SCTV on DVD Campaign

Shaw · 08-15-2006, 07:56 PM

I have put together an SCTV on DVD Campaign. This is a letter writing campaign that you can participate in. It's as simple as copying a sample letter on the site into your Word Processor, printing it, signing it and mailing it to Shout! Factory.

If enough fans all express their desire for the music to be restored to the series to the copyright holders themselves, then we may yet see complete and uncut DVD's. The only cost to you is a postage stamp!

SCTV on DVD Campaign
http://www.runstop.de/bennysplace/sctv/index.html

For an example of a very successful campaign, stop in at the Moonlighting on DVD Campaign!
http://www.moonlightingdvd.com/

We as the public must express our desire for complete DVD's and show to the copyright holders that our voice matters!

Shawn

David Bixenspan · 08-15-2006, 08:35 PM

Shout tries their best to get music cleared. That's pretty much their thing.

David Rain · 08-16-2006, 12:29 AM

I understand the idea behind this. Customers should always try to get the best product. But SCTV has been released on DVD in the best form that we're likely to ever see. They did the best with the circumstances. They can't just snap their fingers and magically make all of that music available to them. Some songs cannot be licensed.

What we need is the entire series back on television to help gain more and more fans for the show and boost the sales of the current and future DVD releases.

RoyM · 08-16-2006, 01:42 AM

When I saw the thread title I assumed that your petition/letter writing campaign was going to be more in the direction of getting the early SCTV seasons released in their entirety, as opposed to the "best of" format that appears to be on the horizon. I would be 100% in support of that.

But as the other posters have mentioned, Shout Factory did about as good a job as was possible to get the NBC shows out in complete form. While it would have been nice to have gotten them in absolute completeness, I don't think you can reasonably expect Shout Factory to re-release the previous sets with a few extra added seconds of missing music, no matter how many letters are sent. As it is, the word was that the last few Network 90's sets didn't sell as well as Shout had hoped, so it's beyond unlikely they would revisit them just to satisfy a few purist fans, even assuming they could somehow obtain the music rights that they were previously unable to.

I don't really want to be a discouragement, but my suggestion would be to direct your efforts toward a more realistic goal and try to get Shout Factory to do proper sets of the other unreleased SCTV seasons. You may find that there is more enthusiastic support among SCTV fans, and Shout Factory may ultimately be more receptive to your effort.

Jeff# · 08-16-2006, 07:42 AM

I've enjoyed SCTV Network 90's very much, although the music acts on those shows haven't impressed me. What was impressive is that the producers would wait so many years to get the music rights to the NBC shows as they did.....although it wasn't necessary. I've never seen the 45 minute Cinemax shows. Did they have any musical guests? Whether they did or not, Shout should just get those done and released. The same goes with the late 70s episodes from the first 3 years, only in that case it's only a matter of the occasional pre-recorded tune played during a sketch. Surely the surviving members of The Village People wouldn't object to Edith Prickley dancing to "Macho Man" in that 1/2 hour show.

**HTF Ads**

Radioman970 · 08-16-2006, 08:28 AM

I remember when Roy Orbison appeared on the show. Id really like to see that performance again. It turned me into a fan of Roy. I'd always been a fan of SCTV. The characters I wanted to see most were the Schmengie (sic?) Brothers. I understand a lot of their act was cut out.

I haven't bought SCTV sets yet but I'm looking forward to it. It's a shame they haven't sold well. I'm hoping the price will drop dramatically. Same for The Monkees sets.

streeter · 08-16-2006, 08:58 AM

Roy Orbison's appearance is on one of the sets already released. He performs two songs in the episode, so I think that part of the episode is intact.

The missing music is annoying and I realize that Shout! does what they can within reason. But what's scary is that the first three seasons are being released as 'Best Ofs' instead of the complete seasons. I ain't buying those... Plus, the Cinemax season was skipped over.

Mark Y · 08-16-2006, 09:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jeff#

I've enjoyed SCTV Network 90's very much, although the music acts on those shows haven't impressed me. What was impressive is that the producers would wait so many years to get the music rights to the NBC shows as they did.....although it wasn't necessary. I've never seen the 45 minute Cinemax shows. Did they have any musical guests? Whether they did or not, Shout should just get those done and released. The same goes with the late 70s episodes from the first 3 years, only in that case it's only a matter of the occasional pre-recorded tune played during a sketch. Surely the surviving members of The Village People wouldn't object to Edith Prickley dancing to "Macho Man" in that 1/2 hour show.

