I've always known that "current" masters of S11 (starting with E13) and S12 look horrible, but after looking at them more closely and comparing them with episodes from S09, they're even more horrible than I thought. Everything is blurry, and the sound is very muddy.

I understand CBS was trying to save as much money as possible by transferring old taped masters, but wouldn't it have been more cost-effective if they transferred actual 16mm prints? For example, all episodes of "The Millionaire" are sourced from 16mm, and from what I've been told, they were mastered to tape recently (nobody aired the show until Me-TV aired it in 2012). Sure, the quality may not be the best, but compare it to these current masters of S11 & S12. The sound is much better, and the video quality is sharper on a majority of the episodes. Maybe transferring and color-correcting 16mm prints costs a bit more than just straight transferring of tape?

We all know CBS owns 16mm prints, just look at current DVD releases of S03 & S04. The quality is much sharper than the tape masters Me-TV aired before.

Those seasons need to be remastered from either a GOOD QUALITY 16 mm or 35 mm source.

Season 12 is in the worst shape of all 12. Not just quality, but edits. Old, horrible syndication edits, including wrong opening credits and and accelerated, chopped closing credits.

CBS has them, and I think it's shameful they just let them deteriorate. If it were me, they would've been transferred a long time ago. It's incredible how rare some seasons are on 16mm. S08 is the most common, from what I've seen. The B&W episodes are rare, but S11 & S12 are the rarest. A huge majority of the 16mm prints I've seen are old Viacom prints from the early '70s, with their first logo which sounds like a Pinball machine (V-IA-COM). Four out of my seven prints have that logo, and are complete.

I remember when the Odyssey Network reran the second half of 11 and all of 12 in the late 90s. Prints were horrible, and like was mentioned, wrong opening in 12 (Don Grady still listed, no Ronne Troup). I read at the time only 6-first half of 11 were widely syndicated at that time.

I didn’t catch MeTV running these last year, but now that we are on season 11, perhaps we will get lucky and they will finally have quality prints.

I remember when the Odyssey Network reran the second half of 11 and all of 12 in the late 90s. Prints were horrible, and like was mentioned, wrong opening in 12 (Don Grady still listed, no Ronne Troup). I read at the time only 6-first half of 11 were widely syndicated at that time.

I didn’t catch MeTV running these last year, but now that we are on season 11, perhaps we will get lucky and they will finally have quality prints.
Last year, Me-TV's prints of the first half of S11 (E01-E12) were great. They were sourced from old Paramount prints, but those prints were mastered from 35mm prints, so they look about the same as S06-S10. The second half of S11 and all of S12, however, were not so great. Me-TV used the same prints Odyssey used, with some even keeping Viacom's very first logo (V-IA-COM logo). Interestingly, Viacom's logo came after CBS's, which I found odd. The video quality was muddy, and the audio was grainy and very low-fi.

So far, Me-TV is still using the same prints as last year. I'm anxious to see E13, the start of the second half of S11. I'm anxious to see whether they kept their prints from last year, or if they were issued updated prints which also removed Viacom's logo.

Me, too. We are seeing mostly heavily edited 16mm prints for S11-1/2 and S12. S12 is the pits, with (as mentioned) wrong opening credits, and sped (not MeTV time-shifting) closing credits. Also the closing credits on this (and only this) season edit out the main cast. So on this season, these 16mm prints do not show Ronne Troup or Dawn Lyn anywhere in the credits.

I know Nick has or had many of these episodes complete (but still with the credit problems), but still derived from old 16 mm syndication copies.

I'm convinced the original 35mm prints haven't been used since the original telecasts, and to produce the syndication copies for back in the 70s. They need to be pulled from the mothballs. I'm also anxious to see the second go-round of these episodes, but I doubt anything has changed.

E13 starts Wednesday. This is the first of the Odyssey prints to air. I'm expecting the prints to be the same, unfortunately.

They had around a year to find the 35mm prints. I doubt anything's happened.

I've waited for more S11 and S12 episodes to show up on 16mm on eBay. Except for the print I have of S11 E11, zero have showed up. The most common season appears to be S08.

I can't watch My Three Sons on MeTV because during the hour in the morning when it's on, the local affiliate cuts in for an hour of news :p. Too bad but that's the way it goes.

Considering S11 E11 doesn’t look as good as the previous episodes, we will most likely be seeing poorer quality prints from decades ago. I’m only able to see three episodes a week at most (no DVR!)

Feel bad for the previous poster, as I have access to two MeTV affiliates, one in my home market and another in an adjacent market via antenna.

Glad you mentioned that, I didn't think today's episode looked quite as good as previous S11 episodes. It still looked to be sourced from 35mm though. The first half of S11 was in syndication in the 90s, and it was mastered to videotape along with S6-S10. Not so for the last half of S11 and all of S12.

For unknown reasons, the first half of S11 was removed from syndication, while the second half and all of S12 has never been syndicated in the videotape era. Thus we continue to see masters derived from 16mm syndication episodes from the 1970s, because these episodes are officially unavailable from CBS TV Distribution.

Episode 12 looks much better than 11. Speaking of which, you could make a drinking game with the amount of times Ernie says “Cool it Paula”.

LOL! Once the elopement arc was over, the episodes aren't quite as memorable.

The next episode, St. Louis Blues, will be syndication-length edited from old 16mm copies. UGH! I do have the full-length episode from Nick at Nite, which is one place CBS might find better masters.

