Television Syndication (1 Viewer)

[greenscreened]

I couldn't find a relevant thread recent enough to reactivate (at least in the last eight years), to post this question in when I searched for either I Love Lucy, or Syndication/Syndicated in the title.

I then had thoughts of creating a catch-all TV/Movie thread, for misc. questions that didn't warrant creating a whole new separate thread for (like this one!), yet, if anyone had such a question, they may (or may not) feel better about posting it there. Would that premise be worthy of such a thread?

Anyway, BTT...

Were there two different syndicated versions of many or all of the I Love Lucy episodes?
I noticed back in the seventies, that sometimes, the beginnings seemed different, and then me thinking that I had never seen that episode before, until several minutes later!

If that were so, the only rational possibilities I could come up with were that there were in fact different edits, to help keep them fresh (so to speak), which could aid in watching them for the umpteenth time.
Way back then in LA, Lucy was broadcast six times a day, for the longest time, on two (or three) different channels...two @ 9am, 2 @ 11am, and 2 @ either 4 or 6pm.

The only other possibility was that I hadn't seen that particular episode in a long time, and it took me a while to remember it, which may be the more logical explanation?

 

[The Obsolete Man]

IIRC, back in the 70s, llocal channels did their own edits to the 16mm prints they bought. It wasn't until the 80s that the companies started providing standardized videotapes that came edited for syndication.

So you could watch the same episode on two different channels and see different footage in each episode depending on what the guy doing the editing in house decided was unimportant enough to cut.

I believe I learned this in a Star Trek thread with some people talking about different edits of various episodes on different channels in the New York area.

 

[jayembee]

It happens even these days. Some years ago, I was recording episodes of Naked City from Retro TV. Unsurprisingly, they were cut down by about 10 minutes. But in some cases, there would be problems in the cablecast, or the closing credits would get cut off too soon) so I'd make a point to re-record the screwed up ones the next time they came around. But some of them didn't come back around before the show disappeared from Retro TV. Later, it popped up on MeTV, and I would record ones I missed on RTV (which, for example, never showed the half-hour first season, while MeTV did) or had a screwed up recording.

Purely by happenstance, I noticed that with some episodes, the MeTV versions had scenes not in the Retro TV, and vice versa, even though both had pretty much the same running time. I haven't noticed this with any other shows, but only because this was the only show where I had recordings from two different sources.

 

[tsodcollector]

arthur the 1990s pbs children''s television series is in syndication on pbs,it's on every saturday and sunday mornings before i go to work.i've been a fan for years and years.now there's a whole new generation of fans are watching it for the very time.

 

[tsodcollector]

IIRC, back in the 70s, local channels did their own edits to the 16mm prints they bought. It wasn't until the 80s that the companies started providing standardized videotapes that came edited for syndication.

So you could watch the same episode on two different channels and see different footage in each episode depending on what the guy doing the editing in house decided was unimportant enough to cut.

I believe I learned this in a Star Trek thread with some people talking about different edits of various episodes on different channels in the New York area.

in the 70's mostly local channels did an amazing job editing on 16mm prints they brought.it wasn't until the 80's that movie studios started providing standard videotapes that came edited for syndication.

if you watch the same episode on local tv and cable/satallite and see different edits of various episodes on different local or cable/satallite channels in your local area.it was completly different.

i lived in indiana my whole life i've seen a lot of sitcoms and dramas with edits of various episodes on different channels in the hoosier area.