Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5? - Page 2

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

That presents a problem, though. It's been discussed here how this show's previous sets had cuts and music substitutions because they were too cheap to pay music rights (for instance, "White Christmas" in Season One.) So it's possible the whole "One for My Baby" thing won't make it to the DVD. (Which would be outrageous, of course.)

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

That may be one of the reasons for the long delay for season 5 and the rest.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

it does seem like its been a long time, season 4 was released in june....

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

I would say the fact that they have no scheduled release date does not bode well for it being anytime in the near future. When I've inquired with studios in the past about sets that were forthcoming, if they didn't have a firm release date, I've at least gotten a ball park such as "early spring" or "late fall", which sets forth the understanding that there are definitive upcoming plans to release the set.

No word on MTM-S5 is bad news for me because I was really looking forward to Season 5 having thoroughly enjoyed the previous 4 I've collected to date.

Hopefully FOX will get at least one of the remaining 3 seasons out before the end of the year.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

So they were "too cheap" to pay for music rights. I guess there's no chance the rights holders were "too greedy" or asked "too much" those same rights. I assume you know the actual dollar amounts involved nad their impact on the profitability estimates for the DVDs since you're able to conclude that the studio was "too cheap"?

I'm pretty sure that "White Christmas" remains the single best-selling record of all times (over 50 million copies were sold of the Crosby 1947 Decca recording alone if I'm not mistaken), as well as one of the most-recorded songs of all time, so it is quite possible that the Berlin Estate or whoever controls the rights asked more than Fox could afford to spend.

I'm always surprised at the intimate knowledge of music costs and DVD negotiations that even the most casual DVD fan seems to have these days...

Regards,

Joe

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

The Berlin songs are controlled by the Rodgers and Hammerstein Organization, I do believe. They don't ask for any outrageous fees. I read on this forum, and in other places, that Fox was just trying to save money on the MTM sets. It's not "intimate" knowledge, but I'm not quite the uneducated $%#@ you make me out to be.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

And as we all know, everything we read on this forum and the rest of the internet is always true.

I wasn't making you out to be ignorant, I was making a general comment on the tendency of fans in numerous threads here and elsewhere to reflexively assign blame for every music problem to the studios as if they were in the room during the negotiations.

Now I haven't made any special study of the MTM issues and it may well be that you know more about this than I do. But it is a dead certainty that you know less than the folks at Fox. You have heard some internet gossip, which may or may not be true. Neither one of us is in a position to know for sure.

Regards,

Joe

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

Well, regardless of reason, it's cut, and that's all that matters.

One can only hope that season 5 comes out uncut. If not, I for one will pass on it.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

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Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

White Christmas was present on a season 2 King of the Hill episode on DVD.

Though it's another studio, Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better was on a season 1 episode of The Nanny on DVD.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

As always, without explicit knowledge of how the deals for the song were originally negotiated, it's apples to oranges.

Also, "King of the Hill" is a far, far better seller than "Mary Tyler Moore."

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

That's right. I had forgotten that sales for Mary were so low that the show was "on the bubble" and in danger of not getting past the first season at all. That would certainly affect how much Fox felt they could afford to invest in it up front, as well as given the rights holder an incentive to weight the deal in favor of the up front license fee rather than royalties on each unit sold. On a show like King of the Hill Fox's could afford to spend more against expected higher profits and the rights holder may have gone for a bigger percentage of higher sales and a more modest up front fee. As you say, every deal is unique.

Regards,

Joe

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

I agree, 20th Century Fox IS cheap...why else haven't we already seen Batman the TV show out? Because they're holding out for a fortune from WB...Which they're not about to shell out...Translation: FOX IS CHEAP!

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

"White Christmas" was cut from the FIRST season of MTM, before they knew it wouldn't be a big seller. Also, IIRC, the SRP was $60. When I add "high price" to "not paying for a song that others have paid for", I can only come up with "cheap". Of course, I might be wrong, but that goes without saying for anything anyone says here --- we don't have to repeat that every time.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

I believe that Fox was using the versions of this show -- and all other MTM shows -- that were prepared in the late '90s when MTM was going under. That's when they replaced every song with generic music, and cut out others (hence the "White Christmas" butchery). If reports are accurate, WKRP will be the first MTM show that is released in a different version from those late-'90s versions (because the late-'90s version of that show is so bad that everybody noticed it).

