Hers&Hers&His
01-17-2008, 01:51 PM
I have recently noticed that whenever I watch episodes of Three's Company on TV Land, something about the sound, specifically the opening theme song, sounds strange.
I decided to investigate, so what I did was, I had recorded the Lucille Ball "best of" episode from TV Land a few days ago, which featured the classic "shelves" discussion between Jack and Mr. Roper. I also have that scene on DVD, so I could directly compare the original version to the TV Land Version. I took a stop watch, and timed the same exact part of the scene, from the DVD and from TV Land.
The TV Land version was 5 seconds shorter! I believe this means that TV Land has been speeding up episodes (not just cutting things out, but literally playing the show faster than normal speed) in order to, in all likelihood, add more commercials. Keep in mind this scene was only slightly longer than a minute, so when you factor in that the show runs about 20 to 22 minutes on TV Land, this gives them an about an extra 90 seconds due to the higher speed. A convenient amount of time for adding more commercials.
Take a close listen sometime and you'll notice that everyone talks just a slight bit faster on the TV Land version. It's not drastic enough to be obviously noticeable, but it's definitely there. And it takes away from the scene. That scene in particular was great because of Mr. Roper's hesitance in talking about "shelves", but on TV Land, since it's going quicker, he doesn't seem as hesitant. It's really a shame.
Of course, I will say theres the possibility that the DVD versions somehow got slowed down, and the TV Land versions are the correct speed, but I think that's a reach. Given TV Land's history of butchering episodes to add more commercials, I would say this was done intentionally.
I decided to investigate, so what I did was, I had recorded the Lucille Ball "best of" episode from TV Land a few days ago, which featured the classic "shelves" discussion between Jack and Mr. Roper. I also have that scene on DVD, so I could directly compare the original version to the TV Land Version. I took a stop watch, and timed the same exact part of the scene, from the DVD and from TV Land.
The TV Land version was 5 seconds shorter! I believe this means that TV Land has been speeding up episodes (not just cutting things out, but literally playing the show faster than normal speed) in order to, in all likelihood, add more commercials. Keep in mind this scene was only slightly longer than a minute, so when you factor in that the show runs about 20 to 22 minutes on TV Land, this gives them an about an extra 90 seconds due to the higher speed. A convenient amount of time for adding more commercials.
Take a close listen sometime and you'll notice that everyone talks just a slight bit faster on the TV Land version. It's not drastic enough to be obviously noticeable, but it's definitely there. And it takes away from the scene. That scene in particular was great because of Mr. Roper's hesitance in talking about "shelves", but on TV Land, since it's going quicker, he doesn't seem as hesitant. It's really a shame.
Of course, I will say theres the possibility that the DVD versions somehow got slowed down, and the TV Land versions are the correct speed, but I think that's a reach. Given TV Land's history of butchering episodes to add more commercials, I would say this was done intentionally.