The Brady Bunch DVD's: facts & figures

[Lee G]

I've been checking all the episodes on the DVD's, for everyones information- here are the possible edits/cuts I have found.

Season one: THE HONEYMOON episode has no ending scene after the fill in squares. After the squares are the closing credits. This episode times at about 45 seconds short of a normal first season episode, so it appears that the ending scene was not included on the DVD's. The other episodes all appear to be uncut. The average running time for season one episodes is 25 minutes, 30 seconds.

Season two: All the episodes appear to be uncut. The average running time for season two episodes is 25 minutes.

Season three: THE GRAND CANYON episodes do not have the fill in squares, but otherwise appear to be uncut. THE TEETER TOTTER CAPER times at about 25 seconds short of a normal third season episode, but the episode appears to be uncut. The other episodes all appear to be uncut. The average running time for season three episodes is 25 minutes, 50 seconds.

Season four: THE HAWAII episodes do not have the fill in squares, and PASS THE TABU has about 20 seconds cut from the episode. LOVE AND THE OLDER MAN also does not have the fill in squares, but otherwise the episode appears to be uncut. GREG GETS GROUNDED is similar to THE HONEYMOON episode, there is no ending scene after the fill in squares. After the squares are the closing credits. This episode times at about 30 seconds short of a normal fourth season episode, so it appears that the ending scene was not included on the DVD's. YOU CAN'T WIN EM ALL times at about 20 seconds short of a normal fourth season episode, but the episode appears to be uncut. The other episodes all appear to be uncut. The average running time for season four episodes is 25 minutes, 20 seconds.

Season five: TWO PETES IN A POD is the shortest episode of the season, it times in at 24:46. But the episode appears to be uncut. All the other episodes are in the 25 minute range and also appear to be uncut. The average running time for season five episodes is 25 minutes, 10 seconds.

So season four appears to have the most kinks in the episodes. Overall, this is a great release and every Brady Bunch fan should own these DVD's!

[Jack1000]

Originally Posted by Lee G

I've been checking all the episodes on the DVD's, for everyones information here are the possible edits/cuts I have found.

Season one: THE HONEYMOON episode has no ending scene after the fill in squares. After the squares come the closing credits. This episode times at about 45 seconds short of a normal first season episode, so it appears that the ending scene was not included on the DVD's. The other episodes all appear to be uncut. The average running time for season one episodes is 25 minutes, 30 seconds.

Season two: All the episodes appear to be uncut. The average running time for season two episodes is 25 minutes.

Season three: THE GRAND CANYON episodes do not have the fill in squares, but otherwise appear to be uncut. THE TEETER TOTTER CAPER times at about 25 seconds short of a normal third season episode, but the episode appears to be uncut. The other episodes all appear to be uncut. The average running time for season three episodes is 25 minutes, 50 seconds.

Season four: THE HAWAII episodes do not have the fill in squares, and PASS THE TABU has about 20 seconds cut from the episode. LOVE AND THE OLDER MAN also does not have the fill in squares, but otherwise the episode appears to be uncut. GREG GETS GROUNDED is similar to THE HONEYMOON episode, there is no ending scene after the fill in squares. After the squares come the closing credits. This episode times at about 30 seconds short of a normal fourth season episode, so it appears that the ending scene was not included on the DVD's. YOU CAN'T WIN EM ALL times at about 20 seconds short of a normal fourth season episode, but the episode appears to be uncut. The other episodes all appear to be uncut. The average running time for season four episodes is 25 minutes, 20 seconds.

That's it for now, I'll update this later with information from season five.

Lee,

Great synopsis!

I can answer a few questions:

AFAIK, "The Honeymoon" had no tag sequence, because the storyline appeared to be complete with the family marching up the stars. There was nothing left that needed to be resolved.

"Greg Gets Grounded" has its tag sequence, but the way that it was burned to DVD appears that it doesn't. The tag IS, Greg talking to Mike and Carol in the master bedroom asking that he no longer be required to live by exact words. The DVD just "blends" the tag into the last scene with the frogs jumping on the pizza at the drive-in movie, Rachel laughing, and Greg's lines, "I don't think we'll be eating this tonight, and he was in 34th place too." then the blend in to the tag scene. Greg's final lines, according to Hope Sherwood were ad-libbed by Barry, and the kids and crew laughed so hard that they decided to leave them in!

Notice how TV Land slops the ending of this episode as well. The squares fill in right after the frog jumps on the pizza and Greg says, "Oh! That does it." The syndicated print includes Barry's ad-libbed lines, but omits an earlier scene of Alice getting spooked by Peter's frog, Old Crocker, while she is hanging wash outside. (restored by TV Land.)