The good news is that that butchered version of Mary Tyler Moore did manage to retain the songs in the "Murray Can't Lose" episode (including "One For My Baby"), so if the DVD ever comes out -- a big if -- I'd expect it to be intact.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

The MSRP was $50, but still, do you really think the owners of one song would charge a different fee for that same song for two different shows owned by the same company?

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

Do you really think the wouldn't. Again, every deal is different. Do you think someone might pay different prices to place ads in two different newspapers owned by the same company? If one has a circulation of 100,000 and the other has a circulation of 10,000,000, you're damned right they would.

Regards,

Joe

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

Sometimes, it could happen precisely because it was already used by the same company. I was working on a show where we wanted to clear a song that (I hadn't realized) our music supervisor had already cleared for another show for the same company, two seasons earlier. He thought it would be a piece of cake, but his request was greeted with hostility. He was never entirely clear what the issue was, but apparently the people who owned the song were unhappy with the deal they'd agreed to last time, or the way the song was used, or simply its over-use... but whatever it was, they turned down the request flat (for the exact same song, for the same company). When we approached them again, a few days later (hoping things had calmed down), they quoted an outrageously high price. We used a different song.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

So does anyone know if Mary Tyler Moore been sidelined AGAIN?

Things looked so encouraging for a while with S-2 in 7/05, S-3 in 1/06, and S-4 in 6/06, I was hoping S-5 would follow this past January in keeping with that pattern. NOT!

There are listings on TSOD for upcoming TV-DVD releases as far forward as June, yet still no word on MTM-S5.

News anyone?

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

I hope Fox will keep this on the schedule for this year. Season Five and Six are my favorite of the entire show. All the other major studios seem to be putting out more oldies this year except Fox. What gives? According to someone else on this board Bob Newhart Show is off the schedule so will that effect the MTM Show? I hope not. Fox gets my Bronx cheer of the year!

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

I called the Fox home video toll free number to inquire for myself about the status of an MTM-S5 release.

The rep who answered said that it has not yet been scheduled. I followed up by asking whether that meant it would NOT be released, OR, if that meant it WOULD be released, but they had just not yet said a date.

Her response, "That means it MIGHT be released."


If any others of you are interested in calling to inquire, or express your desire to see this set released, the number is: 888-223-2FOX.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

Please finish Mary, Fox!

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

I was searching this on Wikipedia. It stated on the main MTM page: "The first season of the series was released to DVD in North America in 2002, after which it was initially announced that no further seasons would be released in that format. Three years later, however, in July 2005, the second season was released on DVD. Season 3 was released on January 17, 2006, with season 4 following on June 20, 2006. Citing low sales figures, Twentieth Century Fox has announced that no further seasons will be released."


Yet, on the DVD Release info page it stated: "20th Century Fox has released the first 4 seasons of The Mary Tyler Moore Show on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time. It is not known when the remaining 3 seasons will be released."

And where it showed the releases it showed:
Cover Art DVD Name Ep # Release Date Additional Information
The Complete 1st Season (1970-1971) 24 September 24, 2002 Commentary tracks for "Love Is All around" and "Support Your Local Mother" (1st disc), and for "1040 For Flight" (2nd disc)
The Making Of Season 1
CBS promos and Emmy Awards clips
Trivia Challenge game

The Complete 2nd Season (1971-1972) 24 July 26, 2005 Commentary on select episodes
Mad Magazine Parody: The Mary Tailor-Made Show
All-Star Trivia Challenge
"8 Characters in Search of a Sitcom" documentary
"Moore on Sunday" documentary
"Newsbeat Segment" docucomedy
Theme song karaoke track

The Complete 3rd Season (1972-1973) 24 January 17, 2006
The Complete 4th Season (1973-1974) 24 June 20, 2006
The Complete 5th Season (1974-1975) 30 TBA 2007
The Complete 6th Season (1975-1976) 30 TBA
The Complete 7th Season (1976-1977) 28 TBA


And beside the 5th season, it says TBa 2007. it's very confusing. I'm very confused. Will it be released or not?

