Shows Lost To Time

[tvfan0101]

I'm not talking about forgotten or rare shows, I'm talking about shows for which all episodes have been lost or destroyed. A lot of really early shows no longer exist. I'm not sure if it ever happened in the United States but in England, during the 1970s, the BBC began to destroy their copies of Dr. Who, meaning there are episodes that simply no longer exist today.

I know for a fact that many early game shows weren't saved due to the lack of repeat value. And if I'm not mistaken the series generally considered the first sitcom, Mary Kay and Johnny is supposedly gone for good. I also seem to remember reading that Jackie Gleason handed over his private collection of kinescopes containing some of the episodes of The Honeymooners...otherwise we wouldn't have them today. Can't be sure about any of this, of course.

So my question to the Sitcoms Online community is this: are there any shows that no longer exist today because all episodes have been lost or destroyed? This is really quite interesting to me.

[factsoflife]

Many of the daytime soap operas lost episodes that were taped before the late 1960's. General Hospital, Guiding Light, As The World Turns, One Life To Live and possibly All My Children do not have any of thoes episodes. Also early episodes of Search For Tommorrow and Another World do not exsist

[TVFactFan]

Originally posted by tvobscurities
I'm not talking about forgotten or rare shows, I'm talking about shows for which all episodes have been lost or destroyed. A lot of really early shows no longer exist. I'm not sure if it ever happened in the United States but in England, during the 1970s, the BBC began to destroy their copies of Dr. Who, meaning there are episodes that simply no longer exist today.

I know for a fact that many early game shows weren't saved due to the lack of repeat value. And if I'm not mistaken the series generally considered the first sitcom, Mary Kay and Johnny is supposedly gone for good. I also seem to remember reading that Jackie Gleason handed over his private collection of kinescopes containing some of the episodes of The Honeymooners...otherwise we wouldn't have them today. Can't be sure about any of this, of course.

So my question to the Sitcoms Online community is this: are there any shows that no longer exist today because all episodes have been lost or destroyed? This is really quite interesting to me.

I'm 100% sure that episodes of these shows no longer exist

Checking In-1981
Mr. T and Tina-1976
Hot L Baltimore-1975

[TVFactFan]

Originally posted by tvobscurities
I'm not talking about forgotten or rare shows, I'm talking about shows for which all episodes have been lost or destroyed. A lot of really early shows no longer exist. I'm not sure if it ever happened in the United States but in England, during the 1970s, the BBC began to destroy their copies of Dr. Who, meaning there are episodes that simply no longer exist today.

I know for a fact that many early game shows weren't saved due to the lack of repeat value. And if I'm not mistaken the series generally considered the first sitcom, Mary Kay and Johnny is supposedly gone for good. I also seem to remember reading that Jackie Gleason handed over his private collection of kinescopes containing some of the episodes of The Honeymooners...otherwise we wouldn't have them today. Can't be sure about any of this, of course.

So my question to the Sitcoms Online community is this: are there any shows that no longer exist today because all episodes have been lost or destroyed? This is really quite interesting to me.

I also think these shows no longer exist

Ball Four-1976
Beacon Hill-1975
In the Beginning-1978

[Mrs. Ducky]

Originally posted by tvobscurities
I know for a fact that many early game shows weren't saved due to the lack of repeat value. And if I'm not mistaken the series generally considered the first sitcom, Mary Kay and Johnny is supposedly gone for good. I also seem to remember reading that Jackie Gleason handed over his private collection of kinescopes containing some of the episodes of The Honeymooners...otherwise we wouldn't have them today. Can't be sure about any of this, of course.

I remember watching Taboo TV on TVland almost two years back, and they were talking about Mary Kay and Johnny and I beleive they were showing clips of the show.

[Sitcomwriter]

Originally posted by Mrs. Ducky
I remember watching Taboo TV on TVland almost two years back, and they were talking about Mary Kay and Johnny and I beleive they were showing clips of the show.

I think 1 clip exists but like 10 seconds, without dialouge, because it has been used in many documentaries. They most likely just use the footage from another documentary and dub over the dialouge, that's my opinion anyway.

[hawaii five-o]

Some of the live anthology shows and sitcomsfrom the late 40's and early 50's. These were shown on kinescope and were not meant to be repeated.

Also, the daytime version of The Hollywood Squares with Peter Marshall. NBC needed the storage space and had them destroyed.

I also heard someplace that Joey Bishop had all of the copies of his 1960's sitcom destroyed.

[tvfan0101]

Originally posted by Sitcomwriter
I think 1 clip exists but like 10 seconds, without dialouge, because it has been used in many documentaries. They most likely just use the footage from another documentary and dub over the dialouge, that's my opinion anyway.

If there is any footage still around that's probably the form it would be in. Without audio and very short.

And TVShow Analyzer, the shows you listed, I really doubt all copies have been destroyed/lost. There may not be any in the hands of collectors but the networks, production companies or creators probably still have their copies in a warehouse somewhere. They could be gone but given the fact that they're as recent as the 1970s I would hope copies exist somewhere.

