MeTV vs. Season 1 DVDs - Sitcoms Online Message Boards

stevea · 06-04-2017, 10:33 PM

Well, this is disturbing...

I watched season 1 episode 1 on MeTV today...I didn't remember the airport scene at the beginning, at all.

Just checked the Season 1 DVDs--that entire scene isn't even on there.

There's no year on the DVD set that I can find, but I imagine it came out around 2006 or 2007. It ought to be redone.

Adamantium · 06-05-2017, 05:53 AM

That was the big complaint with the season one DVD release is that it was the syndicated prints. So I'm surprised to hear that MeTV included that scene, since I figured it wouldn't be shown in the reruns either. Maybe they have the full versions and then cut them down the way they want to, instead of having the general syndicated version.

Dale Key · 06-05-2017, 09:33 AM

15 of the episodes were edited, but they all aired in Canada uncut on Comedy Gold. Season 1 uncut is available on the trading circuit. I hope Shout! can redo the set.

tvfreak1987 · 06-05-2017, 01:02 PM

That scene was also left in the last time Me-TV aired it a few years ago.

Svenfan1234 · 06-05-2017, 01:54 PM

Anybody know how the edited episodes (besides the Pilot, obviously) fare out on Me-TV? Are they still edited?

stevea · 06-05-2017, 02:19 PM

MeTV Is always edited (normally done well). When they have network versions available (which is a lot) (like My Three Sons, I Love Lucy, Brady Bunch), they always time out to 23:00 of episode time per half hour (this is excellent). So they cut out somewhat over 2 minutes (compare this to TV Land or Logo, which cut out over 5 minutes).

When only the syndicated version is available (like Happy Days, Mama's Family), MeTV times out at 22 plus minutes, which is the standard syndicated version time.

Antenna will sometimes air unedited versions (except for crunching the credits). Since most of their programs comes from Sony, they almost always have the syndicated version. Particularly on the older (like 50s) programs, most of the syndicated versions are old, and horribly edited.

RetroTVNitekatt · 06-05-2017, 02:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevea

MeTV Is always edited (normally done well). When they have network versions available (which is a lot) (like My Three Sons, I Love Lucy, Brady Bunch), they always time out to 23:00 of episode time per half hour (this is excellent). So they cut out somewhat over 2 minutes (compare this to TV Land or Logo, which cut out over 5 minutes).

When only the syndicated version is available (like Happy Days, Mama's Family), MeTV times out at 22 plus minutes, which is the standard syndicated version time.

Antenna will sometimes air unedited versions (except for crunching the credits). Since most of their programs comes from Sony, they almost always have the syndicated version. Particularly on the older (like 50s) programs, most of the syndicated versions are old, and horribly edited.

The Editing was done for syndication c.1985 when 16mm prints were replaced with 1" and 3/4" U-Matic tape. Since 22:30 had become the norm for current half hour network shows, so they made the cuts to the syndicated show- hours cut to 45:00. Mind you in 99% of the cases NO ONE involved in post production of the shows originally had involvement.

It is unlikely The Big producers Norman Lear, Garry Marshall, Arron Spelling, (Remember the "Fantasy Island" cut into half-hour shows?) DL Tafffner (Benny Hill was easy to edit - just remove a bit) Micheal Landon, and Grant Tinker oversaw the editing of their shows.

Depending on the studio you lost full scenes (Viacom) or parts of Scenes (Paramount, 20th Fox) Original Network length was sometimes longer than 25/50 minutes before commercials! Depends on the decade.

When CBS Television Syndication made up new print over the last few years for DVD uncut, they also made new syndication prints - and they had to copy the edits made in the 1980's. In some cases some studios did additional edits when upgrading the 1980's prints into modern formats. (Editing was done on tape, so they needed to go back to the originals which they were doing for DVD anyway...)

Logo is doing their own edits, not Sony - ONE DAY AT A TIME clocks in at 20:30 and may have had some time compression added as well. In most cases they have done a good job. However, if one knows the episodes, you can tell. There's one episode Barbara's scenes are totally cut out as they don't really move the plot along ("Connor's Crisis")

AS for RHODA - A GREAT Show and needs to be treated better. They need to fix those 15 edited shows - perhaps when they do a box set of the complete series. Bad enough CBS canceled the show with 4 unaired episodes! Ms.Harper and MTM deserved Better - A move to another night. (and "Good Times" got shelved for months!")

stevea · 06-05-2017, 05:30 PM

On several shows it appears that MeTV uses commercial DVDs as their source. Two good examples are Leave It To Beaver and The Brady Bunch. The clue on the Bradys is the inclusion, sometimes, of a slide at the beginning, The Brady Bunch in Color. (My clue on LITB is the Universal logo at the end, which Antenna didn't have). I can't imagine this original color Brady slide would be included on syndication copies, but it was on the first two season DVDs. So in theory MeTV could have run these episodes onto whatever medium they wanted, and edited them for 23 minute length. (I've home-use DVD edited enough of these shows to know that MeTVs standard show time per half hour is 23:00, with breaks of :30, 4:10, 2:10.) On shows from Viacom and Warners, with syndication copies as shown above at 22:30, there is more commercial time.

