…a load of bunk?

Now, I just watched the 5p hour of the Catchy Comedy Honeymooners binge which was this

5p #201/204/218? “‘Six Months To Live’ (Color version)/‘Hot Tip’ (Color version)”: "Six Months to Live," Ralph finds a note that makes him think he will die soon. In "Hot Tip," Ralph is accused of being a bookie after taking bets for the racetrack.

In my tv schedule, I wrote down there was a slim chance that Incredible World would air since I figured Catchy Comedy would have time to fill even though there was no advertisement. They filled the time by showing the opening dance number and part of Jackie’s monologue from the JGS episode that had Norton Moves In and his curtain call from “Hot Tip.” No Incredible World. Remember, I spoke to Geraldine five years ago about Incredible World and she said it isn’t banned. Could her response be a load of bunk? I’m not saying she lied. Maybe she was inadvertently telling inaccurate information. Remember she is in her 80s. She maybe too old to run Jackie Gleason Enterprises..

I don't think she or JGE actually care a thing about their main holding, the color variety show.

We do know that all of the videotapes in the archive that still played without baking or other costly preservation steps have been digitized, but many haven't been made available to syndication/television/home video packages due to complex rights issues.

While Gleason retained copies of his shows as a reaction to the DuMont "dumping" of his early films, I'm pretty sure the bulk of the documentation/credit/legal paperwork was not retained or catalogued, based on email conversations with those involved in the transfers (and further details can't be revealed due to NDA restrictions). This just makes a bigger headache for any future releases as, where a paper trail doesn't exist, research has to be done to determine who needs to get paid what-- a service I'm sure JGE doesn't want to pay for.

So, barring a "leak" of the video by someone having access to the now ultra-scarce library copies of broadcast episodes with commercials intact (sometimes called "producer's copy" or "reference media"), many of the full shows and some of the guest acts are just never going to be seen again.. officially anyway.

And certainly, for the 2 episodes that were left off the dvd set? No one at JGE is going to spend the $ to have those tapes restored. The physical copies may be retained but nothing will happen with them.

The situation with the 16mm kinescopes is even more dire. Most of what you have seen and will see from now on will be what Viacom transferred to analog tape in the late 80's. While the odd dupe print may exist, most of those original films are long gone.

When you talk about complex rights issues, I imagine you're sometimes talking about some of the musical performances.

If there is no paper trail of the original contracts, it's a quagmire that virtually no one would want to deal with. This is probably the reason we don't see certain episodes of other old shows.

When you talk about complex rights issues, I imagine you're sometimes talking about some of the musical performances.

If there is no paper trail of the original contracts, it's a quagmire that virtually no one would want to deal with. This is probably the reason we don't see certain episodes of other old shows.

Exactly! This is part of the reason the Time-Life videos were so chopped to pieces, as it could have taken nearly a decade to track down all the entities involved in securing rights to performances where the documentation is lacking-- even ones that, perhaps, would have been within the already tight budget(Time-Life was very for-profit at the expense of any and everyone involved).

Plus, research services do not come cheap and archives for Gleason-related material simply don't exist outside of scholarly entities where donations from estates were made. So, why pay people to do what some of us fans have done on our own time, still turning up nothing?

CBS, Inc. retained zero holdings of this material (American Scene, JGS Show and the Viacom kine's) and aren't interested in any recovery as anything outside the (is it Paramount/CBS co-owned now?) Classic 39 is considered not profitable.

Add to all this the necessity to create "versions" of existing material by way of creative editing in order to secure a new copyright. Sounds like a bitch but, yes, it does happen under the guise of derivative work and it is a sneaky way around certain (C) issues. A&E was famous for this all the way back to the 80's thru the 2000's. I defy you to find a licensed, 2nd or 3rd party commercial A&E release that hasn't been altered from its original form in some way or another-- even broadcasts (BlackAdder, anyone?).

I always assumed A&E stood for Alter & Edit!