.

    ~Ben
     
    Last edited: Nov 26, 2017
  17. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    No, I think 99% of all film shows have only been remastered in HD. Breaking Bad is a rare exception of a film show initially done in HD and then they later went back and redid it all from scratch (!!!) in 4K. That show was an enormous hit, so I'm guessing that spending $10M on rescanning the camera negs and remastering five seasons in 4K would be worth it. 4K is kind of a pain in the ass to do, but all it does it take more time and storage space -- the cost is not gigantically more costly now.
     
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  18. Dan C

    Dan C Forum Fotographer

    Location:
    The West
    Aren't you running into seriously diminishing returns remastering an old show like MASH in 4K? Yeah it was shot on 35mm film, but it was also lit and produced for, at best, 19" TVs with 420 lines of information and barely any dynamic range. HD seems more than fine for old television...

    dan c
     
  19. MarkTheShark

    MarkTheShark Senior Member

    One show that REALLY suffered from this: SCTV. The openings in the early seasons were skits themselves, including the iconic Season 2 one with John Candy throwing the TV out of the high-rise window. The openings on the 1980s reruns were dull and bland, just naming the cast with a few clips and different theme music.

    Not only the show openings and bumpers were affected, but segments were scrambled together from different shows. The Canadian versions were different from the U.S. from the beginning, and when the early half-hours and later 90-minute shows were combined into a new package in the 1980s, it was a huge mess and the U.S. version was a much worse mess than the Canadian one.

    Then years later, they recut the shows again, and some skits formerly missing were brought back, and others dropped. On top of that, a station running the show might then make their own edits. It's a real jigsaw puzzle. I have attempted to reconstruct the still-not-on DVD shows from the early seasons, but I don't have all the pieces.
     
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  20. McLover

    McLover Senior Member

    No, shot on 35mm is the best for HDTV and 4K use. MASH is very well produced, it translates nice to modern screens.
     
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  21. Benjamin Edge

    Benjamin Edge Forum Resident

    Location:
    Milwaukie, OR, US
    Speaking of this, in my opinion the 2006 remasters of Star Trek (TOS) take the heart and soul out of the series because of at least two things: enhanced sound effects, and the replacement (on seasons 2-3) of Loulie Jean Norman's signature vocal tracks with Elin Carlson's (on both the theme tune and certain background music scores).

    ~Ben
     
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  22. Vidiot

    Vidiot Now in 4K HDR!

    Location:
    Hollywood, USA
    You could justify 4K for any series that made a billion dollars worldwide. My argument is always that I'm not convinced there's really 4K of resolution in camera negative prior to the mid-to-late-1980s, but I think the difference in remastering to HD vs. remastering to 4K is not gigantic, maybe 25% more costly. Fox spent about $5000 per episode just to master them to SD in the 1980s (which I did on several seasons' worth of shows). That was a really, really terrific-looking series, with an A-list crew and great lighting.
     
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  23. sunspot42

    sunspot42 Forum Resident

    Location:
    San Francisco
    I always thought MASH looked kinda crappy on television. Grainy and poorly lit. More like a sitcom than a drama. But maybe that was just the prints we got in Phoenix...
     
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  24. PaulKTF

    PaulKTF Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
    How in the hell did you keep track of all of that?! :)
     
  25. Steve Carras

    Steve Carras Golden Retriever

    Location:
    Norco, CA, USA
    You MENTIONED that film before I saw the tagline just now and I ALREADY remembered it......!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
     
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