The only question in my mind is how Shout could have screwed up these Rhoda episodes. It probably was one of their first efforts, and I know the same thing happened with the first season of Father Knows Best. I agree they need to correct it, and if they do it on Rhoda and FKB, I certainly hope they reissue the first season sets (so those of us who originally bought all the season set aren't forced to re-buy the whole series). (As a side note, with all the great technical info. above--it amazes me that Sony made absolutely no effort to "clean up" their old Screen Gems shows (like Father Knows Best and Burns and Allen)--same horrible, obvious edits that go back for years and years--end credits that don't go with the proper episodes--all kinds of old logos still attached at the end (except the original)...

stevea · 06-05-2017, 10:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dale Key

15 of the episodes were edited, but they all aired in Canada uncut on Comedy Gold. Season 1 uncut is available on the trading circuit. I hope Shout! can redo the set.

Where are they available? Like iOffer,maybe?

Dale Key · 06-05-2017, 10:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevea

Where are they available? Like iOffer,maybe?

I've seen them there. There was one seller than actually used the same menus from the Shout release but replaced the syndicated cuts with Comedy Gold uncut episodes. Currently people are only offering the complete series there, but if they have screencaps from Comedy Gold in the listing I would ask them if you can get only season 1 and the episode lengths of it.

stevea · 06-06-2017, 02:27 PM

I looked up Comedy Gold on Wiki. It was formerly TV Land Canada, which Viacom sold and it was rebranded. Would really like to see that happen here, looking at what they do (it's what TV Land SHOULD be!)

By the way, thanks for the tip, above...it's a good one for anyone who wants Rhoda as it should have been.

stevea · 06-06-2017, 06:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dale Key

(iOffer info. added to quote) I've seen them there (iOffer). There was one seller than actually used the same menus from the Shout release but replaced the syndicated cuts with Comedy Gold uncut episodes. Currently people are only offering the complete series there, but if they have screencaps from Comedy Gold in the listing I would ask them if you can get only season 1 and the episode lengths of it.

For those who want season 1 uncut (except for the wedding episode, which supposedly is still edited), this is excellent advice (hint, hint)!

TVFactFan · 06-25-2017, 04:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dale Key

15 of the episodes were edited, but they all aired in Canada uncut on Comedy Gold. Season 1 uncut is available on the trading circuit. I hope Shout! can redo the set.

That would be nice since season 5 is scheduled to come out in August.

stevea · 06-27-2017, 08:08 AM

The Comedy Gold episodes from season 1 have very low audio on the set I bought, plus a few video problems. Shout really does need to redo season 1, but I'm betting another poster has it nailed: they'll do the whole series, forcing those who bought season sets to buy it to get season 1 unedited.

TVFactFan · 06-27-2017, 06:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stevea

The Comedy Gold episodes from season 1 have very low audio on the set I bought, plus a few video problems. Shout really does need to redo season 1, but I'm betting another poster has it nailed: they'll do the whole series, forcing those who bought season sets to buy it to get season 1 unedited.

shouldn't be that much of an issue since the whole series is only 4 and a half seasons

06-04-2017, 10:33 PM	#1
stevea 22 Years On Sitcoms Moderator Forum Legend Join Date: Aug 13, 2003 Location: Indy Posts: 44,160	MeTV vs. Season 1 DVDs Well, this is disturbing... I watched season 1 episode 1 on MeTV today...I didn't remember the airport scene at the beginning, at all. Just checked the Season 1 DVDs--that entire scene isn't even on there. There's no year on the DVD set that I can find, but I imagine it came out around 2006 or 2007. It ought to be redone.

06-05-2017, 09:33 AM	#3
Dale Key Member Frequent Poster Join Date: Oct 17, 2005 Location: Washington state Posts: 410	15 of the episodes were edited, but they all aired in Canada uncut on Comedy Gold. Season 1 uncut is available on the trading circuit. I hope Shout! can redo the set.
	__________________ Please release complete series of these already hi-def mastered shows on blu-ray: Seinfeld, I Love Lucy, The Andy Griffith Show, Cheers, Frasier, Everybody Loves Raymond thank you! Niles: God is forgiving, Miss Fine. When I was a boy, I once took five shillings out of the collection plate at church for toffee. Fran: And nothing happened to you, right? Niles: That's right, absolutely nothing. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go wash other peoples' underwear.

