Can you name episodes of TV shows that have been edited on DVD? (1 Viewer)

[Carlos Garcia]

It's getting to be a scary trend, but more and more shows being released on DVD have episodes with scenes that have been cut for some reason. Off the top of my head I can name The Mary Tyler Moore Show first season Christmas episode. Originally there was a scene with Mary in the office watching a Christmas show on TV. The TV is playing the song "White Christmas", and at the end of the song, Mary sings along with the final bars..."May your days be merry and bright, and may all your Christmases be white"...then she took a dramatic pause and shut the TV off. The DVD shows her singing "May your days be merry...and immediately they cut to her shutting off the TV. This sounds minor but in reality it had an impact on the episode as the original version made you feel her loneliness more. This is starting to become a scary trend on DVD. I just recently bought the LOST IN SPACE season 1 set, and found a scene cut where Will Robinson is back on earth. Originally he ran into the sherrif who said something like..."wait a minute young fellow"...now they immediately cut to Will in the next scene. I have also been told that several episodes of the show SOAP have also been cut. Is this becoming a trend in the DVD market? Who can we complain to? Why are all these shows being cut? Can anyone else name any scenes from TV shows that have been cut on their DVD release?

Carlos

 

[Bill Williams]

Paramount's 2-disc release of The Real World: The Complete First Season had all of the end credits footage cut from each episode. While it was at times superfluous footage, it still would have been nice to see the episodes kept intact from their original telecast versions. For that matter, some of the episode intros were cut as well, I would say about two-thirds of the episodes were missing their intros. And don't even get me started about the music rights, an ugly bear unto itself...

Several weeks back my wife picked up a DVD of the Sony DVD Lassie: Best of Jeff's Collie, and the first episode on the disc had some obvious cuts to it. The fadeouts and fade-ins were too obvious in places, and they sure weren't for commercials.

 

[Ben_D]

Most of "Little House" Seasons 3 and 4 have been cut, and the cuts are the same as the traditional syndication cuts seen in reruns. The company that produces them say they're just using what NBC gave them. I think these shows have been neglected for so long, sitting around in cut-for-syndication form, that people either can't find the missing footage or they aren't bothering to look for it....but that's just my guess.

 

[Eddy-C]

The big intro of "The Gift" on the Buffy Season 5 dvd comes to mind.

 

[Mark To]

Apparently what is happening is that these companies have edited tape masters which they send to stations for broadcast. They are taking these and then sending them off to be transferred to DVD. No one is checking these shows because the attitude probably is that 99% of the public is too stupid to know any better. They are just not willing to put in the time, money and effort to go back to the original 35mm fine grain negatives and re-transfer these shows. This reminds me of what happened in the 80s when Star Trek was put on VHS. Paramount took the 46:30 pre-cut syndication tapes and threw them out on tape. The ST fans went ballistic and Paramount was forced to go back and issue the uncut 51 minute versions of the show. But that's Star Trek and we know how fanatical their fans are. Unfortunately Lost in Space fans (of which I am one) do not carry the same clout. So Fox released what they had on tape, cuts or otherwise. It was not important enough of a product to them to go back to the negatives. My first big DVD buy was the I Spy series and the first episode I watched has a climactic fight scene cut by 1 minute. I checked my tape from a run in the early 80s (complete) and saw the missing scene. Unfortunately the property changed hands and the people who own the show now don't even own the negatives and they just went off of their tape transfers from a few years ago. When I called the company (Peter Rodgers Organization) they sounded more pissed that I was questioning them than they were that they had released a lousy product. I have not A/B'd the rest of the series but the running times are all over the place so imagine a good portion of them are cut. I can't get rid of my VHSs now.
Another show, which I have discussed here, is My Favorite Martian. The pilot episode is time-sped to 22 minutes. Gord says Rhino will look to correct it for the box set. I will wait and see. I haven't seen their Lone Rangers but I wouldn't be surprised if they are the 22 minute syndication versions the same as Encore ran. Going back to the master sources costs a lot of money and these companies want to make as much profit as they can. For the people like us that notice, there are far more who don't know the difference. There aren't enough of us and these companies do not have pride in their product to do it for that reason. So they take what they have and throw it out there.

 

[RobinO]

Ben - thank you for pointing out that the LH DVD's have been edited. I was starting to seriously think about purchasing all the seasons on DVD but if the episodes or chopped up then what is the point of spending all that money to own them - especially when as a huge fan of the show I would notice all the edits. I can tape it off of tv and fast-forward thru the commercials for free.
When I purchased the "unedited" Rich Man Poor Man on VHS they had done the same thing - cut out a scene that was critical (in my eyes anyways).

