Last night I was watching the "Lonesome Parents" episode on the great Mill Creek 100-ep set, and I noticed that it ran at only 23 minutes. Now obviously the deletion of commercials accounts for some of the time shortfall, but according to a book I have that lists many of the episodes on which Rick sang and what songs he sang, this episode originally aired with the songs "History of Love" and "Today's Teardrops" from Album Seven By Rick, which do not appear in the episode on the Mill Creek set. (Plenty of songs are missing from the Shout! Factory sets as well; just one example is "The Tangled Web," which originally aired with Rick performing the old standard "Try to Remember.") My point is, I wonder how many 23-minute episodes (from 1957-on) that air at 23 minutes on these DVDs are essentially complete episodes minus the commercials and Rick's songs. Watching the DVDs, one would think that Rick sang only occasionally on the show when in fact he did so frequently.

Well, Mill Creek is certainly not perfect, still, considering that the eps avg. 25-30 cents an ep it's hard to get mad at them (and there are some sets out there that are truly dreck - like Passport which got some titles totally screwed up). And 100 eps all together is REALLY SOMETHING!!!

It can be frustrating to get what you know is an incomplete ep. Like on Mill Creek I know "Bedtime Story" is really cut short because I have the same ep on a VHS set by Nostalgia - and not just the commercials but some of the lines. While the eps on Nostaglia were flawless they cost $7 an ep - so its a matter of pro's and con's I suppose.

according to a book I have that lists many of the episodes on which Rick sang and what songs he sang

matt77b:

Would you list the name of the book and the author? I would like to locate this book.

I keep a file of the songs Rick sang on the various episodes from my own collection or from other sources.

Thanks !!!

CJ

The book is called "Ricky Nelson: Rick-a-billy, Ricky Nelson Day By Day, 1940 to 2004," and the author is Paul McPhail. The book is basically a chronological diary of the major events in Rick's career--concerts, TV appearances, recording sessions and record releases--during his life and after. It's not 100 percent complete or 100 percent accurate, but it's very good neverthless. It was privately published by the author; if you do some hunting around on google you'll probably find it. (That's how I found it 2 or 3 years ago.)

Thanks a bunch !!! I will start searching for it.

Here are links to a couple of threads here with some song info.

In the first thread, I listed my own compilation [it needs updated somewhat]

In the second thread, guy scanned a brief list from another book.

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=244842

http://www.sitcomsonline.com/boards/showthread.php?t=98976

It's frustrating that there are so few complete eps on the market. Very few of the tapes and dvd's I've seen include Rick's songs. Rick's singing was one of the main attractions of the show, just seems wrong to delete them, although it may have been a matter of editing for time when the series went into syndication. I've also noticed scenes being edited or cut out when comparing broadcast versions to those released on VHS or DVD.