Jack

[Lee G]

Originally Posted by Jack1000

Lee,

Great synopsis!

I can answer a few questions:

AFAIK, "The Honeymoon" had no tag sequence, because the storyline appeared to be complete with the family marching up the stars. There was nothing left that needed to be resolved.

"Greg Gets Grounded" has its tag sequence, but the way that it was burned to DVD appears that it doesn't. The tag IS, Greg talking to Mike and Carol in the master bedroom asking that he no longer be required to live by exact words. The DVD just "blends" the tag into the last scene with the frogs jumping on the pizza at the drive-in movie, Rachel laughing, and Greg's lines, "I don't think we'll be eating this tonight, and he was in 34th place too." then the blend in to the tag scene. Greg's final lines, according to Hope Sherwood were ad-libbed by Barry, and the kids and crew laughed so hard that they decided to leave them in!

Notice how TV Land slops the ending of this episode as well. The squares fill in right after the frog jumps on the pizza and Greg says, "Oh! That does it." The syndicated print includes Barry's ad-libbed lines, but omits an earlier scene of Alice getting spooked by Peter's frog, Old Crocker, while she is hanging wash outside. (restored by TV Land.)

Jack

I seem to remember that there is an ending scene after the fill in squares in THE HONEYMOON episode with Mike, Carol and all the kids in the suite. But I could be wrong. I see what you mean about GREG GETS GROUNDED, but the episode still runs a little short for a fourth season episode giving the impression that something was cut. Perhaps THE HONEYMOON episode and GREG GETS GROUNDED were just made a little differently with no ending scene after the fill in squares.

On the DVD's, it looks like there are basically four episodes that have oddities. THE HONEYMOON and GREG GETS GROUNDED have no ending scene after the fill in squares. LOVE AND THE OLDER MAN is the only non-vacation episode without the fill in squares. And PASS THE TABU has that 20 second sequence cut from the episode. I don't have a problem with the vacation episodes not having the fill in squares. Those are a pair of three part episodes, and it seems appropriate not to have the fill in squares on those.

I've always thought we got cheated out of three Brady Bunch episodes. Had they made 24 episodes each in seasons four and five instead of 23 and 22, we would have ended up with a total of 120 episodes as opposed to 117. In the early and mid 70's, a normal season was 24 shows. For whatever reason, season four ended up an episode short and the final season is two eps short.

[Jack1000]

I seem to remember that there is an ending scene after the fill in squares in THE HONEYMOON episode with Mike, Carol and all the kids in the suite. But I could be wrong. I see what you mean about GREG GETS GROUNDED, but the episode still runs a little short for a fourth season episode giving the impression that something was cut. Perhaps THE HONEYMOON episode and GREG GETS GROUNDED were just made a little differently with no ending scene after the fill in squares.

On the DVD's, it looks like there are basically four episodes that have oddities. THE HONEYMOON and GREG GETS GROUNDED have no ending scene after the fill in squares. LOVE AND THE OLDER MAN is the only non-vacation episode without the fill in squares. And PASS THE TABU has that 20 second sequence cut from the episode. I don't have a problem with the vacation episodes not having the fill in squares. Those are a pair of three part episodes, and it seems appropriate not to have the fill in squares on those.

I've always thought we got cheated out of three Brady Bunch episodes. Had they made 24 episodes each in seasons four and five instead of 23 and 22, we would have ended up with a total of 120 episodes as opposed to 117. In the early and mid 70's, a normal season was 24 shows. For whatever reason, season four ended up an episode short and the final season is two eps short.

As far as Love and the Older Man lacking the fill-in squares, I will bet anything that this was just an oversight on Paramount's part. There is no reason to believe otherwise. In their rush to get the disks out quickly, quality control screwed up the burning process. My guess is that the same applied to Greg Gets Grounded. Why would the master tapes not have the fill in squares? Let's assume that the squares print was damaged (highly unlikely), Paramount could have just gone back into the archives to get the 16/35mm back up prints of the fill in squares to complete the episode. They had to do this anyway for many episodes because when the Brady Bunch was sold to syndication Paramount took the cuts from the master tapes. When TV Land acquired the show in the Summer of 1998, they notified Paramount that they needed their versions of The Brady Bunch to be a slightly different length than the syndicated prints. So Paramount had to go to the back up print archives to restore some scenes, while cutting others to fit into a 22 minute time frame.

When they did the DVD's, Paramount had to restore ALL the footage from several different available sources. Since they no longer had the original prints for some of the scenes long gone since the first syndicated run, the back up prints, indicated by a grainy or fuzzy picture in some episode scenes, needed to be used to get the episodes back to their full original lengths.