[Sean Snow]

Originally posted by factsoflife
Many of the daytime soap operas lost episodes that were taped before the late 1960's. General Hospital, Guiding Light, As The World Turns, One Life To Live and possibly All My Children do not have any of thoes episodes. Also early episodes of Search For Tommorrow and Another World do not exsist

Indeed, the only pre-1980 soap operas that have all their episodes saved are, I believe, Days of Our Lives (1965- ), Dark Shadows (1966-1971), The Young & the Restless (1973- ), and Ryan's Hope (1975-1989). In all those cases, the show's creators/executive producers had them saved. Even with these shows, some episodes were misplaced or damaged severely.

ABC (General Hospital, All My Children, One Life to Live) did not start saving episodes of its soaps until 1977 or 1978, while Proctor & Gamble (which was behind Guiding Light, As the World Turns, Another World, Search for Tomorrow, The Edge of Night) did not start saving episodes until 1979 or 1980. For the most part, very little exists from those shows except in kinescope form. There is very little from 1970 through 1977, since the networks pretty much stopped making kinescopes after late 1970.

TVShow Analyzer, I'm sure episodes of those shows are probably in some vault somewhere. I'd imagine that every sitcom from the late 50's/early 60's on saved their episodes.
ETA: I just saw now that tvobscurities beat me to answering to your comment. Oops.

[TVFactFan]

Originally posted by Sean Snow
Indeed, the only pre-1980 soap operas that have all their episodes saved are, I believe, Days of Our Lives (1965- ), Dark Shadows (1966-1971), The Young & the Restless (1973- ), and Ryan's Hope (1975-1989). In all those cases, the show's creators/executive producers had them saved. Even with these shows, some episodes were misplaced or damaged severely.

ABC (General Hospital, All My Children, One Life to Live) did not start saving episodes of its soaps until 1977 or 1978, while Proctor & Gamble (which was behind Guiding Light, As the World Turns, Another World, Search for Tomorrow, The Edge of Night) did not start saving episodes until 1979 or 1980. For the most part, very little exists from those shows except in kinescope form. There is very little from 1970 through 1977, since the networks pretty much stopped making kinescopes after late 1970.

TVShow Analyzer, I'm sure episodes of those shows are probably in some vault somewhere. I'd imagine that every sitcom from the late 50's/early 60's on saved their episodes.
ETA: I just saw now that tvobscurities beat me to answering to your comment. Oops.

I doubt if Mr. T and Tina eps still exist. Started in sep of 76 and ended in oct of 76. So 28 years later and they are still existing? Not Likely.

[Sean Snow]

Originally posted by TVShow Analyzer
I doubt if Mr. T and Tina eps still exist. Started in sep of 76 and ended in oct of 76. So 28 years later and they are still existing? Not Likely.

I think Mr. T and Tina more than likely does exist in some vault. After all, why not? Just about every program broadcast in primetime by 1976 would've been saved. Just because it didn't last long doesn't mean it wasn't kept. Rare programs that lasted for a very short period of time have popped up on TV quite a bit in specials...for instance, TV Land showed an episode of the very shortlived Grady two years ago. I've seen clips of Making It used on various specials, and that didn't last very long either.

[TVFactFan]

Originally posted by Sean Snow
I think Mr. T and Tina more than likely does exist in some vault. After all, why not? Just about every program broadcast in primetime by 1976 would've been saved. Just because it didn't last long doesn't mean it wasn't kept. Rare programs that lasted for a very short period of time have popped up on TV quite a bit in specials...for instance, TV Land showed an episode of the very shortlived Grady two years ago. I've seen clips of Making It used on various specials, and that didn't last very long either.

Grady is a bad example because it was on air for 3 and a half months but Making It was on about the same length of time as Mr. T and Tina

[Dr. Jazz]

Originally posted by hawaii five-o
[B

I also heard someplace that Joey Bishop had all of the copies of his 1960's sitcom destroyed. [/B]

TV Land aired "The Joey Bishop Show" for a couple years a while back. Not sure if they aired every episode, but apparently not all copies of the show have been destroyed.

[treky]

Originally posted by hawaii five-o
Some of the live anthology shows and sitcomsfrom the late 40's and early 50's. These were shown on kinescope and were not meant to be repeated.

Also, the daytime version of The Hollywood Squares with Peter Marshall. NBC needed the storage space and had them destroyed.

I also heard someplace that Joey Bishop had all of the copies of his 1960's sitcom destroyed.

if that's true about the Peter Marshall version of The Hollywood Squares, then how was The Game Show Network able to show it a ccouple of years ago?
Also, on "The E! True Hollywood story" 2 or 3 years ago, they did Paul Lynde, and they showed a couple clips of him on it.

[Dr. Jazz]

Originally posted by treky
if that's true about the Peter Marshall version of The Hollywood Squares, then how was The Game Show Network able to show it a ccouple of years ago?
Also, on "The E! True Hollywood story" 2 or 3 years ago, they did Paul Lynde, and they showed a couple clips of him on it.

treky, I wondered the same thing you did at first but now if I remember correctly, the daytime version was destroyed, but the nighttime version wasn't and that's the version that aired on GSN.