Robin

 

[Gary Seven]

Star Trek TOS episode "The Tholian Web". Some seconds of conversation editted in sickbay.

Not a show but a movie that was editted, much to my chagrin, was Timerider. How could they possibly edit a movie on DVD?

 

[ScottR]

Roots has been edited.....looks like it was taken from a syndication print or a re-run.

It was originally 8 episodes and each episode had opening credits superimposed over action that helped to tell the story....missing on the dvd.

The dvd is also missing all of the original end credits and the end of all the opening credits.

 

[LindseyS]

Saved by the Bell is edited too. Apparently there is a part in "Jessie's Song" where Screech is dressed up as Sinead O'Connor and Kelly says something to the extent of "You had a few hit records, too" which was cut. Also, the opening scene of "The Mamas and the Papas" was cut as well.

 

[ScottR]

Two episodes of Soap were taken from cut syndication prints, and a couple of other episodes are missing songs sung by the characters. Also, one episode is missing the recap at the beginning.

 

[Randy Gray]

What or how many Soap Season 1 episodes have been edited? If this keeps up I may have to just stop buying TV shows. As much as I would like to own all the shows I grew up watching, what's the point if they're just putting out what's being shown in syndication?

- Randy

 

[David_Blackwell]

The first episode (Dark Knight Part One) on the Forever Kinght season one DVD set was the edited US version where the other 22 episodes were the uncut versions from Canada.

Be Seeing You,
David Blackwell

 

[Rick P]

Let's not forget the JFK Pez dispenser and the Osama show tunes bits from Family Guy

 

[Steve...O]

On the Avengers Mega Emma Peel set, there apparently were a few seconds of footage missing from one single episode. It didn't bother me much because nothing critical was missing but I know it did bug some diehard Avengers fans.

I agree with Carlos that this is a disturbing trend.

Steve

 

[Chris:L]

Oh, boy.. I hope this doesn't go mainstream on all tv shows... they'd be killing their own franchise.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

I seem to remember someone mentioning that some episodes of Sanford and Son were edited on the DVD release, but I don't recall which ones, it was here at HTF though I know that for certain.

I still think a great number of the shows we see aren't edited, and Matt Groening thinks that's a real big selling point for the Simpsons DVDs. Friends is another 1 that has footage added back in to each episode.

 

[Charlie O.]

If ask me, editing TV shows on DVD kills the point of releasing them in the first place.

 

[Carlos Garcia]

I'm curious about the Mary Tyler Moore Show. The scene I mentioned previously was obviously cut, but from all I've read, I was under the impression that they re-mastered the entire first season. This is why we (the fans) are being punished for poor sales, by Fox not releasing the rest of the show...because re-mastering was so expensive that Fox lost money on the poor sales of the set...Anyway, if the show was completely re-mastered, doesn't this mean the transfers were made from the original 35mm fine grain negatives? If so, does this also mean the original negative was somehow cut, and is missing the original footage? It really is frustrating. I mean, the whole reason for buying a TV show on DVD is to own it complete and uncut. If not, we could just watch it on syndication right?

Carlos.

 

[Joshua_W]

I'm unfamiliar with the MTM show, but is it possible that the cut had to with music rights since it seems to have occurred during a song?

Other series have had music changed and/or removed as well, and the music rights are even apparently preventing some series (such as Miami Vice and WKRP) from being released at all.

Another cut series I've heard about is "Angel" (on this forum, actually). It seems that, since they have seen fit not to include the "previously on" intros, that they've actually trimmed scenes thad bled in from the intros.

 

[Bill Williams]

Another TV show that was edited for its DVD release was the first Star Trek pilot, "The Cage". While the very first home video release from 1986 utilized both color footage (used in the 2-part "Menagerie" episode) and black-and-white footage (from Gene Roddenberry's surviving workprint) to reconstruct the original pilot (and that version is on Vol. 40), the second home video release of "The Cage" from 1988-89 integrated most of the located color footage once thought missing. The edit comes off a bit haphazard at times, and the audio track for that print is the same as on the hybrid version from 1986.

I say this because the third version of "The Cage", the one that's on the current Vol. 40 DVD, restored some more bits of footage, music stems, and other audio stems from "The Menagerie" and the original workprint, while other brief portions of footage and audio stems were edited from the pilot. All together, about 30 seconds of footage was edited out of the 64-minute pilot.

These reconstructions occurred as a result of Roddenberry's only color master of "The Cage" being cut apart in 1966 for its inclusion in "The Menagerie". So technically we can add "The Cage" to this list.