Season 3: First Glance--Some Good, Some Mediocre . . .

[CJ]

My DVD's arrived today and I am for the most part pleased. The picture seems a little grainy, but I only viewed them on my computer. My main interest was the run times. The majority are 25+ minutes. Out of the 39 episodes, there are six episodes cut to 22+ minutes and another one is 23+ minutes because Bub singing "Caroline In The Morning" for 1:54 is cut out. It can be found intact on a TV Land episode.

I paid no attention to the music as it doesn't matter to me. I was too young to remember the "real" music, so I don't even bother with it. However, there is a notice on the back and I will screen cap it below. Apparently, for music sticklers, the music has been changed.

Just happy they went ahead and released another season and it is primarily uncut, which is my ultimate goal with this series.

Here are the run times per episode.

Season 3 Volume 1
Disc 1
25:42 / Weekend In Tokyo (9/20/1962)
22:27 / Robbie's Employment Service (9/27/1962)
25:43 / Tramp's First Bite (10/4/1962)
25:24 / Moment Of Truth (10/11/1962)
22:27 / Daughter For A Day (10/18/1962)
25:41 / The Ghost Next Door (10/25/1962)
25:42 /Pretty As A Picture (11/1/1962)

Disc 2
25:42 / What's Cooking? (11/8/1962)
22:27 / Chip's Last Fight (11/15/1962)
25:44 / Steve Gets An "A" (11/22/1962)
25:43 / Heat Wave (11/29/1962)
22:43 / The Beauty Contest (12/6/1962)
25:41 / Doctor In The House (12/13/1962)
25:41 / Going Steady (12/20/1962)

Disc 3
25:41 / Mother Bub (12/27/1962)
25:42 / Honorable Grandfather (1/3/1963)
25:42 / How To Impress A Woman (1/10/1963)
25:41 / Roman Holiday (1/17/1963)
22:38 / Flashback (1/24/1963)
25:42 / The Dream Book (1/31/1963)


Season 3 Volume 2
Disc 1
25:08 / Big Chief Bub (2/7/1963)
25:41 / Clunky Kids (2/14/1963)
25:43 / Caged Fury (2/21/1963)
25:43 / Make Way For Yesterday (2/28/1963)
25:42 / Robbie Wins His Letter (3/7/1963)
25:43 / High On The Hog (3/14/1963)
25:41 / First Things First (3/28/1963)

Disc 2
25:42 / Bub's Butler (4/4/1963)
25:44 / Francesca (4/11/1963)
25:44 / The Rug (4/18/1963)
25:42 / The System (4/25/1963)
25:42 / Let's Take Stock (5/2/1963)
25:44 / Total Recall (5/9/1963)

Disc 3
22:31 / When I Was Your Age (5/16/1963)
25:41 / Chip's World (5/23/1963)
23:46 / Evening With A Star (5/30/1963) 1:54 Song Cut
25:43 / The Date Bureau (6/6/1963)
25:42 / Bub's Sacrifice (6/13/1963)
25:43 / Found Money (6/20/1963)

[Hazel Anyday]

My first reaction, I'm sickened and disappointed, BUT not surprised. My surprise would have been if they DIDN'T cut out the music. The dirty #$!)*#*&s. Removing the original background music ruins the show for me, it IS that important.

But with that out of my system, I'm very happy that at least most episodes are complete, though why there are so many 22 min. shows is a mystery to me. I will have to watch my old Sons recordings to see if there was some reason for it. Thanks goodness for Family Channel, Nick @ Nite and TV Land.

[stevea]

On another thread someone posted that the music wasn't replaced on this release. Of course they cut "Carolina" if they cut Bub singing in the Croaker. I made posts before wondering why they would cut a song which was copyrighted in 1929 (Carolina...). Then when I checked further, I found its copyright was renewed and won't expire until 2025. They may have wanted an arm and a leg to license it, but CBS/Amazon also wanted an arm and a leg for these DVD sets ($70 IS an arm and a leg for 1 season of a sitcom).

As far as the incidental music goes, it all depends on when they brought that in-house and had DeVol compose it. I don't remember when I first heard that familiar opening/transition music (which, once DeVol wrote it, was used in different arrangements for the rest of the series) but it strikes me it was in season 4. Music written for the show shouldn't have to be cut.

In any case I got the set today, and I'm looking forward to seeing how well they generally did.

Another thing I was thinking about: I wondered why they restarted M3S on DVD after 11 years. My theory is that MeTV may have wanted improved masters. But who knows?

[CJ]

I will be interested to know if you thought the picture was little grainy. And, maybe you can tell at a glance about the music since the back of the box says it was replaced, but someone says otherwise.

[stevea]

Well, I screened a little of Weekend in Tokyo, and the incidental music sounds like something that would have been original to the episode.

I also screened the beginning of Tramps First Bite. The music at the beginning was music I've heard on tons of other shows from that era, like Ozzie & H, Dennis, etc. This makes me think there were probably not any incidental music substitutions. Good news!

I screened a little of Employment Service, 3-2, a syndication cut. I think it had degraded audio, from the little I checked.

