Leave it to beaver season 3? - Page 15

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Here's a heartbreaker for me: About 20 years ago, my local PBS station ran "Leave It to Beaver" every night at 10:30. They were in broadcast order, UNCUT, and with NO COMMERCIALS. (They ended at 10:56).

Taping was brand new to me, and I didn't even think of undertaking the project of taping every episode. At 234 episodes, 5 a week, that would have taken 47 weeks to get them all. It's quite a commitment.

Season Sets on DVD are a dream come true --- but it turns into a nightmare when studios abandon series.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Yes, a select few PBS stations in the 80s ran some off-network series complete and uncut. That's how I got my Science Fiction Theatres. Some have come out, like Dick Van Dyke and The Untouchables so it was a crapshoot as to what to record. Even then, shows like The Fugitive were given to them on pre-cut tape as that was the only was the syndicator was making them available to anyone. But yes, that would have been great if you recorded Beaver uncut back then. I don't think Universal is going to be giving them all to us. But, you never know with them. Look at how many series they've re-started after several years. They are if nothing else, quite unpredictable.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Do you guys know how many Crazy Eddie commercials I had to sit through when I was taping those Beaver episodes off the NYC station?!?!

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

I was real young when I'd see those Crazy Eddie commercials but I still remember them. Didn't he end up doing time for fraud or embezzlement or something?

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Just wanted to bump this thread...my way of "givin' the business" to Universal, and also to add one more voice to the crowd. If anyone at Universal can hear me: We haven't forgotten about the huge injustice that is the discontinuation of the LITB series on DVD. Please, please release seasons 3-6 or give the rights to someone who will!

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Love the Xmas tree popping up. Great stuff. That kind of stuff made late night TV a blast to watch. I was watching SCTV the other day and was reminded about how REAL late night TV was. And speaking of Beav, SCTV did that great LitB skit. "Eddie's really giving me the business..." "Oh, why don't ya kill em?"

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

I love the later years of the series. Personally, my favorite seasons are 3, 5, and 6. I'm particularly fond of season 6, especially the episodes that focus on Eddie and Lumpy. The scene where a frustrated Fred Rutherford screams into the phone at Lumpy ("Tell 'em...tell 'em you're a BIG BOOB!") would practically be worth the purchase price of that entire season.

If it boiled down to a forced choice, I'd happily trade in my season 1 DVD set of LITB for a pristine, uncut season 6 set...a release that may never hit store shelves, unfortunately.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Almost the same thing here, but years before unfortunately. Pat Robertson's flagship station for the Christian Broadcasting Network, WYAH in Portsmouth, Virginia (WGNT today, channel 27), slowly began moving from an all religious format in the late 60s.

Their first non-religious shows were "Mister Ed" at 4:30pm (start of their broadcasting day back then), "Leave it to Beaver" at 5pm, and a syndicated version of "Queen for a Day" at 5:30pm. During the earliest months of these telecasts, there were no sponsors--nothing but PSAs. There were no edits either--the commercial breaks were 60 seconds each, which actually left "Queen for a Day" ending several minutes before 6pm each day.

I'm truly sorry that home video recording was little more than an "in the not too distant future" stage for most of us back then. Only episode that I ever recorded from those telecasts was "Captain Jack," on reel to reel audio tape.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

I used to tape a ton of TV onto reel-to-reel back in the late 60s and early 70s!

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

As much as I adore the entire run of this show, and love those first couple of years when the boys were smaller, I'd do exactly the same thing you would: Trade my Season 1 set for a Season 6 set. And I'd do it without one bit of hesitation.

Gary "unfortunately it doesn't work that way" O.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

I just feel that at some point, whether from Universal or through another company, someone will have to put the rest of the series out. I don't have any inside information on this, just a gut feeling.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

There may still be hope, here"s why. Last month, amazon had a sale on both seasons, 19.99 each season.The sales ranks more than quadrupled!!! Before the sale , the 2 seasons were anywhere from number 3,000-5,000 in amazon sales rank.During the sale they went as high as 300 !!!!!!!!!!!!!! So that proves the only reason, that the 2 seasons had crummy sales were the 49.99 retail price.Now im not saying season 3 should cost 19.99, but put it at a retail of 39.99, where amazon would charge 29.99 or so.Then it would sell good.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

I think you're right. Even I, as much as I love this show, held off until I found a good price -- which happened only less than two months ago, when I found both sets on sale at Deep Discount when they were running a 20% off promotion.

The sets were sale priced at $19.59 each, and at 20% off, I got each one for a cool $15.67.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

That's great news. I haven't purchased either set yet. But if the price was $30 or so per set I'd grab them without hesitation.

