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Is the b&w era of TV on DVD slowly coming to an end? (1 Viewer)

FanCollector

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I am also puzzled about their not releasing season 3 of Bat Masterson, but they did include some season 3 episodes on the 24-hour set they released, so they must have rights and access to at least some of those shows. Maybe it will just be part of another wave of releases, as they are doing with In the Heat of the Night.
 

Jack P

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It's not B/W but as long as they've unstalled "Highway Patrol" and finished it they might as well finish out the only other MGM title that was part of the DVD-R series, which is "Flipper" (the original series) which needs just one more season to be complete. So far "Flipper" has been one of three 60s series to be stuck at one season left to go (the other being "Burke's Law" and "Flying Nun")
 

Vic Pardo

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Is there a complete list anywhere of b&w TV series that have been released? There are a lot of series I'm unfamiliar with from the '50s and '60s that I wouldn't know about to look up myself, but if I saw a list of what is available, I could research unfamiliar titles on my own. Every so often, in researching actors' credits on IMDB, I come across TV appearances in older b&w series that sound really intriguing, e.g. "Soldiers of Fortune," "Tightrope," "Checkmate," "Hong Kong," "The Aquanauts," etc. I'm guessing that some of these titles must pop up on YouTube so I could sample some episodes that way, but I imagine there's a lot of stuff that hasn't popped up in any format yet. I recentlly picked up a box set of 22 early "Dragnet" episodes from the 1950s and those are quite a revelation. It's the first time I've seen the earlier version of the show and I'm really impressed. I don't believe I've ever seen a TV crime show so intensely focused on the details of the investigation. I did a blog entry on one of the episodes, where Sgt. Friday and his partner track down a producer of "smut" to an abandoned movie studio and are treated to a tour of the place: http://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/dragnet-meets-sunset-boulevard/
 

ChrisALM

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Originally Posted by Randy Korstick
I'm wondering what the deal with Season 3 of Bat Masterson is. Its odd they did all of Sea Hunt and The 1st 2 seasons of Bat at the same time but not Season 3. Makes me think there is some sort of problem with Season 3. Hopefully not as I'm really enjoying the show and the quality is excellent.
I am wondering about Season 3 of Bat Masterson, too. I'm not really worried . . . yet . . . but it does seem odd to leave it unreleased. My Season 1 and Season 2 are supposed to be arriving tomorrow and I am really looking forward to getting started with the series. I missed most of the run when it ran on Encore Westerns.
I thought about Flipper, too. Maybe it will get finished now.
 

Regulus

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Looking at the contents of Shout! Factory"s Howdy Kids! A Saturday Afternoon Western Roundup I found out Of the 24 Episodes being offered 17 of them have already been released on various PD "Shovelware" Sets, including the Four 150 Episode Western Sets issued by Mill Creek. These are the ones NOT duplicated on the Mill Creek Sets I own. The Adventures of Rick O'Shay One Episode Stagecoach to Danger Fury Two Episodes Killer Station & Scorched Earth The Range Rider Two Episodes Convicts at Large & Bullets and Badmen Red Ryder One Episode Whiplash The Adventures of Buffalo Bill Jr. One Episode Blazing Guns Just to let you know if you already own the other western sets.
 

Richard V

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Vic Pardo said:
Is there a complete list anywhere of b&w TV series that have been released? There are a lot of series I'm unfamiliar with from the '50s and '60s that I wouldn't know about to look up myself, but if I saw a list of what is available, I could research unfamiliar titles on my own. http://briandanacamp.wordpress.com/2013/01/27/dragnet-meets-sunset-boulevard/
This list is by no means complete, but here are some of the series either completed or partially released in one or more season sets. Also some of these shows had started in B&W before converting to color. The majority of them are released by Timeless Media and Shout. The Untouchables Route 66 Maverick Cheyenne Tales of Wells Fargo The Tall Man The Restless Gun Gunsmoke Wanted: Dead or Alive The Lieutenant The Gallant Men The Twilight Zone The Outer Limits Laramie M Squad The Texan Mr. Lucky Checkmate Sea Hunt Highway Patrol Going My Way Bat Masterson Riverboat Alfred Hitchcock Presents Bewitched The Gene Autry Show The Deputy 26 Men The Adventures of Jim Bowie Cimarron City Destry Frontier Circus Hopalong Cassady Soldier of Fortune Overland Trail Wagon Train Whispering Smith The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp The Real McCoys Man With a Camera 87th Precinct Johnny Staccato Mike Hammer Arrest and Trial Andy Griffith Show Brenner The Lawless Years Medic I Love Lucy State Trooper Coronado 9 Yancy Derringer Confirmed as soon to be released or rumored to be so: Stoney Burke Tombstone Territory West Point The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis Dr. Kildare Again, not by any means a complete list, but will help you see what's out there.
 