06-05-2017, 01:54 PM	#5
Svenfan1234 Member Forum Star Join Date: Dec 12, 2015 Posts: 11,200	Anybody know how the edited episodes (besides the Pilot, obviously) fare out on Me-TV? Are they still edited?
	__________________ [

06-05-2017, 05:53 AM	#2
Adamantium TVAdam No More Forum Veteran Join Date: Sep 11, 2002 Location: Springfield, Ohio Posts: 7,817	That was the big complaint with the season one DVD release is that it was the syndicated prints. So I'm surprised to hear that MeTV included that scene, since I figured it wouldn't be shown in the reruns either. Maybe they have the full versions and then cut them down the way they want to, instead of having the general syndicated version.

06-05-2017, 01:02 PM	#4
tvfreak1987 Member Forum Regular Join Date: Jun 10, 2009 Location: Jackson, MI Posts: 580	That scene was also left in the last time Me-TV aired it a few years ago.

06-05-2017, 02:19 PM	#6
stevea 22 Years On Sitcoms Moderator Forum Legend Join Date: Aug 13, 2003 Location: Indy Posts: 44,160	MeTV Is always edited (normally done well). When they have network versions available (which is a lot) (like My Three Sons, I Love Lucy, Brady Bunch), they always time out to 23:00 of episode time per half hour (this is excellent). So they cut out somewhat over 2 minutes (compare this to TV Land or Logo, which cut out over 5 minutes). When only the syndicated version is available (like Happy Days, Mama's Family), MeTV times out at 22 plus minutes, which is the standard syndicated version time. Antenna will sometimes air unedited versions (except for crunching the credits). Since most of their programs comes from Sony, they almost always have the syndicated version. Particularly on the older (like 50s) programs, most of the syndicated versions are old, and horribly edited.

06-05-2017, 05:30 PM	#8
stevea 22 Years On Sitcoms Moderator Forum Legend Join Date: Aug 13, 2003 Location: Indy Posts: 44,160	On several shows it appears that MeTV uses commercial DVDs as their source. Two good examples are Leave It To Beaver and The Brady Bunch. The clue on the Bradys is the inclusion, sometimes, of a slide at the beginning, The Brady Bunch in Color. (My clue on LITB is the Universal logo at the end, which Antenna didn't have). I can't imagine this original color Brady slide would be included on syndication copies, but it was on the first two season DVDs. So in theory MeTV could have run these episodes onto whatever medium they wanted, and edited them for 23 minute length. (I've home-use DVD edited enough of these shows to know that MeTVs standard show time per half hour is 23:00, with breaks of :30, 4:10, 2:10.) On shows from Viacom and Warners, with syndication copies as shown above at 22:30, there is more commercial time. The only question in my mind is how Shout could have screwed up these Rhoda episodes. It probably was one of their first efforts, and I know the same thing happened with the first season of Father Knows Best. I agree they need to correct it, and if they do it on Rhoda and FKB, I certainly hope they reissue the first season sets (so those of us who originally bought all the season set aren't forced to re-buy the whole series). (As a side note, with all the great technical info. above--it amazes me that Sony made absolutely no effort to "clean up" their old Screen Gems shows (like Father Knows Best and Burns and Allen)--same horrible, obvious edits that go back for years and years--end credits that don't go with the proper episodes--all kinds of old logos still attached at the end (except the original)...

06-06-2017, 02:27 PM	#11
stevea 22 Years On Sitcoms Moderator Forum Legend Join Date: Aug 13, 2003 Location: Indy Posts: 44,160	I looked up Comedy Gold on Wiki. It was formerly TV Land Canada, which Viacom sold and it was rebranded. Would really like to see that happen here, looking at what they do (it's what TV Land SHOULD be!) By the way, thanks for the tip, above...it's a good one for anyone who wants Rhoda as it should have been.

06-27-2017, 08:08 AM	#14
stevea 22 Years On Sitcoms Moderator Forum Legend Join Date: Aug 13, 2003 Location: Indy Posts: 44,160	The Comedy Gold episodes from season 1 have very low audio on the set I bought, plus a few video problems. Shout really does need to redo season 1, but I'm betting another poster has it nailed: they'll do the whole series, forcing those who bought season sets to buy it to get season 1 unedited.