The picture quality is passable. I'd place money that these episodes were not remastered using either a 35mm original print, or the original negatives. The PQ looks like what you'd see on MeTV. Also, if they had used originals, there wouldn't be any syndication cuts.

IMO, they used fairly good quality (B), complete (when available) 16mm masters, and 16mm syndication masters (not as good quality) when a complete episode was not available. You sometimes see a slight waver of the image, something that would be corrected in a good remaster. Sometimes it's stated these episodes were never syndicated. That's probably not true, since older copies of them have Viacom logos attached at the end.

I'm glad to have the generally-unavailable complete episodes. I think the price could have been somewhat reduced, since a full-blown remastering evidently was not done.

[Hazel Anyday]

Well, I'm feeling better now if you recognized some of the original music being used. Maybe it's going to be like other CBS TV releases where they'll replace some background music but leave others alone. My guess is that's just what they're doing otherwise they wouldn't bother with that disclaimer on the back cover.

As for the question, why after 11 years is season 3 now available, maybe it's Me TV we can thank. Surely having the show on everyday now for several years must have increased people's awareness of the program not to mention creating brand new fans of the show of people who may never have heard of it before till Me TV started showing it. This was why I was so glad to see Hazel return to TV when Antenna started up, before that young people had never heard of Hazel. Now Hazel's on FETV as well. It's always a good thing when older shows come back on the TV schedule so that new people can discover it and become just as much fans as us old timers. Especially shows that were missing from TV screens for decades before now.

I will be happy to finally see uncut episodes of the new season 3 of the Sons program, just for all the uncut episodes it will be worth buying. Though I too hope the outrageous price now will come down in 6 months. By the way, with the exorbitant prices they're charging, why couldn't they have included the original Bub music, as expensive as these DVDs are they should be able to afford a few bucks for a 1916 song. Now I'm getting mad again, thinking about it. But OK, I'm still going to buy for the uncut episodes. So I's happy.

[stevea]

I'm betting no music substitutions were done. Just "Carolina..." and maybe some other cuts we haven't found yet (although nothing else stands out in episode length).

I think Frawley and Vance performed that song on ILL. Bet CBS footed the bill to license it for that DVD release.

[Svenfan1234]

Originally Posted by stevea

I'm betting no music substitutions were done. Just "Carolina..." and maybe some other cuts we haven't found yet (although nothing else stands out in episode length).

I think Frawley and Vance performed that song on ILL. Bet CBS footed the bill to license it for that DVD release.

The 25 min episodes are complete, but the 6 22 min episodes and the 1 23 min episode are clearly not.

[stevea]

Unfortunately, the 6 22 minute episodes are syndication cuts, and the 23 minute episode is the network version minus the Carolina song.

[CJ]

I had to know, so I simultaneously ran all three sources for the six 22 minute episodes this afternoon.

All six episodes were edited identically on TV Land, ME-TV and the new CBS official release. It also seemed like the background music was also the same on all of them.

Makes me wonder if the people who claim that Nick-at Nite ran ALL the episodes uncut could be mistaken, and that there may have been a few episodes on Nick's run that actually were only 22 minutes.

[stevea]

I'll bet you're right. The same is probably true with any station/channel that ran S7, with those few episodes that are syndication length near the end of that season. Probably ALL that's available are the syndication episodes, unless CBS goes into the archives and actually remasters the episodes.

We can expect the same, if they put season 4 and 5 on DVD.

S8 thru 10 and the first half of S11 should be all full-length, with the last half of 11 and all of 12 another mixture of full-length and syndicated (unless they clean up their act by then).

[CJ]

Time will tell if they continue with S4 & S5. I would still be happy with a few syndicated episodes to get the majority of the others uncut.

This Season 3 release was so unexpected that it gives me hope they will continue.

You are right and I forgot about those few S7 episodes being shortened on those local channels that ran them. Probably should expect the same thing if we get that far. Honestly, I am happy with those uncut S6-S10, and might not even bother with spending the $$'s if they continue releasing them beyond S5.

[1960'sTVfan]

Since there are edited episodes in the 22 minute range, it's a no sale for me although I'm not a big My Three Sons fan anyway, only mildly curious to see the episodes. If all the episodes would be uncut I might have gone for it.

[stevea]

Originally Posted by CJ

Time will tell if they continue with S4 & S5. I would still be happy with a few syndicated episodes to get the majority of the others uncut.

This Season 3 release was so unexpected that it gives me hope they will continue.

You are right and I forgot about those few S7 episodes being shortened on those local channels that ran them. Probably should expect the same thing if we get that far. Honestly, I am happy with those uncut S6-S10, and might not even bother with spending the $$'s if they continue releasing them beyond S5.

I'd be happy if they skipped 6-10 and went right to 11 and 12.

[stevea]

Originally Posted by retroTVfan4ever

Since there are edited episodes in the 22 minute range, it's a no sale for me although I'm not a big My Three Sons fan anyway, only mildly curious to see the episodes. If all the episodes would be uncut I might have gone for it.

You might consider Vol. 2, which has only 1 syndicated episode. The other 5 are on Vol. 1.