Cancelled TV Shows DVD Release Dates (1 Viewer)

[Neil Brock]

My point for breaking shows up is very simple - taping era vs pre-taping era, Of course its debatable as to when the taping era actually begins. I know people who starting archving shows in their collection going back to the mid-70s, prior to Beta and VHS. But at $30 for a one-hour tape, it was too expensive for anyone to record a significant amount and they had to be very choosy. So, lets say 1982 as the point when a good number of people started recording programs off the air. So for me, that's my cutoff point, 1982. After that, if you have the right contacts, you can find just about any show you want recorded off network broadcasts. Pre-1982, not so easy. Classic is too debatable a term. To someone 20 years old, a show from the 1990s is an old classic. To me, the 90s were last week. Too subjective. Much easier to divide it into home recording era and pre-home recording era.

BTW, I don't care how bad TV is now or how much worse it gets, The Brady Bunch is NOT a classic by any definition of the word. It's a pedestrian little show that somehow found a niche in syndication which allowed it to turn into this ubiquitous thing that won't die and won't go away. Maybe because it was a 50s show being made in the 70s and as such it is really the only 50s type show that exists in color.

 

[Jeff Willis]

Yeah, 1982 sounds about right; I agree with you on that year. I remember that's when I bought my 2nd VHS deck, a Panasonic. My 1st one was that original 1978 RCA VHS deck with the ancient mechanical "piano keys" for record/play/stop, etc.

I did keep a few shows taped back then but didn't have the storage space for many of them.

Brady Bunch: I guess that's in the eye of the beholder I personally don't collect the show but I'm guessing that there's some here that like the show.

 

[Joe Lugoff]

About what's classic, and what isn't:

Everyone has their own "classic" period. Isaac Asimov once said that anyone's Golden Age is when they were 12.

But we can't communicate well if words mean different things to different people.

For instance, the "classical" period in music is generally accepted as running from 1750-1820, or so, although many "classics" were certainly composed before and after.

Having been born in 1950, my own truly "classic" period ends in 1965.

By the strangest coincidence, I often see that year used as the ending year of the "classic" period for many things (including network television, for many reasons).

For instance, look at the name of this new book by Leonard Maltin: "Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide: From the Silent Era Through 1965."

Personally, I think network television's Golden Age ran through the 1964-65 season, with its Silver Age extending I guess to 1974-75, give or take a season or two. I can't relate to the word "classic" being applied to anything later than that.

Of course, I can't expect everyone to go along with that, but I do think a good case can be made that by the mid-1960s, many factors contributed to the Golden Age of television being gone forever.

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff /img/forum/go_quote.gif
Isaac Asimov once said that anyone's Golden Age is when they were 12.

That's a great quote.
Personally, I like to define classic TV by its quality rather than its airdate. Obviously, for the pruposes of this thread, you have to give it a time frame though.

 

[Gary OS]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Joe Lugoff
Having been born in 1950, my own truly "classic" period ends in 1965.
Personally, I think network television's Golden Age ran through the 1964-65 season, with its Silver Age extending I guess to 1974-75, give or take a season or two. I can't relate to the word "classic" being applied to anything later than that.
Of course, I can't expect everyone to go along with that, but I do think a good case can be made that by the mid-1960s, many factors contributed to the Golden Age of television being gone forever.

I just got in, via being born in March of '65, on the "classic" bandwagon, Joe. LOL
In all seriousness, I like your designation of "Golden Age" and "Silver Age" TV. I'm not gonna argue with that at all because I do think when TV generally went to color there was a shift on several levels.
One of the big reasons I gravitate heavily toward 50's and early to mid 60's TV
is because there were standards in place that kept language clean; kept "sexual situations" and skin to a minimum; kept hippie lifestyles at bay; and kept stupid things like fart jokes and toilet flushing out. Once we got into the 70's and Norman Lear got into the act all of that began to change. Some think it was a change for the better. I'm not one of them. So I gravitate toward the era where I don't have to worry about material offending me very much, and that was the b&w era. To each his own, but that's where I stand.
None of that is to say that everything went to pot after TV went to color. The 70's still had some fine, clean shows that didn't depend on four letter words, or sex, or potty jokes to succeed. That's undoubtedly why I'll take The Brady Bunch (as an example) over All in the Family any day of the week. It may have been a retread of the 50's, but that's not a bad thing in my book. So I'm not one that exclusively buys 50's/60's material. It's just that shows from that era tend to be much more interesting to me and much less offensive, in general. But everyone has there own standards on such things so I'll leave it at that.
Gary "the best Christmas episodes are almost always from the 50's or 60's too" O.

 

[michael_ks]

Joe, I enjoyed reading your post and agree with everything you wrote with minor adjustments to the close of one era and the beginning of the next. Personally, I break the TV eras according to these time frames:

Golden Age: up to 1963
Silver Age: 1964 - 1974
Bronze Age: 1975 - 1984
Copper Age: 1985 - 1991
Tin Age: 1992 - 2002
(What's cheaper than tin?): 2002 - present

 

[TravisR]

Originally Posted by michael_ks /img/forum/go_quote.gif

(What's cheaper than tin?): 2002 - present

I doubt many people knocking modern shows have actually seen them but with the quality of shows on today, I would argue that TV is easily at its best since the 1960's.

