Color Honeymooners Restoration

[MrBand]

Did anyone notice the audience reaction shots that were sprinkled throughout the Color Honeymooners DVD Volume 1? I'm guessing that the shots were used when the audio was fine, but the original video was damaged. They are distracting in that they take you out of the story, but if that was the only way to keep the dialogue, I have no objections. In fact, there is nothing to dislike about the set. I am glad they restored the original opening and the June Taylor Dancers. My only regret in coming to the end of this set is that a release for volume 2 hasn't been announced.

[VIDEOWACK]

Originally Posted by MrBand

Did anyone notice the audience reaction shots that were sprinkled throughout the Color Honeymooners DVD Volume 1? I'm guessing that the shots were used when the audio was fine, but the original video was damaged. They are distracting in that they take you out of the story, but if that was the only way to keep the dialogue, I have no objections. In fact, there is nothing to dislike about the set. I am glad they restored the original opening and the June Taylor Dancers. My only regret in coming to the end of this set is that a release for volume 2 hasn't been announced.

I only noticed one audience reaction shot inserted during the last act of "You're In The Picture". Were there others? When I saw that I thought it was very distracting. Gleason would never have allowed such an edit back in 1966. There are many other ways of covering up a "glitch" in recording. Incidentally, who knows where that shot came from. It's possible they were using isolated camera recording, they used it on Gleason's "American Scene Magazine" many times. Feeding a "free" camera to a separate tape machine in case an "emergency" shot had to be inserted later. This kept the director from having to worry about cutting live to that very camera at a precise moment. Greg Garrison, director of the Dean Martin Show, used isolated camera recording for all of Dean Martin's "Roasts" shows. All the reaction shots (laughs, guffaws, etc) of guests were being fed to various VTR's and these shots would be used where he felt them necessary. Anyway, to get back to the original point: why MPI decided to do that is beyond me. When these shows were syndicated in 1977 no such edits were needed. But again, if they were, there are better ways to cover up bad audio/video than to cut to an audience shot, where such a shot was never EVER used before on THAT program. Totally distracting and out of place!