The vacation episodes were sold to syndicated markets in the early 90's or thereabouts. Paramount, it is believed, removed the fill-in squares from the vacation episodes because they were packaged as one special 90-minute movie. Someone thought at Paramount thought that the vacation episodes would flow better as a "mini series" movie with the fill-in squares out. They obviously made that decision for the DVD's, restoring any missing scenes with the back-up prints. BUT they forgot to re-add that small 20 second cut of dialog from "Pass The Tabu."

But here is the mystery on the vacation episodes: TV Land got the show rights in Summer of 1998 AFTER the squares removal incident for the "mini-movie" series around 1990. The squares are intact on all TV Land Brady Bunch vacation prints. TV Land uses different edits for all Brady Bunch episodes compared to syndication, so the prints with the squares were obviously NOT lost or destroyed where they would have to go to back-up prints. Someone at Paramount decided to use the mini-movie series prints with the back up prints restored for the DVD's (Vacation Episodes with no squares) Where are the fill in squares for the vacation episodes? Paramount should have just used the print they sold to TV Land with the back up scenes for an almost uncut episode. I say "Almost Uncut" because that 20 seconds of duologue from "Pass The Tabu" has been edited from TV Land's print as well! (Not sure if it is still in syndication.)

Jack

[Lee G]

Originally Posted by Jack1000

As far as Love and the Older Man lacking the fill-in squares, I will bet anything that this was just an oversight on Paramount's part. There is no reason to believe otherwise. In their rush to get the disks out quickly, quality control screwed up the burning process. My guess is that the same applied to Greg Gets Grounded. Why would the master tapes not have the fill in squares? Let's assume that the squares print was damaged (highly unlikely), Paramount could have just gone back into the archives to get the 16/35mm back up prints of the fill in squares to complete the episode. They had to do this anyway for many episodes because when the Brady Bunch was sold to syndication Paramount took the cuts from the master tapes. When TV Land acquired the show in the Summer of 1998, they notified Paramount that they needed their versions of The Brady Bunch to be a slightly different length than the syndicated prints. So Paramount had to go to the back up print archives to restore some scenes, while cutting others to fit into a 22 minute time frame.

When they did the DVD's, Paramount had to restore ALL the footage from several different available sources. Since they no longer had the original prints for some of the scenes long gone since the first syndicated run, the back up prints, indicated by a grainy or fuzzy picture in some episode scenes, needed to be used to get the episodes back to their full original lengths.

The vacation episodes were sold to syndicated markets in the early 90's or thereabouts. Paramount, it is believed, removed the fill-in squares from the vacation episodes because they were packaged as one special 90-minute movie. Someone thought at Paramount thought that the vacation episodes would flow better as a "mini series" movie with the fill-in squares out. They obviously made that decision for the DVD's, restoring any missing scenes with the back-up prints. BUT they forgot to re-add that small 20 second cut of dialog from "Pass The Tabu."

But here is the mystery on the vacation episodes: TV Land got the show rights in Summer of 1998 AFTER the squares removal incident for the "mini-movie" series around 1990. The squares are intact on all TV Land Brady Bunch vacation prints. TV Land uses different edits for all Brady Bunch episodes compared to syndication, so the prints with the squares were obviously NOT lost or destroyed where they would have to go to back-up prints. Someone at Paramount decided to use the mini-movie series prints with the back up prints restored for the DVD's (Vacation Episodes with no squares) Where are the fill in squares for the vacation episodes? Paramount should have just used the print they sold to TV Land with the back up scenes for an almost uncut episode. I say "Almost Uncut" because that 20 seconds of duologue from "Pass The Tabu" has been edited from TV Land's print as well! (Not sure if it is still in syndication.)

Jack

I agree Jack that the fill in squares should be present on all the episodes. It doesn't bother me too much that the squares are missing on the vacation episodes, but they should definitely be there on LOVE AND THE OLDER MAN. I have more of an issue with the 20 seconds missing from PASS THE TABU. That's pretty bad. There are a handful of episodes on the DVD's that time a little shorter than normal, so there might be a few more subtle cuts here and there that we're not aware of yet.

[Lee G]

I watched TWO PETES IN A POD, I didn't see anything unusual where something might be cut, so the episode looks complete. Occasionally scripts run a little short, which can affect the length of the episode.

[Jack1000]

Originally Posted by Lee G

I watched TWO PETES IN A POD, I didn't see anything unusual where something might be cut, so the episode looks complete. Occasionally scripts run a little short, which can affect the length of the episode.