 

[Gary OS]

Good to see you, Michael. /img/vbsmilies/htf/smile.gif
Gary "take care, buddy" O.

 

[michael_ks]

One of the big reasons I gravitate heavily toward 50's and early to mid 60's TV
is because there were standards in place that kept language clean; kept "sexual situations" and skin to a minimum; kept hippie lifestyles at bay; and kept stupid things like fart jokes and toilet flushing out. Once we got into the 70's and Norman Lear got into the act all of that began to change. Some think it was a change for the better. I'm not one of them. So I gravitate toward the era where I don't have to worry about material offending me very much, and that was the b&w era. To each his own, but that's where I stand.

Standing right there with you, Gary. But then, you already knew that.

 

[smithb]

.

 

[Neil Brock]

Originally Posted by michael_ks /forum/thread/294898/classic-tv-release-date-thread/120#post_3654762

Joe, I enjoyed reading your post and agree with everything you wrote with minor adjustments to the close of one era and the beginning of the next. Personally, I break the TV eras according to these time frames:

Golden Age: up to 1963
Silver Age: 1964 - 1974
Bronze Age: 1975 - 1984
Copper Age: 1985 - 1991
Tin Age: 1992 - 2002
(What's cheaper than tin?): 2002 - present

Aluminum?

 

[Neil Brock]

Originally Posted by Gary OS /forum/thread/294898/classic-tv-release-date-thread/120#post_3654758

Quote:

One of the big reasons I gravitate heavily toward 50's and early to mid 60's TV
is because there were standards in place that kept language clean; kept "sexual situations" and skin to a minimum; kept hippie lifestyles at bay; and kept stupid things like fart jokes and toilet flushing out. Once we got into the 70's and Norman Lear got into the act all of that began to change. Some think it was a change for the better. I'm not one of them. So I gravitate toward the era where I don't have to worry about material offending me very much, and that was the b&w era. To each his own, but that's where I stand.

/img/vbsmilies/htf/thumbsup.gif/img/vbsmilies/htf/thumbsup.gif/img/vbsmilies/htf/thumbsup.gif

 

[Ethan Riley]

Originally Posted by Jeff Willis /forum/thread/294898/classic-tv-release-date-thread/90#post_3654638
I agree with Gary & Mike. Ethan, great thread! If you get a chance, it would be interesting to list by decade even though we all know there will be some crossover shows into decades, ie "Perry Mason", "Mannix", etc.

Hi, Jeff--I did break it down finally. Have a look at the original post. I placed the shows under the decade in which that particular season came out, not the decade in which the series began. That's the only way to do it for very long-running shows, like "Dallas" or whatever, which began in the 70s and stopped in the 90s.

 

[Ethan Riley]

Quote:

Originally Posted by smithb
I like the use of Golden Age TV as a way of representing the late 1940's through early/mid 1960's. The benefit is that it is well defined and not subjective like "classic". I'm not sure of the other age's as I could not find anything to substantiate their distinction.
Personally, I think we should just use Golden Age of TV to reference those titles within that period of time, and classic as titles that helped set the standard at their given time. So, LITB, Happy Days, and Seinfeld are all classics of their particular era's. While LITB is a classic to the Golden Age. Remembering that not all titles during the 50's and 60's are necessarily classics.

The definition of "classic" for purposes of this thread is any show that is no longer on the air, and that is getting a dvd release. That's about all. (Made a small exception for Law and Order, because its upcoming release is of a 1990s season). The reason for this is that it's better than making 5 or 6 different threads; fans can simply track their favorite older shows on the original post.
The reason all these shows spanning 50+ years are clumped together is because their appearance on dvd has become somewhat rare in the past couple of years. I began it because people were coming onto the message boards saying things like, "there's NO older shows coming out on dvd these days, oh woe, oh woe," and I was like, "Are you sure? I thought there were like 50 upcoming releases...what is everybody moaning about?" And I did the research and sure enough--there's tons of stuff. Not as much as in prior years, but enough to keep everybody busy.
Tvshowsondvd.com tracks everything, but if we want to continue our collections, we need to give the older shows special attention and encourage the studios to continue releasing them. And by keeping track of them, we may possibly be increasing awareness of their existence and encouraging others to try them out (doubtful, because forum members are well-informed, but we can and should be telling our friends). That's all we can do. And we should be doing it, even if solely for selfish reasons, because if others go out and buy these dvds, there will be more dvds. We need to draw attention to older shows on dvd because the current shows are the ones that get all the marketing tie-ins, special editions at Wal-Mart and Target, and are far easier to find in the stores. They don't need our help; the older stuff does.
And as I've stated, "classic tv" to me has nothing to do with the era in which the show was produced. "Classic" to me means any show that caught my attention when I saw it. There are some shows I watched that were okay, but didn't really press any buttons; they were just filler to me. (There's plenty of shows on this list that I don't personally care for, but other people love them, and it would terribly unfair of me to leave them out *cough* [SIZE= smaller]Small Wonder[/SIZE] *cough*). But "classics" were shows that managed to capture my imagination in some way, whether I was 10 years old or 40. I was born in 65 and spent a good part of my childhood enjoying stuff from the 50s, 60s and 70s. I watched loads of older sitcoms after school, and enjoyed many, many then-current shows when primetime came around. I was quite the couch potato in my youth. I didn't watch a terrible amount of tv in the 80s and 90s but there are those few shows I enjoyed and still enjoy. As for today, there's about a good dozen on-air shows that I'm interested in, and actively collect on dvd. It makes no difference to me when a show aired--if I think the show is good, I want it on dvd. For this reason, I'm not about to use anyone else's definition of "classic" for this thread, be it the forum members' definitions or a notation from wikipedia. Every show is a "classic" to someone.

