Where is 77 Sunset Strip?????

bobPON · 05-02-2006, 10:03 PM

Come on Warner Bros. please release the greatest detective show of all time. While your at it how about Surfside Six, Hawaiian Eye and Bourbon Street Beat. Who owns the rights to Burke's Law and Honey West. The need to be released also.

Bob Hug · 05-03-2006, 09:48 AM

If I remember correctly, "77 Sunset Strip" was being considered for a "try out" as part of Warner Home Video's "Television Favorites" samplers, but nothing has ever come about. Of the shows that you mentioned, I'd guess that "77 Sunset Strip" would have the greatest chance for release.

I know it's not much, but as for "Burke's Law," there is a single episode ("Who Killed Jason Shaw?") that is floating around on some public domain TV collections from the likes of Diamond Entertainment and St. Clair Entertainment Group and, of course, this episode comes from a 16 millimeter syndication print.

Charles H · 05-03-2006, 10:10 AM

If you go to imdb.com and enter HAWAIIAN EYE, hit the "dvd" on Amazon.com you get the "e-mail me when available" option. Same thing on CENTENNIEL. WB and Universal are at lest sending out feelers on these titles.

Michael Alden · 05-03-2006, 11:32 AM

Buried along with most of the other Warner Brothers owned shows from the 50s and 60s. Too old, too little exposure over the last few decades, bad demographics. All of these would be their reasons for not wanting to put it out. My suggestion, record them or get someone to record them for you from American Life Network. A much better method than waiting for WB to do anything with them commercially.

Burke's Law and Honey West are both owned by Fox, through their purchase of the 4 Star Library. In spite of what people here think about Fox being so good (at putting out insipid crap like Buffy and the like no doubt), they avoid anything black and white like the plague. The only 4 Star show they seem to have an interest in is Big Valley, which is all in color. I think both of these shows would do pretty well actually, although they both fall prey at times to the Aaron Spelling curse of cheesy scripts and inept plotlines. HW has remained a cultish show, due in no small part to the fact that Anne Francis was the sexiest detective on 60s TV. BL has an appeal due to the amazing amount of great guest stars in each episode. That could be sold on the guests alone.

Bob Hug · 05-03-2006, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michael Alden

Burke's Law and Honey West are both owned by Fox, through their purchase of the 4 Star Library. In spite of what people here think about Fox being so good (at putting out insipid crap like Buffy and the like no doubt), they avoid anything black and white like the plague.

The exceptions being season 1 of "Lost in Space" and season 1 of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea." But were it not for the Sci-Fi/cult appeal of those two Irwin Allen shows, you're right, Fox really hasn't done anything with black and white shows. Among the majors, Paramount probably has the best track record for black & white shows ("I Love Lucy," "Have Gun Will Travel," "The Andy Griffith Show," "The Honeymooners" and "Gunsmoke") and they have planned releases for "Wild Wild West," "Sgt. Bilko," and "Rawhide." As the major studios go, that's not a bad track record but it's really unfortunate that the other big studios have not followed Paramount's lead. It was good to see that Warner's did make a commitment to the George Reeves "Superman" series and they will be releasing black & white season 1 sets of "Cheyenne" and "F-Troop" in June, but they have such a great library of memorable series from the late 1950s/early 1960s that one wishes they would take a closer look at their library and at least try to release a portion of it for the Boomer audience before too long.

**HTF Ads**

michael_ks · 05-03-2006, 02:01 PM

Quote:

The exceptions being season 1 of "Lost in Space" and season 1 of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea." But were it not for the Sci-Fi/cult appeal of those two Irwin Allen shows...

And the fact that both these shows went to color the next season--that crossover benefits fans of series which aired prior to 1966 and lasted into the color years. Overall, I feel more confident though over certain series e.g. "Daniel Boone" (1 B&W season, 5 Color) being released vs. "The Fugitive" (3 B&W, 1 Color), but then "Fugitive" has the benefit of being one of the most revered tv series of all time, which gooses its chances some.

A & E is the one company that comes to mind that did the reverse in releasing b&w/color series. They released all color episodes only of "The Saint" , followed much later by 28 of the 71 B&W segments, thinking initially that there'd be no market for them. Now how can you misread your audience and not realize that fans of "The Saint" by and large prefer the earlier episodes which were based on the actual Leslie Charteris stories?

I thank my lucky stars for every B&W season that gets released to a series on my want list, because I fear the days are numbered. When Blu-Ray and/or HD become the norm, I just don't envision a complete "Sea Hunt" on one of those discs--but I could be very wrong. By the way, I would purchase all the series mentioned on this thread (excepting "Hawaiian Eye"). Why is that? Because of the greatness that was 1960's tv entertainment, along with the fine acting of Efrem Zimbalist Jr., Van Williams, Richard Long, Anne Francis, etc.

JeffWld · 05-03-2006, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Bob Hug

The exceptions being season 1 of "Lost in Space" and season 1 of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea." But were it not for the Sci-Fi/cult appeal of those two Irwin Allen shows, you're right, Fox really hasn't done anything with black and white shows.

If you boil it all down, the much-loved Fox hasn't done very much with their back catalog of color shows either. MASH has been one of the few exceptions. They have relied on the MTM library properties while ignoring shows that they themselves originally produced. They even offloaded "The Ghost And Mrs. Muir" to MPI.

Bob Hug · 05-03-2006, 02:26 PM

At least "The Fugitive" is in the hands of Paramount which tends to be a little more "color-blind" when it comes to classic TV shows than the other major studios. Given Paramount's track record with classic TV shows, I really believe it's just a matter of time before they release this. They've proven that they're not afraid to release black & white shows.

Bob Hug · 05-03-2006, 04:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeffWld

. They even offloaded "The Ghost And Mrs. Muir" to MPI.

I'd really like to see the major studios do more of this with their classic/vintage TV series if they (the majors) don't want to release the series themselves. In another thread I mentioned that Universal had done this in the early days of DVDs with a number of their theatrical films . . . they had licensed a portion of their film library to companies like Image, Anchor Bay, and even the budget Goodtimes label. I just don't understand the logic of keeping classic shows buried in some film vault when, with a little marketing savvy (that many of the independent releasing companies can provide), many of these shows could be earning them some money rather than no money as is the current situation with many vintage shows continuing to sit dormant in the vaults.

Michael Alden · 05-04-2006, 10:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by michael_ks

A & E is the one company that comes to mind that did the reverse in releasing b&w/color series. They released all color episodes only of "The Saint" , followed much later by 28 of the 71 B&W segments, thinking initially that there'd be no market for them. Now how can you misread your audience and not realize that fans of "The Saint" by and large prefer the earlier episodes which were based on the actual Leslie Charteris stories?

Of course anyone who is familiar with the show knows that the black and white episodes are far better and more entertaining, even though they may not have had as big a budget. The color ones tend to follow more of a formula. Now, what is A&E doing about the remaining 43 shows? Or do we have to buy them from another country?

michael_ks · 05-04-2006, 04:54 PM

Quote:

The color ones tend to follow more of a formula. Now, what is A&E doing about the remaining 43 shows? Or do we have to buy them from another country?

In color, "The Saint" became too pretty and light in tone. Many stories center on cliched villians and contrived plots. In B&W it was just a nice mystery based series. I am tempted to purchase the Umbrella Entertainment sets from Australia, just as I did when I so badly wanted to get ahold of the ITC series from '67, "Man in A Suitcase".