Regulus

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Richard V said:
This list is by no means complete, but here are some of the series either completed or partially released in one or more season sets. Also some of these shows had started in B&W before converting to color. The majority of them are released by Timeless Media and Shout. The Untouchables Route 66 Maverick Cheyenne Tales of Wells Fargo The Tall Man The Restless Gun Gunsmoke Wanted: Dead or Alive The Lieutenant The Gallant Men The Twilight Zone The Outer Limits Laramie M Squad The Texan Mr. Lucky Checkmate Sea Hunt Highway Patrol Going My Way Bat Masterson Riverboat Alfred Hitchcock Presents Bewitched The Gene Autry Show The Deputy 26 Men The Adventures of Jim Bowie Cimarron City Destry Frontier Circus Hopalong Cassady Soldier of Fortune Overland Trail Wagon Train Whispering Smith The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp The Real McCoys Man With a Camera 87th Precinct Johnny Staccato Mike Hammer Arrest and Trial Andy Griffith Show Brenner The Lawless Years Medic I Love Lucy State Trooper Coronado 9 Yancy Derringer Confirmed as soon to be released or rumored to be so: Stoney Burke Tombstone Territory West Point The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis Dr. Kildare Again, not by any means a complete list, but will help you see what's out there.
Add Tate and Stories of the Century to that list. Yes, you'll have to get all of the Mill Creek "Shovelware" Western Sets (That's Western TV Classics, Ultimate TV Westerns, Essential TV Westerns and Western TV Treasures for those of you in Rio Linda! :D), but nonetheless they're there.
 

Vic Pardo

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Richard V said:
This list is by no means complete, but here are some of the series either completed or partially released in one or more season sets. Also some of these shows had started in B&W before converting to color. The majority of them are released by Timeless Media and Shout. The Untouchables Route 66 Maverick Cheyenne Tales of Wells Fargo The Tall Man The Restless Gun Gunsmoke Wanted: Dead or Alive The Lieutenant The Gallant Men The Twilight Zone The Outer Limits Laramie M Squad The Texan Mr. Lucky Checkmate Sea Hunt Highway Patrol Going My Way Bat Masterson Riverboat Alfred Hitchcock Presents Bewitched The Gene Autry Show The Deputy 26 Men The Adventures of Jim Bowie Cimarron City Destry Frontier Circus Hopalong Cassady Soldier of Fortune Overland Trail Wagon Train Whispering Smith The Life and Legend of Wyatt Earp The Real McCoys Man With a Camera 87th Precinct Johnny Staccato Mike Hammer Arrest and Trial Andy Griffith Show Brenner The Lawless Years Medic I Love Lucy State Trooper Coronado 9 Yancy Derringer Confirmed as soon to be released or rumored to be so: Stoney Burke Tombstone Territory West Point The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis Dr. Kildare Again, not by any means a complete list, but will help you see what's out there.
Great list! Quite a few unknown entities that sound intriguing (Frontier Circus, The Lawless Years), a number I've heard of but have never seen (M Squad, Man with a Camera), and several more I enjoyed in childhood but haven't seen since (Highway Patrol, Yancy Derringer). This'll keep me busy for a while. Thanks!
 

Richard V

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Here are a few more: Have Gun, Will Travel, Life With Elizabeth, One Step Beyond, Honey West, Burke's Law, The Buccaneers, Father Knows Best, Perry Mason, Peter Gunn, Playhouse 90 (various episodes), Rawhide, Naked City, Dennis The Menace, I'm Dickens, He's Fenster, My Living Doll, Get Smart, and Steve Canyon. I'm sure there are more, but I can't think of them.
 

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^Get Smart was in color from S1. Here are a few more that were B/W the entire run or started as B/W before switching to color: Abbott and Costello Show, The Addams Family, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The (50's) Adventures of Sir Lancelot, The Adventures of Superman Beverly Hillbillies, The Car 54, Where Are You? Combat! Dangerous Assignment Daniel Boone Dick Van Dyke Show, The Donna Reed Show, The F Troop Flipper Gilligan's Island Goldbergs, The Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. Hazel I Dream of Jeannie Leave it to Beaver Lone Ranger, The Lost in Space Man from U.N.C.L.E., The Mr. Ed Munsters, The My Favorite Martian One Step Beyond Patty Duke Show, The Petticoat Junction Phil Silvers Show, The Secret Agent (aka Danger Man) Sherlock Holmes Thriller Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea Wild Wild West, The William Tell Zorro
 

FanCollector

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The 1965-1966 season (when both Get Smart and Hogan's Heroes premiered) was the transitional one. The season before that, there were just a few color series. The following season, all three networks went full color (apart from some news stuff). But I imagine that in the 1965 pilot season, there were some back-and-forth decisions being made about which series warranted color.
 