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

Given the quotes Fox just made about the MTM dvds in the recent stories about WKRP in Cinncinati on dvd, I'd say most probably NOT. I hope they change their minds, but they came back and gave us three more seasons to prove better sales, and the sales went DOWN. The first four seasons of MTM sold 375,000 units (the same amount as the FIRST SEASON alone of My Name Is Earl), with each subsequent season selling less than half of MTM's first season (which only sold 150,000 units). I would love for them to release the whole series just for historical purposes alone, but they won't. They are in business to make money, and why sell something only a few of us want? I was crushed to read those figures, because I had held out hope it would come out sometime. And who knows, maybe it will.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

Everytime I see this thread get bumped up I hope its good news.

Anyway...

Some of my favorite episodes are in those last three seasons. Including one of my favorite series finales of all time. Man, I hope FOX finds a way to release the rest of the series. Hard for me to believe that one of best and most respected comedies of all time is having all this trouble getting out on DVD. I guess it's a miracle that The Dick Van Dyke Show got out.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

I'm wondering why, compared to other '70s shows like "All in the Family," "Sanford and Son" and "M*A*S*H," "The Mary Tyler Moore Show" has become so unpopular.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

I don't think it has anything to do with MTM being unpopular - it still holds as one of the very best sit-coms ever. I hope I'm wrong in this, but could we be seeing a saturation in DVD on TV genre? When tv shows I love(d) came out on DVD in complete season sets, I was thrilled buying ALL my favorites. But then the studios started screwing around with re-releases of shows in complete series format, which made consumers think of buying season sets, especially if they were so much cheaper per season [Buffy and MASH for instance] and they added additional features not available on the seaon sets [Buffy and MASH, again].

The other point I want to make is in regards to Season 1 sets sellling better than the subsequent seasons. I think the answer to that is that consumer who wanted to taste what the show was all about bought the 1st season and for those that didn't like it, stop buying the other seasons.

I honestly hope that the release of MTM will be completed. If the studio decides to eliminate the special features to save some money, then so be it - just get the episodes out. Wonder what else the studio could do to make the release of MTM more profitable - raise the base price? I've been purchasing MTM for $30 a set. Raise the price to $40 - I'll still buy the sets to finish the series and because I love the show. And to be honest, only the die-hard fans will buy the sets anyway. Classic critically acclaimed shows should have first dibs on being released to the public - don't you think?

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

Joe L, I've wondered the same thing myself. I don't get it.

I LOVE the last 3 seasons, in part because of Sue Ann Nivens and in part because of the changes and growth in Ted Baxter as he gets married and becomes a father. Maybe one day we'll see them.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

Joe*A, I don't think it has too much to do with saturation, as the first season came so long ago and those sales were really LOW at that time.

As to raising the price, the studio also said that HALF of the first season sales came only after they lowered the price point to $30 (it had been higher when first released.) There was a lot of complaining on this very forum about the high price, even from die-hard fans of the show. I never understood that, because it was still a lower price than the I Love Lucy or The Dick Van Dyke Show dvds, which sold well. It seems Mary fans love the show, but don't want to pay for it.

And they've dropped all extras on the last 2 seasons. Episodes only. Didn't seem to make a difference.

Re: Where is Mary Tyler Moore Season 5?

I've purchased all the season sets that have been released so far, and would definitely purchase the last three if given a chance.

The problem with the show for younger audiences is that the material may apparently no longer be relevant. My wife, for example, is ten years younger than me. She has no problem viewing my DVD sets of "I Love Lucy" or "All in the Family". In fact, she *adores* both of those series. But she absolutely refuses to watch MTM or "M*A*S*H" with me. In the case of "M*A*S*H" she tells me that she just fundamentally cannot laugh at incidents based around a war. So, OK. I think if she would give the series a chance she would change her mind; but I can at least comprehend why she won't watch the series. In the case of MTM, though, she just tells me that she doesn't enjoy the show. And, indeed, I showed her the pilot episode and was rolling on the floor with laughter. Her response? "This is not funny; and no self-respecting woman would allow herself to be subjected to that kind of harrasement in the workplace." I tried to explain to her that what she just viewed was just a slight exaggeration of what women in the workforce had to deal with in the '70's. And that in any event, the kind of harrasement displayed in the pilot is rarely visible after the first season. She stated "Fine. But I don't have to watch it". I finally did convince her to view a couple of second season eps with me. Again, I was laughing like crazy; and, again, she didn't find any of it even remotely entertaining. After that, I just gave up.

It's hard to believe, but perhaps this series just has no relevance in the first decade of the 21st century.