Lee,

Season 5 to me looked like it had all episodes complete and uncut running on average 25 minutes long. "Cincinnati Kids" looks GREAT! and I think it is one of the most time compressed/edited episodes on other prints. I would estimate that almost 4 minutes has been added to the DVD that you can't see anywhere else!

But in contrast, look at "Snow White & The Seven Bradys" as well as "The Elopement." It looks like back-up prints were used in about 75% of each of these episodes when we KNOW that better quality footage still exists of some of the scenes that they used for back up. It's like they restored a back up print from the negatives and kept right on using them for an entire scene. The effect is quite noticeable in both of these episodes. However, they are full length.

Jack

[Lee G]

Originally Posted by Jack1000

Lee,

Season 5 to me looked like it had all episodes complete and uncut running on average 25 minutes long. "Cincinnati Kids" looks GREAT! and I think it is one of the most time compressed/edited episodes on other prints. I would estimate that almost 4 minutes has been added to the DVD that you can't see anywhere else!

But in contrast, look at "Snow White & The Seven Bradys" as well as "The Elopement." It looks like back-up prints were used in about 75% of each of these episodes when we KNOW that better quality footage still exists of some of the scenes that they used for back up. It's like they restored a back up print from the negatives and kept right on using them for an entire scene. The effect is quite noticeable in both of these episodes. However, they are full length.

Jack

Howdy Jack,

Yep, CINCINNATI KIDS is high on my list of favorite episodes. I will have to check out the other ones you mentioned. Perhaps the folks at Paramount were rushed to get these DVD's out, so quality control was compromised at times and they used back up footage a little more than we'd like. Maybe they had a budget and it was cheaper for them to use the back up prints in some cases even if better quality footage exists. I guess the main thing is they ended up giving us the uncut episodes, with just a few minor deletions in a small number of episodes.

[Lee G]

It appears that THE HONEYMOON and GREG GETS GROUNDED are the complete episodes, apparently those episodes were made without a tag sequence at the end. So other than the fill in squares missing in seven episodes, the only other known cut on the DVD's are those 20 seconds gone from PASS THE TABU. I like how they included "The Brady Bunch In Color" intros that were used for the first two seasons.

As far as the theme song goes, I think the first season version comes off the best with The Peppermint Trolley Company singing it. It's a sappy song to begin with, and it sounds better with professional singers performing it. With the Brady kids singing the song starting with the second season, it doesn't sound nearly as good. It got a little better in the later seasons when they re-did it as the kids voices were changing, but I cringe whenever I hear that second season version. That version is awful, to me it is like fingernails on a chalkboard.

[Jack1000]

Originally Posted by Lee G

It appears that THE HONEYMOON and GREG GETS GROUNDED are the complete episodes, apparently those episodes were made without a tag sequence at the end. So other than the fill in squares missing in seven episodes, the only other known cut on the DVD's are those 20 seconds gone from PASS THE TABU. I like how they included "The Brady Bunch In Color" intros that were used for the first two seasons.

As far as the theme song goes, I think the first season version comes off the best with The Peppermint Trolley Company singing it. It's a sappy song to begin with, and it sounds better with professional singers performing it. With the Brady kids singing the song starting with the second season, it doesn't sound nearly as good. It got a little better in the later seasons when they re-did it as the kids voices were changing, but I cringe whenever I hear that second season version. That version is awful, to me it is like fingernails on a chalkboard.

To save money,

Paramount does ALL of their DVD restorations "in house." The exception was "I Love Lucy" because Greg Oppenheimer, (Jess' Son) had a CBS contract that as affiliated with Desileu, he had priority on how Paramount should do the project. This led to more money and added features for the ILL DVD's, leading to the higher price compared to Paramount's other titles such as The Brady Bunch.

With regards to The Brady Bunch, there is evidence that Paramount had to use several sources to get (with very few exceptions) uncut prints.

Everyone please watch your Brady Bunch syndicated airings for "Pass The Tabu" and see if that 15 seconds of dialog is still intact. It is gone on TV Land. It is such a subtle edit that it most likely went unnoticed by Paramount. Otherwise it seems like Paramount could have used back up prints for those 15 seconds. However, I don't think that they knew those lines had been gone in the first place.

Jack

[Lee G]

Originally Posted by Jack1000

To save money,

Paramount does ALL of their DVD restorations "in house." The exception was "I Love Lucy" because Greg Oppenheimer, (Jess' Son) had a CBS contract that as affiliated with Desileu, he had priority on how Paramount should do the project. This led to more money and added features for the ILL DVD's, leading to the higher price compared to Paramount's other titles such as The Brady Bunch.