Neil Brock

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Hank was another show which shot a black and white pilot and then went color for the series. I believe Please Don't Eat The Daisies was the same thing.
 

Gary16

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Neil Brock said:
Hank was another show which shot a black and white pilot and then went color for the series. I believe Please Don't Eat The Daisies was the same thing.
So were the pilots for the short-lived Tammy and Ok Crackerby on abc.
 

BobO'Link

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FanCollector said:
The 1965-1966 season (when both Get Smart and Hogan's Heroes premiered) was the transitional one. The season before that, there were just a few color series. The following season, all three networks went full color (apart from some news stuff). But I imagine that in the 1965 pilot season, there were some back-and-forth decisions being made about which series warranted color.
There were. If I did my math correctly there were 13 new B/W series, 24 new color series, 36 returning shows in color, and 23 returning/news/game shows in B/W. Quite a few of the returning B/W series that season were "studio bound" (game shows, newscasts, etc.) or series in their last season. I've wondered how many of those B/W series in their last season knew it would be the last season going in or decided at the end of the season a switch to color would be too expensive and just ended. A couple which could have benefitted from color that inagural year are The Wild Wild West, and I Dream of Jeannie. Another that started B/W that year but switched to color the next is F Troop. I believe those three are the only series which premiered in B/W during the '65-'66 season which survived to become color in the '66-'67 season. Considering that NBC was a *major* player in the push towards color it's surprising that first season of I Dream of Jeannie was in B/W. IDOJ and Convoy were the only 2 B/W series on the NBC schedule that season. CBS had 15 while ABC had 19 (with 21 actual B/W slots as Peyton Place aired 3 times a week). Surprisingly it would be the 1966-67 season when Bewitched would go color. Considering the ratings it pulled in the first year (#2/31.0 in the Neilsens') you would have thought this would have been an automatic color order in the '65-'66 season. Irwin Allen's Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea went color that year while his new series, Lost in Space, started as B/W. I find it a bit odd that both had a more serious tone during that B/W season and once color arrived so did the camp factor. While I like both series and all seasons of them I much prefer the more serious first seasons of both and often wonder if the tone of each would have stayed more true to their first seasons had they continued in B/W. It would be a couple of years before I'd see *any* of those in color at home. We got our first color TV in 1967 (a HeathKit model my dad and I assembled).
 

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ahollis said:
^Get Smart was in color from S1.
1st season was in black and white. Starting with season 2 it was in color.
FanCollector said:
1st season was in black and white. Starting with season 2 it was in color.
Just the pilot episode was black and white. The rest of season one was shot in color.
JoeDoakes said:
Just the pilot episode was black and white. The rest of season one was shot in color.
Hogan's Heroes was the same way. Kind of odd.
I'm sure it was simply to not waste that episode. While the general trend was towards color production (especially so if you were selling to RCA/NBC) it was also more expensive. If you were marketing to CBS or ABC (Get Smart was originally pitched to ABC) you do your pilot in B/W thinking that's what the network will want but at the last minute the network wants color so you switch to color stock for the series. Having already shot that pilot that you expected to air as the first episode of the series you do not reshoot (too expensive and the network will not finance the reshoot) so you just air it as is. After all, most people were still watching in B/W so it wouldn't be too bad or even noticible by the majority of viewers. It was the early 70s before color sets began to outsell B/W sets and 50% of the viewing public had a color set.
 

FanCollector

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Thanks for the stats, Bob. They provide an interesting perspective on that transitional year. One series that seems to have undergone the soul-searching you suggest was Perry Mason. A tenth season was a possibility and they filmed one episode in color toward the end of the 1965-66 season as a test. Ultimately, the series ended that year anyway, but that episode is like a little glimpse of an alternate future for the show. I Dream of Jeannie was, apparently, not a favored child of the network. They had very little confidence in it at the beginning and would not offer a very high license fee. I don't think they expected it to last. Excellent point about Bewitched. I guess it shows how reluctant ABC was to go color. At least they knew enough not to do the first season of Batman in black and white! I do wonder in particular about The Addams Family and The Munsters. They were borderline shows going into the 1966-67 season and if they hadn't required a fortune in redesigned sets and make-up for color, perhaps they could have lasted longer.
 

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It was interesting that "Ozzie and Harriet" went to color in the 65-66 season but "The Donna Reed Show" which followed it did not. Both shows finished out their final season that year by moving to Saturday night.
 

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