And the prints will be the same. Today's episode, like the last time it aired in June 2018, had Viacom's logo from the '90s following CBS's, which means that prints of S11.2 and S12 will remain unchanged.

Yes, good for logo collectors (never mind we captured all the times the Pinball showed up, and the one time the V did...but some people are interested in seeing the logos on an actual TV). Not so good for fans of the show.

The CBSTD, then classic logo combo is weird. One of the oddest examples is when we get to the last episode of season 11, where there's a seamless cut from end credits to V of Doom (they even have the same colored background!). However, CBS splices its logo in between; as a result, you hear the last note of the theme song as the V logo forms, before the infamous logo music cuts in. Almost sounds like the V is zooming up to a knockoff/soundalike of the V of Doom music at first. Or to a drumroll, which somehow makes it more eerie.

Also of note is episode 11.12, which has a similar combo...only with the 1990 Viacom logo coming after CBSTD. As I thought all of those episodes if anything would have had the 1990s Paramount logo at the end as they did on TVL.

BTW...when M3S aired on Odyssey, what other seasons did they play? Did they air the first half of season 11, and if so, were they the same Paramount prints TVL used?

Odyssey did air the first half of 11, along with all of the color episodes. I don’t remember the exact prints.

I have the Hallmark episodes (same as Odyssey) for the first half of S11 and I think their episodes are identical edits to the TV Land episodes. I didn't check but I imagine the logo on those would be Paramount also.

I have to say, I'd forgotten how bad many of these season 12 masters are. Some of them look like copies of copies of copies.

I have to say, I'd forgotten how bad many of these season 12 masters are. Some of them look like copies of copies of copies. The current masters could be 2nd or even 3rd generation copies. It could easily play out like this: 35mm -> 16mm -> U-Matic or Beta SP -> Maybe some other format?

But no doubt about it, these prints are the same as the last run.

And then assuming U-matic (never heard of it) or Beta-SP are video tape formats then they must have then been digitized too for these Me TV broadcasts. I'm pretty sure they're not running tapes anymore. So that's a 4th generation away from original 35mm. I'm still watching season 2 so I have a long way to go to reach season 12 again.

Yes, U-matic is or was a broadcast videocassette format. I'd never heard of it till about a year ago.

CBS claims on their syndication bible website that there is no dubbing inventory for season 12 (among others), so I'm not sure that season ever officially made it to videotape. Obviously there is a dubbing source somewhere, or MeTV couldn't show the episodes.

Everything is digital now so I imagine it's been a good while since TV stations aired anything from a videotape source but I guess there could be exceptions. I remember in the 1970's and part of the 1980's when TV stations aired TV shows and movies sourced from 16mm films. In the 1980's, I recorded a bunch of East Side Kids and Bowery Boys movies from WGN in Chicago, those airings were sourced from 16mm prints and I still have these recordings in my collection. :)

I remember back in the '60's and '70's when a local station would run an old movie (Local TV stations did this long before TCM was invented) or even an old TV show the film would sometimes break (on a Baltimore late night movie this happened weekly) and when that would happen the station would show a graphic of a man with film spooled all around him with the message showing "Stand By. We are experiencing Technical Difficulties" as the song "Syncopated Clock" played while the graphic remained until the film was spliced back together. This is the song you'd hear, it's also known as the Late Show theme cause local stations would also use it for their late night movie shows. Listen and enjoy Leroy Anderson's composition (he's also the guy that wrote "Sleigh Ride"):wave::
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrpdQngwk2g

I also taped some of those WGN Bowery Boys, John Byner was the host of them.

I also taped some of those WGN Bowery Boys, John Byner was the host of them.

If I recall correctly, those John Byner hosted Bowery Boys movies came along a little later, around 1990 or so maybe. I remember those airings but I don't think WGN was the channel they appeared on. If memory serves me correct, the John Byner hosted Bowery Boys movies were shown on the A & E cable channel.

The East Side Kids/Bowery Boys movies I recorded from WGN are airings from 1984-87 and were usually shown on Monday mornings at 3 AM as "The Late Movie". WGN ran the movies on an intermittent basis, they would run the movies for a few months, take them off for awhile then bring them back again, this went on until sometime in 1987 when the movies were permanently removed from the schedule. I usually wasn't awake at 3 AM so I would program my VCR to record the movies. From WGN airings, I have 8 East Side Kids movies and 36 Bowery Boys.

I'll bet you are correct. The time periods sound like the time I had A&E and I didn't have cable in the mid-1980's, so I'm sure I'm thinking of Byner on A&E. Thanks for clearing my cobwebs. I did tape some good old movies from WGN though when I got cable, particularly some neat old westerns. After so many years these things begin to run together.:crazy:

I'll bet you are correct. The time periods sound like the time I had A&E and I didn't have cable in the mid-1980's, so I'm sure I'm thinking of Byner on A&E. Thanks for clearing my cobwebs. I did tape some good old movies from WGN though when I got cable, particularly some neat old westerns. After so many years these things begin to run together.:crazy:

Back in the day, WGN ran some great old movies but not anymore as times have changed sadly. One of the Bowery Boys movies I have recorded from WGN is Blonde Dynamite, sharp looking 16mm print. There's nothing quite like the nostalgic charm of watching a 16mm print of an old movie. :)

The color Lassie movie where the kid (and of course Lassie) gets a long ride in a hot air balloon, into the Canadian wilderness, was shot on 16mm film. It's not a good example of what you're talking about, but it lends a certain desirable quality particularly to the on-location shots, and is obviously a conscious choice by the producers.