Actually, the last time I saw that episode air on TV (on NBC in the USA) that segment ("Cooking With Edith Prickley") was indeed edited, and in a bizarre way; when they got to the part where she sang a few lines of "Macho Man," the "rhythm ace" drum-machine beat thing was dubbed over the audio, and they did a weird speed-up forward and backward thing with the visuals for a few seconds. That was just plain weird. (That skit was repeated in one of the 90-minute shows on the Volume 1 DVD, and it's unaltered.) From the same season, the Farm Film Report guys did a parody of "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" which also included the Village People (as portrayed by Candy, Levy, Flaherty and Thomas) and that skit had all the guests (Randy Newman, Village People, Patti Smith, Helen Reddy) blown up on stage...but the latest edit of that episode (as aired on NBC) cut out almost the entirety of all the brief song clips. I'm pretty sure that skit is intact on the Volume 1 DVD set (it was repeated in an early 90-minute episode). I noticed some pieces of music changed on the DVDs that were left alone in the NBC reruns, and oddly enough, there were a few cases where the reverse was true.

It's ironic how just reciting a few bars of a song will end up requiring a license and royalty payment. I think it's only because of the success of TV shows being released in DVD sets that the copyright owners and their lawyer$ have even been paying attention to this at all. Back in the pre-DVD era, when the video industry was primarily focused on theatrical movies, far fewer TV shows got released at all (and mostly just a few episodes if that) and it wasn't a big thing and no one paid much attention to it. Now that it's a cash cow, everyone has their hand in the cookie jar. Even in something like "The Beatles Anthology," if they played an interview clip, say, of John Lennon talking about writing "Please Please Me," and he talked a little about one of his inspirations having been a Bing Crosby song, then he sang a line from it. Well, that song is named in the closing credits of the documentary, with the title, composers, publishers and "performed by John Lennon" or something like that. This is getting way off the subject, but one of Lennon's later home demos ("Dear John") had a section which some have suggested was lifted from "September Song." When officially released on the "Lennon Anthology," that part of the song was edited out...because the lawyers would be pouncing like vultures on raw meat!

I agree...quit gnashing teeth over the stuff that was cut from the 90-minute shows, because it was only cut because they either couldn't afford it or (as in the case of "Stairway To Heaven") the owners flat-out refused to license it to anyone at any price. It would be far more productive to encourage a full release of the first three seasons and the Cinemax shows.

Mark Y · 08-16-2006, 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by streeter

Roy Orbison's appearance is on one of the sets already released. He performs two songs in the episode, so I think that part of the episode is intact.

The missing music is annoying and I realize that Shout! does what they can within reason. But what's scary is that the first three seasons are being released as 'Best Ofs' instead of the complete seasons. I ain't buying those... Plus, the Cinemax season was skipped over.

Not only that, but there are no Season 1 episodes included in the listing that I've seen (which was on the SCTV Guide site, where it said it was not a definitive final list...probably there is a final list by now, but the last I read was pretty much the same).

It's mostly Season 3 shows, with a few Season 2 shows tossed in. There were rumors that Season 3 was to be released next, which I believe were prompted by an article mentioning that the producers had a problem trying to license a Neil Young song in one of the episodes. The cover art is a big disappointment to me. They can't find a group shot of the cast from that season? (Of course, this is mostly Season 3--with no Candy and O'Hara, and no Harold Ramis, but with Rick Moranis, Robin Duke and Tony Rosato; Duke and Rosato are probably a lot better remembered from SNL than SCTV, and at least Robin Duke probably did better work on SNL than SCTV.) John Candy probably has the biggest "marquee value" of the performers, and he's only in a few episodes in this set.

There are a lot of skits done in the first two seasons which I would think are considered among the best of the early years..."Fantasy Island," "Ben-Hur," "Leave It To Beaver 25th Anniversary Party," "The Man Who Would Be King Of The Popes," etc., which are not in these sets...I was thinking perhaps this means this is only a first volume (even though it doesn't say "Volume 1") and then I realized every skit I named above was repeated on the NBC shows, and is already out on DVD.

I think the sad truth is if we want anything more released, we need to be casting our votes by buying this. Like a lot of other people here, I am disappointed and frustrated that they aren't doing full seasons, but I look at it this way...what do I have now? Severely butchered versions of these episodes, with the opening theme changed, skits missing, skits swapped from one episode to another, etc. (I'm in the US; Canadian viewers got a slightly better version of the show.) If these shows are complete and have all the original titles, bumpers, skits in the right shows and in the right order, then I'm all over this.

Would I rather have them all? Yes.

Do I want *some* of them if that's what's being offered? YES.