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I've got to post this. Someone finally put the Beaver "Purina Dog Chow" commercial on YouTube. I've been looking for it for a while. And am I revealing my age if I admit I remember when the Purina Dog Chow box looked like that? They didn't redesign it until probably the mid-'70s.

YouTube - Leave It To Beaver Cast for Purina Dog Chow

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

No news...just posting to keep this thread alive, and to trigger some discussion on potential ideas for convincing Universal to continue releasing LITB on DVD... It has been two years since season 2 was released...

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

We can't convince them! It lost money for them ... that's that.

We need to talk them into giving the rights to Beaver (and other shows) to outside companies.

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I agree that they should give another company a shot, but maybe they are having second thoughts , because beaver season 2 sales, skyrocketed in December at amazon.com, when they had it for 19.99.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

We can hope!!!

I really hope they release all the seasons of this wonderful show. I got tired of watching the way TVLand is nowadays, with more commercials, bugs all over the screen during the show, pushing the end of the shows to the side for more advertising, etc.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Well, I'm revealing my age when I admit Miss Landers is still hot!

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Perhaps if they didn't have such an asinine internal billing system which charges $5000 an episode per transfer then they wouldn't have lost money. If you are going to be billing almost $200,000 before you even start authoring the DVDs then of course you are going to show a deficit.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

$5000 per EPISODE??!?!?! Hank, are you serious? I heard it was an absurd figure, but no wonder Universal are the kings of abandoned series. They could always outsource transfer work to someone who charges reasonable prices.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Do you recall how long your local PBS station did this? Did they get through all 6 seasons? How did they manage to get uncut prints of the show? This would be an amazing and wonderful accomplishment on its own!!!

Jack

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Yes, they got through all six seasons.

I'm under the impression that for some series, at least -- back in the "old days," at least -- local stations were sent complete prints and did their own cutting of them. I might be wrong about that, but I remember when "I Love Lucy" went into syndication, my local channel tended to just hack the first three to five minutes out of it, so I assumed they were doing their own cutting.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Syndicators did get uncut prints and cut them at their discretion...or not. Then they switched to tape and now you can only get the cut versions.

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I wish Paramount released this, we would probably have all the seasons by now.

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Considering that LITB S5 and S6 are among the BEST of the series, they have to finish this set! I would just keep calling, e-mailing, writing, Universal to beg and plead for them to keep releasing the series! There are SOOOOOOOOO many classic episodes:

OK to keep this thread alive, I will ask, what episodes aren't out yet on DVD from Seasons 3-6 are you looking forward to the most in their complete uncut format? I am looking forward to all of the episodes with Lumpy and Fred yelling at him! "Wally's Practical Joke" would be a GEM uncut!

I love that episode where Lumpy puts the cherry bombs in Wally and Eddie's cars, than they get revenge by tying Lumpy's car to a tree and the thing falls apart on him and he cries out "Daddy!!! Daddy!!!" But TV Land goes to a commercial and when they return we see Lumpy and "Daddy" in the middle of a conversation, so something might be cut there! Fred's like, "Did you wrap this chain around you're rear axel?" Lumpy says, "Why, would you think that, Daddy?" Fred, "It just sounds like something you'd do!!!"

Than Wally and Eddie later on try to help fix Lumpy's car and Fred wants Clarence to do some of the work, and Wally's line, "Um, Mr. Rutherford, we're coming along pretty well here, ummmm PLEASE don't make Clarence help us!!" LOL!!!

Fred: "Yes, I see your point!"

Lumpy: "Well what should I do, Daddy?"

Fred: "You can go in the house. But whatever you do, DON'T PRACTICE YOUR STUPID TUBA, YOU'RE MOTHER'S TRYING TO SLEEP!!!" (Priceless!!!)

Those are some of the funnies lines, EVER!!!

Jack

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Wow, you must be either a really big fan or LitB freakto remember that.....

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

Yeah, that episode "Wally's Practical Joke" is my favorite of all time. I remember watching it when it originally aired in 1963 and was laughing so hard my stomach hurt when the rear axel was completely torn loose from Lumpy's car. That was great fun. Eddie Haskel and Lumpy Rutherford could sure make a person laugh.

Re: Leave it to beaver season 3?

"Leave It to Beaver" was an amazingly consistent series. Some episodes are better than others, but the quality was pretty even over all.

The only episode I really dislike is the one where Beaver gives his father's new suits to charity. I think it was shown near the very end of the series, but I believe it was actually filmed the season before. They probably knew it was below par and held off showing it.

Oddly enough, the ONLY episode I truly remember seeing when it was first shown was the all-time classic when Beaver climbs up into the big bowl of "soup". I never forgot it, and years later it seems to be the episode most people mention when talking about their favorite episodes.