With regards to The Brady Bunch, there is evidence that Paramount had to use several sources to get (with very few exceptions) uncut prints.

Everyone please watch your Brady Bunch syndicated airings for "Pass The Tabu" and see if that 15 seconds of dialog is still intact. It is gone on TV Land. It is such a subtle edit that it most likely went unnoticed by Paramount. Otherwise it seems like Paramount could have used back up prints for those 15 seconds. However, I don't think that they knew those lines had been gone in the first place.

Jack

Credit must be given to Paramount for putting uncut episodes on the DVD's. Yes, the squares are missing in a few eps and there's that dubious edit in PASS THE TABU. But these are minor things when you figure they could have gone ahead and put the edited/syndicated episodes on the DVD's. The Brady Bunch is still a popular show, they probably figured DVD's would sell well, so they wanted to do it right. I definitely give em a thumbs up with these DVD's.

Off topic: A mystery regarding another TV series is with The Flintstones. On the DVD's, apparently 165 of the 166 episodes are uncut. The only exception is the season three episode THE BIG MOVE, which is the edited/syndicated version and about 3 minutes are missing. I would like to know why Warner Brothers snuck in one cut episode. Talk about aggravating to get all the episodes uncut except for one.

[Jack1000]

Off topic: A mystery regarding another TV series is with The Flintstones. On the DVD's, apparently 165 of the 166 episodes are uncut. The only exception is the season three episode THE BIG MOVE, which is the edited/syndicated version and about 3 minutes are missing. I would like to know why Warner Brothers snuck in one cut episode. Talk about aggravating to get all the episodes uncut except for one.

Lee,

I'd post this in The Flinstones Forum. (Think it's in the Cartoon forums) and see what they say. That's usually one of three things:

1.) The original print got damaged in such bad shape that they had no choice but to use a syndicated print. To use 16/35mm backups on a cartoon like that, would look like crap OR.

2.) The original print got lost in the series many syndicated cycles and a syndicated print was accidently sent to Warner Brothers.

3.) The original print no longer exists.

Boomerang has been showing The Flintsons AFAIK pretty much uncut. They restored the long lost first season opening and have at least 2-3 minutes that syndication never showed. As the sister station of Cartoon Network, they did a great job. What's cool is that there are no commercials! Only about an 8-second station intro between some scenes.

Jack

PS. Do WB acknowledge that "The Big Move" is a syndicated print on the box?

[Lee G]

Originally Posted by Jack1000

Lee,

I'd post this in The Flinstones Forum. (Think it's in the Cartoon forums) and see what they say. That's usually one of three things:

1.) The original print got damaged in such bad shape that they had no choice but to use a syndicated print. To use 16/35mm backups on a cartoon like that, would look like crap OR.

2.) The original print got lost in the series many syndicated cycles and a syndicated print was accidently sent to Warner Brothers.

3.) The original print no longer exists.

Boomerang has been showing The Flintsons AFAIK pretty much uncut. They restored the long lost first season opening and have at least 2-3 minutes that syndication never showed. As the sister station of Cartoon Network, they did a great job. What's cool is that there are no commercials! Only about an 8-second station intro between some scenes.

Jack

PS. Do WB acknowledge that "The Big Move" is a syndicated print on the box?

Hi Jack,

Thanks for your input. I did post on The Flintstones board a while back, but no reply, there doesn't seem to be much action on that board. There's no mention on the third season box about THE BIG MOVE being a syndicated/edited print. If there is someone reading this thread who has the complete episode of THE BIG MOVE and could provide me with a copy, it would be much appreciated. Anyone who can help may reply here or send me a PM.

[EricR]

What doesn't make sense about the PASS THE TABU edit is that back up prints were used...I don't know how they did this, but if they ran the two side by side then the edit would have been caught...also, it isn't a syndicated print because more than 20 would have been cut. ASFA the fill in squares, again, it most likely would have been noticed. Is there a slight possibility that the dvd prints were made to conform to the backup prints and this is the original 1969-1974 televised version. Maybe the changes were made very early in the syndication run to make the episodes more uniform. Just a thought.

[Lee G]

The edit in PASS THE TABU is a mystery, I don't know how that happened. The other main glitch in the season four DVD is the fill in squares missing in LOVE AND THE OLDER MAN. There are no fill in squares in the vacation episodes, but I really don't have an issue with that. I don't know for sure yet if THE HONEYMOON and GREG GETS GROUNDED are supposed to have tag sequences. I haven't found evidence that those episodes originally had tags, but it seems odd that they would make 2 episodes out of 117 with no tag scene. I recently saw a TV airing of THE HONEYMOON, and just like on the DVD there was no tag scene after the fill in squares.