 

[David Lambert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by David Lambert
You want something from that era? Sure thing, catch you tomorrow! As for the studios mentioned..."none of the above".

How does "My Favorite Martian" AND "The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo" (the latter being one of those surprises for me that I mentioned will often happen) sit with you?
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Favorite-Martian-Season-3/13271
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Mr-Magoo-In-Sherwood-Forest/13270
As a bonus I also got full-sized box art for Marcus Welby, too:
http://www.tvshowsondvd.com/news/Marcus-Welby-MD-Season-1-Box-Art/13269

 

[David Lambert]

By the way, since there is so much debate over what the definition of "classic" should be here, I thought I would toss in my 2¢ worth and tell you how I define it for my purposes (i.e., my write-ups at TVShowsOnDVD). One of the dictionary definitions for the adjective "classic" is "of literary or historical renown". So when I say that Brady Bunch or NYPD Blue are "classics", they are certainly of historical renown in the TV industry (each for different reasons). By that token, Cop Rock is a classic, of sorts (but perhaps for more infamous reasons..."classically bad" as many would say). When we get to shows like Leave It To Beaver or Star Trek or I Love Lucy or My Favorite Martian, I have been known to up the ante to the word "legendary" from time to time!

 

[The Obsolete Man]

What the hell, man?

Is Christmas a month late for classic TV on DVD fans?

My Favorite Martian season 3. Well, that's another one off the abandoned list.

So, anything for tomorrow, or have we pushed our luck too far for the week?

 

[Ethan Riley]

Originally Posted by David Lambert /forum/thread/294898/classic-tv-release-date-thread/120#post_3654865
By the way, since there is so much debate over what the definition of "classic" should be here, I thought I would toss in my 2¢ worth and tell you how I define it for my purposes (i.e., my write-ups at TVShowsOnDVD). One of the dictionary definitions for the adjective "classic" is "of literary or historical renown". So when I say that Brady Bunch or NYPD Blue are "classics", they are certainly of historical renown in the TV industry (each for different reasons). By that token, Cop Rock is a classic, of sorts (but perhaps for more infamous reasons..."classically bad" as many would say). When we get to shows like Leave It To Beaver or Star Trek or I Love Lucy or My Favorite Martian, I have been known to up the ante to the word "legendary" from time to time! /img/vbsmilies/htf/biggrin.gif

Well I think we'd call something like Cop Rock a "cult classic." That, or Quark, or When Things Were Rotten. Silly, short-lived shows all, but fondly remembered by their fans.
Btw--did you know that the originator of this thread once worked as an extra on Cop Rock? Way, way back--almost 20 years ago...

 

[David Lambert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ethan Riley
Btw--did you know that the originator of this thread once worked as an extra on Cop Rock? Way, way back--almost 20 years ago...

No, I had no idea about that, Mr. thread originator! /img/vbsmilies/htf/smiley_jawdrop.gif

 

[Joe Lugoff]

Originally Posted by Gary OS /forum/thread/294898/classic-tv-release-date-thread/120#post_3654758

Quote:

One of the big reasons I gravitate heavily toward 50's and early to mid 60's TV
is because there were standards in place that kept language clean; kept "sexual situations" and skin to a minimum; kept hippie lifestyles at bay; and kept stupid things like fart jokes and toilet flushing out. Once we got into the 70's and Norman Lear got into the act all of that began to change. Some think it was a change for the better. I'm not one of them. So I gravitate toward the era where I don't have to worry about material offending me very much, and that was the b&w era. To each his own, but that's where I stand.

I agree with every word you've said here, 100%.

I used to watch "All in the Family" in the 1970s, and liked it well enough --- but when you'd hear a toilet flushing, and the audience would scream with laughter, I'd think, "What an easy way to get a laugh from some people." I wondered if "I Love Lucy" would have been a better show if they showed Fred Mertz coming out of the toilet, or had an episode about Lucy having an abortion, and I could only conclude, "Absolutely not!"